Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Today's date, November 13th. Can I have a roll call, please?

Roll call is as follows. Chair Orloff.

Present.

Commissioner Campbell.

Present.

Commissioner Epstein.

Present.

Commissioner Austin Dillon is excused absent. Commissioner Lamb is excused absent.

Thank you. Item two, reading of the land acknowledgement. The City of Roanoke Park acknowledges indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of the land. Let it be acknowledged that the City of Roanoke Park is located within the traditional homeland of the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria, comprised of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples. Can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, item four. I'd like to introduce our Interim Development Services Director, Mario Landeros. Mario, welcome to the City of Runner Park. It was great meeting with you yesterday. If you have any words of wisdom. Well, good evening.

Good evening, Chairman Arloff and commissioners, and thank you for that introduction. Yes, I am Mario Landeros, interim director of development services. I'm very pleased to be joining the team to support and assist development services. and I'll be looking forward to working with you throughout this interim period, so thank you. Thank you, welcome aboard.

Okay, item five, public comment. I'd like to recognize Mayor Judice to the podium. And the vice mayor. And the vice mayor. I see our chief person is here today too. We have an audience.

Well, good evening, Chair Orloff, commissioners, and Mario. Welcome, welcome again. You guys are in for a great treat with Mario. We've had a couple of experiences with him already. And he is innovative. He is effective and efficient. And he's able to think, you know, outside of the box, I'll call out that wonderful traffic sign at the corner of Broadway and Camino Calejo that he helped engineer and, you know, and approve. And we're very appreciative. I'm going to have the vice mayor say just a couple of words, and then I'm going to read a proclamation. And we really appreciate the opportunity to come down here tonight and to congratulate you all on your service to the city.

And we also recognize you're not done. Thank you. I just wrote a little note. I just wanted to extend my sincere appreciation on behalf of our council on the city of Rohnert Park for the planning commission and all of the thoughtful effort that you put into every single one of these meetings. It's a lot of reading. I would guess that you probably do more reading than any of the other commissions. So your time and expertise and commitment are definitely helping to shape our city to become the vibrant, friendly city that it is. And we do appreciate everything that you do.

Okay, and before I begin, you know, I don't have to tell you that next year is going to be a busy year in Roanoke Park with the onset of the downtown. I'm sure that the commission is well aware that not only will you be in that capacity, but also you are the design review for the downtown as well. So there's going to be even more reading next year, and we look forward to working collaboratively with you. I have to say that IN EVERY INSTANCE, AND I SERVED ON THE PLANNING COMMISSION FOR ABOUT A DECADE, IN EVERY INSTANCE WHEN I HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO READ THE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT COME FROM THE PLANNING COMMISSION, I DO READ THEM, I DO PAY ATTENTION, AND I'M VERY APPRECIATIVE FOR ALL THE WORK. AND WITH THAT SAID, I WOULD LIKE TO FORMALLY RECOGNIZE YOU ALL. SO CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION HONORING THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF RONETT PARK. In recognition of your dedicated service as a member of the City of Roanoke Park Planning Commission, your commitment to a fair, balanced decision making has upheld the principles of thoughtful planning, transparency, and public stewardship within our community. Through your work, you have helped safeguard the well-being of residents by fostering a well-planned, inclusive, and vibrant community where people can live, work, and thrive. The Planning Commission plays a vital role in shaping Roanoke Park's future, charged with the development of the city's general plan, implementation and administration of the zoning ordinances, and review of development applications. Your efforts have strengthened community trust, advanced equity, reinforced Roanoke Park's dedication to responsible growth, and a quality of life for us all. With deep appreciation, the city thanks you for your service, your integrity, and your commitment to the people of Roanoke Park. Thank you. And if we could, do these guys, do we do pictures? Can we do a picture? Is that okay? We do tonight, if that's all right.

Through the chair, if it's possible. Do we need to stall the meeting? We can keep going? Okay, great. Okay, come on guys. Thank you.

One, two, three.

Yeah, I guess so.

Excuse me. All right. Excuse me. Excuse me. Through the chair and for the record, I'd like to acknowledge the presence of Commissioner Austin Dillon.

Good evening. Sorry I'm tardy.

No problem. You're here now. All right. We'll continue with public comment. Any persons that wish to speak to the Commission on consent item count, on consent, on any consent item or an item that is not on the agenda can do so at this time. If you'd like, just step up to the podium. All right, no takers. Thank you. Item six, consent calendar. At this point, I'd like to entertain a motion that we adopt the minutes from the August 28th, 2025 meeting. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Any changes, any discussion? Seeing none, I'll entertain a roll call.

Roll call is as follows. Chair Orloff?

Yes.

Commissioner Austin Dillon?

Yes.

Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Commissioner Epstein?

Yes.

Motion passes with four ayes, zero noes, and one excused absent.

All right. All right, moving forward to item 7.1, we're going to consider amendments to the Roanoke Park Municipal Code to implement housing element programs, comply with state housing law, implement transit-oriented communities policies, and make minor technical amendments and clarifications. sqa status consistent with the negative declaration for the housing element except from sqa under government code section 65583 subsection c public resources code section 21080.17 and sqa guidelines section 15061 subsection b3. At this point I will introduce elliott pickett our senior planner.

Thank you. Good to see you Chair Orloff and Commission. Thank you for having us. Is my audio working correctly? It sounds like it. We do have, so two regular items on the agenda today, both public hearings, both are housing element implementation items. Our first item here is this consideration of municipal code updates. Got here. For this item, we'll be going over recommendation, background, then dive into the proposed code amendments, and wrap up with environmental determination and public notice and comments. Staff is recommending... Sorry, the staff is recommending we go over the staff report presentation, recommending commission open the public hearing, deliberate and provide direction on some certain items. And we are recommending that you continue the public hearing to December 11th. We acknowledge that this is a large packet and we're also asking for certain input and we'll need time to make those amendments to ideally bring back to you all in December. These proposed amendments cover a variety of topics, including housing element programs, state housing law, some technical corrections and minor changes, organization of a section of code called the footnotes, and transit-oriented communities policy. Diving into each one of these individually, housing element programs, you'll see we tried to use these little symbols throughout. It's in your attachment one. Again, knowing that there's a lot here, trying to give you some visuals on on what's housing, what's just a cleanup item, and what's transit-oriented communities. Our current housing element was adopted in January 2023. Programs within this commit the city to aligning city code with state law, zoning enough sites for what the city's designated housing need by affordability level is, establishing by right procedures for certain affordable housing sites in other programs, minimizing constraints to housing production among other programs. Looking at some of those changes in state housing laws, we see certain types of residential uses being allowed by right or no discretionary approvals. These include certain housing sites included in the housing element with capacity for low income development. These are specifically sites you're rezoning and sites that have been used throughout multiple cycles of the housing element. There's also been updates in state density bonus law. The density bonus law basically says if you're providing affordable housing, you can have some increased density, height, or other waivers from development standards in order to make that happen. Recent updates in density bonus law include more allowances for 100% affordable housing, projects near transit, projects in low vehicle travel areas. Also changes in accessory dwelling unit or ADU law. These include setting a maximum of eight ADUs that can be constructed as part of a multifamily project. It also limits the owner occupancy require on junior accessory dwelling units to projects where they share sanitation or bathroom facilities with the main house and some processing streamline. Fourth on here, we did want to mention that there are newer state laws around expanded state enforcement. The Department of Housing and Community Development does now have more of a monitoring branch that has the ability to levy legal action or consequences if we are not in compliance with state law. Oh, my symbols did not work on this PowerPoint. So if you see the two squares, that's supposed to be the broom. Sorry about that. The computers are not speaking to each other. Anyway, while preparing the necessary amendments, we did want to use the opportunity to propose some technical corrections, minor changes including changes to those footnotes. We have an older zoning code and we are aware of numerous things that are either out of date, errors that have been codified in previous ordinances, language that is no longer enforceable or clear, some outdated references, and then some things that could be reorganized. We'll discuss that more later. And the very final purpose in our background section is the transit-oriented communities policy. This TOC policy is something adopted by the Regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission. This is a policy meant to encourage development near transit and increase connectivity. The key thing is that this policy connects transportation funding to other policies including zoning policy. This is a funding source that we have gotten, I don't have the number on me, but multi-million dollars in this funding source before. So we are anxious to keep our eligibility. Moving on from the background into the proposed amendments themselves. First section here is chapter 1706, which discusses permitted uses. One proposal here is adding low barrier navigation centers. These are a type of shelter, a type of emergency shelter that has lower barriers to access. And given that it's an important housing type, there are certain state laws that dictate what zones they have to be allowed in and under what process. We've also proposed retitling homeless shelter to emergency shelter to better align with the terms used in state law. We're also proposing the removal of the open space agricultural resources management district. This is a zone where there are no applicable parcels with this zone remaining, and it also has some housing implications if it were left in. Also removing certificate of zoning compliance for ADUs, which is the separate staff level zoning review, now happens under one, has to happen under one review. And the section also has amendments to identify what specific standards and other sections of the code apply to which uses. Primarily, these are proposed for compliance with state housing law in implementing the housing element. The changes around standards are also just for clarity and ease of implementation. Speaking of clarity and ease of implementation, we have proposed a set of reorganization and amendments to a particularly confusing section of our zoning code. What we currently have titled as the land use footnotes is a very long section. Many of the codes don't actually have numbers because it goes too far down the letters. So what we're proposing here is retitling that chapter specific use standards, only leaving in the specific things that are specific to uses, renumbering that so things are easier to find, pulling out the housing regulations into their own chapter, removing sections that are duplicative, obsolete, or unenforceable from chapter 1707, or placing them in locations where it's more appropriate. Staff does see this as a huge priority in terms of accessibility, clarity, and transparency because it's something that we hear of all the time being a problem. Next section is within Chapter 1725. This is the administrative and enforcement procedures or how do things get processed. One big change in here is for a new buy-write procedure. We'll be talking about this more in the next slides. And the other change here is to modify the findings for residential site plan and architectural review or SPAR to limit the types of findings that can be used on those projects. Both of these items are for state compliance and housing element implementation. It will also increase clarity on what factors can be used and what procedures are for certain projects. Now we're going to dive a little bit into this concept of the buy-write process. This is a specific item where we're requesting that the commission discuss and provide us some direction on what we're bringing back. This is a state requirement for processing in more streamlined way for certain projects. It applies to certain sites identified in the housing element for lower income housing development. If they meet certain criteria such as 20% affordable to lower income and if they were in those certain categories we discussed earlier. Also be for any supportive housing projects in any low barrier navigation centers. Additionally, there are certain different state laws that may come about. It seems like we have an ever-growing list of things that are subject to these streamlining provisions, so we'd like you to just be aware that this list may grow. There may be other projects. In terms of the sites that were in the housing element, we have these four sites that, if they meet income criteria, could be subject to this process. Just calling those out individually in case the map's a little confusing, I see. We have the 6001 Commerce Boulevard site, which is right next to the expressway self-storage. We have the eastern half of the Southwest Shopping Center. The 5040s night you've already actually seen a project on, which you recommended approval of a year and a half or so ago. And then we have, that's actually 5435 Snyder Lane, which we will be discussing in our second item. So what exactly is the buy-write process? A project eligible for this process can only be reviewed against objective standards. So no discretion involved here. This also means that it is exempt from CEQA. There's also processing timelines that apply to residential projects. Typically, we're seeing 60 days from submission of application, of complete application, to when an action must be taken. If no action is taken within that time period, a project is automatically approved. All this being said about what the state law does require, what it does not set out is what that exact process looks like. So this is where we are seeking input and direction. We are laying out three main options for what this could look like. And we'll dive into these on the next slide. We've got a little pros and cons chart. First would be processing along with the building permit. So somebody just submits one application straight to the building division and all departments review it at that point. Second option, which staff is recommending, is processing this as an administrative planning permit. So this would be coming in through planning first. All the departments review at that more concept level. With approval there, they'd move on to building permits. The third option is processing with planning commission review. So bringing the project in our analysis here for your review and action. Under all three of these processes, the criteria under which the projects are viewed are the same. It's whatever at the time we have that, the clock starts when they submit. Whatever standards we have objectively in place at that time are what we can hold them against. A lot of words on this slide, I realize. But we wanted to lay out for you why did we come up with this recommendation. Starting with the first option, this is the most streamlined, lowest cost option with the shortest overall timeline. This does require some more detailed plans at the early stage, and it also does have less oversight from planning division. As we've talked about, there's a lot of state laws and a lot of consequences if timelines are missed. And so that is one of the reasons we're not recommending this option. We feel that with the building division taking the point position, there's less of a process by which we can kind of watch those timelines and really make sure that we are processing things the way that they need to so that we can apply all of our standards. Under the option two, you still have some reduced costs and timelines. And some more oversight from the planning division, this is still not a public process, just like the first one. And you do also have a potentially duplicative review process as the same folks are looking at this project at this planning stage and at the building permit stage. Option three, which would be the planning commission oversight, does still have that oversight from planning division, keeps our eyes on those timelines. It does create this public process and an opportunity for dialogue. You could not require things of an applicant, but you could express opinions and ask nicely. On the con side of that, we do want to highlight that requirement for expeditious hearing. We have to take in that project, and whether or not it complies with our codes yet, we'd have to make sure to get that to a planning commission, make sure we have a quorum in a limited period of time to be able to make that motion to approve or deny that project. This does also come with higher costs, longer timelines, potentially. duplicative review processes, and there's not a significant ability for either the Commission or community members commenting to have an impact on the project. That's a lot of information right there. I'll just remind you that this is an area we're looking for direction on, so when we're going through the discussion and questions, I'm sure we'll be returning here. That being said,

Elliot, do you want to entertain questions as you go, or do you want us to wait till you're done with your presentation?

Is that up to the chair's preference?

Okay, then we'll, I think this might be a good spot to entertain questions. So I'll open it up to the commissioners, Mr. Epstein.

Thank you. As we go through all this, I think I've done a lot of homework on this particular binder, and I thank you guys for all the work you put into putting this together. But I do have some questions. One thing I'm noticing as we go through, and I know we're not all the way through the presentation, is there's a mixture of the actions that are required by state law and the ones that are kind of arbitrary that the city has decided to go on. They are expanding the by-right approvals beyond the state requirements. And so I think it'd be good to look at which one of these are specifically called out as things we have to change, throughout the you know in our in our in our um in our codes and our procedures and what does not um and then um as we i think that will help inform some of the processes on this and then later i guess now's questions later statement right yeah we can yeah um and then i also heard a Phrase in there and I just want to clarify We're talking more about doing things more permitted permitted doing things through more of a permit process than approval process and I'd like to understand because in my understanding is the more anything that's done through a permit does not come before the Commission so by moving some things into the permit zone where they apply for the permit it's no longer need to come through the Commission and And so I'd like to understand which areas that is impacting. And then I'll stop for there and we can come back. And I don't know that you have to answer all this right now, by the way. Yeah.

It's probably good to respond as we go and then, you know, I think at the end we'll have a motion to extend to the 11th and that way, assuming that the commission agrees to extend, I mean, we have more time to think about this, so.

Okay. So there were a lot of questions there. I'll try to start with what I heard and then feel free to reiterate your questions. I think I have to start with the thing that you just said before I forget it. In terms of the permit versus approval, there are kind of permit approval processes that go before you and those that don't. For example, a conditional use permit is a type of permit that goes before the commission. So I think in this case, if we're looking at kind of what permit is required, for the buy-write projects, it may go before you and it may not. And that is what we're discussing. But I'm not sure if there was a specific other topic where that came up for you.

Some of it we haven't talked about yet, but just went through when I looked through all this and I made notes, and the difference in some of what was required by state law and what wasn't. And so just being able to understand what, as we go through this, highlighting obviously anything that is required by state law, we have to approve, right? Like, totally understand that. The ones that aren't, I'd like to understand more. I don't necessarily have an opinion on, but I'd like to understand why we're moving in that direction if it's not required. Like a simple one is the bike parking issue. That's something we've decided to do. That's not necessarily, this is something the state's making us do. And I understand it tied to a grant and there's other pieces. But as we go, I'm using that as a low hanging fruit as an easy example of, it's not really highlighted in the presentation what we have to do versus what we'd like to do, and the we'd like to do part is the part that we do have impact and discussion on, and I don't want them to get lumped in.

Thank you. Were there specific questions that you heard in there that you would like to speak to?

I did want to say that this buy-write process in particular, and we've spent a lot of time internally talking about it and we called it out especially for you, we have to have a buy-write process for certain things. by state law for the state. That being said, they don't tell us what we have to do. So that's why we came up with these three different options and to ask your opinion on them. And they both have pros and cons for that. And we had hoped to have the commission discuss that and give us direction. So in that case, it is a requirement by the state, but there is, you don't have to go with one or two, or you don't have to go with one specific item. It's up to you to tell us, to direct us which way you wanna go. In addition to that, under these options, these are what you can do, but there's also, the backdoor is going to be developing a process for this because this is a new process for us. So we have to develop that process to ensure that things get done in a timely manner, that they come before you or that they are evaluated administratively by staff in a timely manner. so that it works well. Does that make sense?

No, no, it doesn't. And I appreciate that. I guess what I'm trying to say is I understand that it's a process, that we have to treat certain areas through. There's certain things that we have to put through that process. What I'm saying is in the review and in this packet, there are things that we are proposing to do by the buy-write process that are not mandated by the law that I wanna just make sure that we separate the two. Unless I'm wrong. I would disagree with that. Okay.

I would disagree with that. The things that are called out for the buy-write process are what the state is saying you must have a buy-write process for this.

We can walk as we get through them because I have, maybe I could be wrong. It's happened once or twice.

Okay. Commissioner Campbell, questions?

Thank you, Chairman. I'm learning more about this process and what I'm hearing is you don't have a detail like SOP how to carry this out yet. Is that correct?

What we're looking for is direction from the Commission as to which way you want us to go. I mean there is, the projects will have objective standards. And we can't say something like, it fits in with the neighborhood. That's too subjective. We cannot do that by state law. So that is not an option for us.

I guess, go ahead.

Go ahead. I'll respond after your question.

I guess my issue is that I'm concerned that these won't be subject to CEQA. So my concerns are regarding... Those standards, if it includes review for biological resources, cultural resources, or is that kind of out the door?

The buy-write process is not subject to CEQA. The projects that are evaluated under that are ministerial. They're categorically exempt, statutorily exempt. They will not have a CEQA component.

And just to let you know, the standard process, if this type of application comes in, the process is an application is submitted, the city has 30 days to determine whether it's complete. If it's complete, then there's 30 days to review everything and make a decision. If a decision isn't made, it's automatically approved pursuant to state law. So with respect to CEQA, the statute specifically says that the city cannot, that they're exempt under CEQA, the buy right projects. And again, those are just projects on certain housing sites or certain type of projects. They're, you know, it's, it's limited in scope but um what i would imagine the standard process would be is there's a list of objective standards setbacks you know if there's a 10 foot setback you know 30 foot height you know staff will review make sure that it meets that criteria and that's all that the city can do for the buy right buy right approvals um we see there's an uh we'll let we'll let commissioner campbell finish his thought

Okay, so I just want to be clear that the standards will not include any type of environmental review for resources, or will it?

So that review cannot be conducted through the CEQA process. Our other objective standards and checklist items that are objective can apply. So on our housing development checklist, which is available on our website, and we're happy to show you what that looks like, we do include items for identifying biological resources, especially in certain areas with extra sensitivity. And I believe, but we could confirm for you, we have a number of policies in the upcoming general plan adoption that call for certain levels of analysis if certain items are found. Looking at Karen, because I know she's reviewed this recently.

Yes, that's correct. And the city can impose standard conditions for the protections of species or to ensure protection of cultural resources consistent with the housing element, consistent with any objective policies, and obviously compliance with state law. So for example, there are extensive state laws about if human remains are found how those are dealt with so that would be something that you know every project would still have to comply with it's just that there wouldn't be an independent sequel review process where you know the Commission for example considers an exemption or a mitigated neg deck or an EIR the law doesn't allow us to do that review for these types of project projects which is why the general plan will have more policies about project requirements because we can require certain things through the general plan. And I'll also note that you know, this by right process, especially for housing projects is new. So we're, you know, complying with state law by not processing things quickly and making sure we're complying with objective standards. But as we continue and as cities continue processing these projects, you know, we'll learn more about the processing and we'll certainly start with imposing all these general, the general plan.

We'll quickly go back to Commissioner Epstein if he had a follow-up.

I just had a comment. It might be good to talk, because I understand what you're saying is that nothing in that area is changing. Those are already areas that are not protected, but I think it might be good to talk about the move from more of a site plan architectural review to what we're now required, because I think that's important to help him understand what you're saying, if that makes sense.

Yes. Yes, that does. Thank you. So currently, if there's a site plan and architectural review, the standards are broader and the findings. and it allows some consideration of compatibility with the neighborhood, for example, or allows the commission to require certain things from a design perspective. But with the by-right sites, the city can only look at what's an objective standard, where we can say yes or no, and an applicant can also know that when they're coming in. Okay, it needs to be 30 feet, and if there are any design type standards, those would have to be like purely objective where there's no subjective review at all.

All right, Commissioner Austin-Dillon.

Yeah, I think my biggest questions are around like what does the community process look like? And I see that there's some options that don't have that. But what would that look like if we were able to do a hybrid where the community is able to weigh in and be a part of the conversation? Just being a resident and not knowing anything about zoning before, it might be helpful.

So for that, if we're going to do the planning commission and notify the community, what has been, and I've seen this in other jurisdictions, very frustrating is, first of all, we have 60 days from the day that application walks in the door to make a decision. And if a decision isn't made, it's automatically approved. So that's a very tight timeline to get noticing out to do outreach and we can do that. The problem is also that for the community, there is no input that can be subjective. If it's like, I don't like that color, it's like, they don't have to change it, that's totally subjective. So it's just a checkbox of objective standards. And I think the state, you know, went to this measure, of course, because we are in such a housing crisis and they are trying to make it faster, make it easier, and make it more predictable to get these housing built. Does that answer your question?

It does. It sounds like the process is preventing the community from being involved because it's not a friendly process to the community. It's what's better for the state, which I get. I get that. But I think there's a way to maybe think about it Maybe there's a fourth option, I don't know. But if there's another level of that, not to go in depth, because I get the timelines, right? But how do we get that piece involved? I think we'll have a better community for it. I just don't know what that looks like.

So, and we were talking about this a little earlier today, and it's kind of a question of, is it involvement or is it letting the community know this is happening?

That would be appropriate, yes.

So, you know, we certainly can, you know, if there's an administrative process, say, notify, you know, and staff says, okay, it checks all the boxes, blah, blah, blah, and put out a notification to the planning commission and the council and 300-foot radius, and I'm looking to the city attorney to say yes.

Yes, that's correct. There can be notifications, and I think a number of cities also have a have added pages or lists to their websites that say administrative review. Just because of all these changes in state law, there's certainly understanding about how the community might feel and notification to the community. So some cities do have an added page where you can click on the projects, you know immediately when it comes in. Of course, that is somewhat staff intensive because then you'll have to keep updating as projects come, but it provides a way for the community to be informed and have a place to look, especially as the rules are continuously changing with respect to housing.

Okay, so it sounds like it's possible. We just have to figure out the way to do it.

All right, so a lot of my questions were answered. I think we have a pretty robust website now. Congratulations, because the new one's a lot better than the old one. There's probably opportunity there to address Commissioner Austin Dillon's concerns, I would imagine. So we'll keep moving, Elliot.

Thank you. I think the other item I was going to mention sort of related here. We've talked a lot about how we can only apply objective standards. I did want to highlight for the commission that staff is working on a set of more objective design and development standards that could be used on these projects. We are coming to this body with a study session on those next month, which is a great opportunity for you to have input at the stage where there is a lot of discretion remaining. So we'll talk about that more, but that is coming. Moving on, within the new proposed housing regulations chapter, there are some changes in our emergency shelter and low barrier navigation center standards. We are proposing retitling from homeless shelters to emergency shelters. This is not something that we committed to do in the housing element. However, this is something that better aligns with state law and makes it more clear that we are in compliance. The addition of low barrier navigation centers is required under state law and as a housing element commitment. Low barrier navigation centers is a certain type of shelter use where there are low barriers to entry in terms of requirements for who can come in. We see that in terms of kind of possessions, pets, things of that nature. What are the barriers to people seeking out shelter? And those are only proposed to be permitted where they must be under state law. We've also changed the standards that apply to these types of shelters, limiting them to only the objective standards. pursuant to state law requirements. Because of all these changes and the changes to standards that we can hold, we are proposing the removal of emergency shelters as a permitted use within residential zones. This was not a commitment or a requirement, but staff believes it's appropriate.

OK, well, we'll pause right here for any questions from

Thank you for that clarification, but I just want to highlight it because this is a great example of what I was talking about. So like you just said, I know that the low barrier navigation centers, that is state law, but the other changes are things we'd like to do in the city to remove the emergency shelters in residential zones and the change of the name.

The first and the fourth, yes.

Right. So I just think that's a great example of what I was saying. And my only question is, and it's truly a definition question is, you know, nomenclature changes over time. So I know that the state stopped using the term homeless shelter and has gone to emergency shelter. But I also am aware that there are other types of emergency shelters that are not for people experiencing homelessness, that sometimes people escaping domestic violence, things of that nature. So does it all become one? Or is it and I know I saw your definition in the in there and it talks specifically about that, but I'm just making sure that that's the actual official definition and not what we're choosing to call it. And then my sub question is, can you give an example of a non-residential area where we would put these shelters?

I will say, so emergency shelter, the definition we have in here is taken out of the state law directly. Emily Quigg is our interim housing manager and can speak a bit more about what those definitions look like.

Great, thank you. Yeah, hello, commissioners. I'm Emily Quigg. I'm the interim housing manager for the city. So these definitions are a great example of the state definition living in an ivory tower and not knowing exactly what things look like on the ground. The definition of low barrier navigation center, Labath Landing, would fall into that kind of definition. So a shelter that we would call housing first, low barrier, as Elliot was mentioning, accommodating people's pets and possessions and really service enriched to help them move on to their own permanent homes. emergency shelter is more i'm not sure if you're familiar with redwood gospel mission which is more of a night-to-night shelter does tend to have some higher barriers for entry and not not as service enriched so that's um that's kind of an example of what these two definitions look like they they don't perfectly align with all types of shelter that we see so as to your question around domestic violence shelters, I would need to look into that further to see if that falls under emergency shelter. But yeah, that's kind of what it looks like on the ground.

Okay. Any other questions on this slide?

I can respond to that second question if you don't have a response for Emily. No, yeah, I don't have any.

Yes, I don't have. Thank you. Emily, I don't have any more questions for you. And I don't remember what my second question was.

The non-residential zones.

Right. Yes. Thank you. What does that look like?

So under state law for emergency shelters, we're required to show that we have enough zones where they are, where emergency shelters are permitted to address our need, and that's permitted Without a conditional use permit and then you can have other zones where they're permitted with other conditional use permits or discretionary permits the housing element identified the commercial regional zone. As a zone with enough capacity. Through a couple of vacant sites in a couple of our motels that could be converted so that's where we've identified our primary capacity. We also do have the mixed use zone, I believe, allows the smaller. Let's see. Yeah, we have the six or less persons, smaller emergency shelters are permitted in the mixed use districts.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

Any additional? All right. Back to you, Elliot.

Thank you. We have our proposed changes in the off-street parking standards here. Our first recommendation is increasing bike parking requirements for housing. This is something that is not specific state commitment. This is proposed to increase our alignment with that regional transit-oriented communities policy. thereby increasing our eligibility for grant funding. Our second bullet point on here is aligning parking requirements for certain residential uses with state law. This is a requirement. This is treating residential care facilities like any other residential use, changes around the density bonus parking requirements, and specifically a new law changing parking requirements for emergency shelters. We're also proposing some cleanup with repealing unenforceable sections and some additional items here that are not required some reorganization for easier implementation, identifying what applies to single family versus multifamily properties, putting things that were actually front yard landscaping sections in landscaping instead of parking standards. And there is a proposal in there to provide additional flexibility to lower parking requirements if shown by a parking study that has been done by a professional, which is an optional requirement.

peer-reviewed thank you so pausing for any questions here so the question I had about that was I was trying to get a sense and maybe you know this what are the neighborhoods or zones that are most affected by this you clarify which which provision the All of it, I guess. I don't know. The parking requirements, the bike requirements. Is it different? Is it the same? I'm just trying to get a sense of where is this going to impact in the community? Like where is this going to be?

So most of these are applicable to new development. The bike parking requirements would be for any new project. The parking requirements for the certain residential uses would again be if somebody's proposing a new use. So if somebody were to propose an emergency shelter within the commercial regional zone, say it's on one of those motel properties and they wanted to convert it, we could only do our parking calculations based on what the state has set out. If we opted to move forward with these bike parking requirements and somebody came in and proposed a project, we would look at that new ratio, but it wouldn't affect the existing properties. Some of the implementation points, are related to single-family housing where there's currently standards on kind of the no more than 50% of your front yard can be paved, which we believe fit better in the landscaping section because that wasn't specific to parking, and we wrote the parking section to specifically talk about area used for parking. So that's an example of how it would apply to existing development.

A couple questions, Elliot. What's the interplay between the bike parking requirement and auto requirements? Is it gonna decrease the availability of auto parking spots in deference for additional bike parking spots? Is that what we're gonna be, when parking studies are done, is that gonna be the new thing?

That is not part of this proposal. I will say there are under state law certain areas specifically within half mile of transit where we are already unable to enforce our parking minimums. There's a chance that you could see decreased auto parking in those areas, which would be unaffected by this change. This change would increase our current requirement is one bike parking space per four multi-family units. And one bike parking space in practice means if you have that bike parking loop, that's two spaces. To increase our eligibility here, the proposal is to increase that to one bicycle parking space per unit. This would include all types of housing, but if the unit had a dedicated garage or other lockable closet, whether that be interior or exterior, that would fit a bicycle. They don't need to have separate bike parking.

Okay. You were just speaking just about landscaping in front yards, and I recall that ADUs can now be partially in the front yard. So what's the effect of that? that aspect of it on parking. You add an ADU, that's going to take up 25% of your front yard. You have to provide parking for that ADU, correct? Under?

There's not a replacement parking space requirement.

No? Not a replacement? Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Campbell. And just to clarify, when you say bike, how are you defining a bike?

That is a good question. I don't know that we have one.

The reason I'm asking, are we including e-bikes, scooters, those kind of devices that just seem to be increasing in the city?

Our standard for bike parking is designed around, I think, what we would think of as a conventional bike. If a different sized bike or a different setup of bike can fit in there, like I think most e-bikes, you know, are similar size, they could... fit there. It's based on the dimensions of what that loop looks like. And I believe about a two by six foot space that is allocated for that bike.

OK, moving on.

I turn my right and our last slide on the proposed code amendments is our other technical corrections and minor changes. We realize this is a very overarching category. However, we are aware that there are places in the code that need to be updated, and we wanted to take this opportunity to work on it. Some of these are fixing typos, errors that have been inadvertently codified in previous ordinances, renumbering things. So, for instance, those Landy's footnotes, changing them from a letter A to a code number that you can actually click on when you go into the code. There's a number of sections that are unenforceable. There are a number of sections that are just duplicative standards that said, apply the standard in this other section, but the standards are already written there, or things that are in there twice. We did begin working on a number of our unclear or missing definitions, which you'll see in the definition section at the front. There's also a proposal in there for streamlining extension of site plan and architectural review approvals. We've seen folks take additional time trying to get financing together, and projects have been taking longer to get to the building permit stage in order to make sure that projects can still move forward without putting the extra hurdle of bringing it back to the commission in one year, proposing moving that to a two-year extension. with I believe a director level one year extension, but I can look in to clarify if they can demonstrate to the director satisfaction that they are making real progress, which would otherwise be brought before the planning commission. These items are all not requirements. They're purely things that we're proposing clarity, transparency, accessibility, and streamlining.

Question, Elliot. Is there a way to, I mean, as you go through the resolution, is there a way to determine easily which ones would be the brooms? How's that? I don't think they're really marked, so I think it might be helpful to know which ones fall into the, which changes would be falling into this slide. that makes any sense that does make sense it's not something we have prepared tonight yeah right because that would clarify I think for the Commission you know those items that require review but maybe it's not as an intent intense review for us because a lot of it is just fixing things that that need fixing as opposed to making changes to to what's written in in the in the amendment or in the resolution. I don't know if any other commissioners have questions here.

Comments? It's just a lot. So I'm just trying to understand, did you do all the track changes or who does these?

In terms of putting the final track changes together, I was the lucky one with that job. This has been a cooperative effort. Really, since the housing element was adopted, starting preparing some of these pieces, some of them required some various director-level review and approval, and as you know, we've had some changing staff, so it's stopped and started and had a couple different people working on it over the past couple years.

Well, kudos to all the staff, whoever touched this document. I'll recognize Commissioner Epstein.

I just, I think for future when things, especially this technical, would be helpful is because I read, I mean, you can see I have two different sets of notes I read through this thing. I didn't catch when I read it originally that the extension you're talking about is that one year to two year extension, which I think. I see why you would have put it in with the kind of the cleanup, but I think that's, even that's something to talk about. And so I think moving forward would be good that we separate things from the things we must do to the things we want to do and why we want to do them and the things that are more housekeeping, you know, I mean, nobody's, I mean, you'd find somebody that had a problem with fixing typos, right? But when you, at the bottom, add in change a long-standing process of coming back to the Planning Commission after a year, that's its own conversation. So I just think for the sake of transparency and clarity and to give everybody the opportunity to really suss out what is an issue and what isn't, moving in the future, it'd be good to separate those things out.

um are there any any other questions for staff or elliott at this point okay i'm going to open it up for um public of the public hearing through the chair we have a couple more slides oh we do okay sorry um thank you um so this is environmental determination on this these proposed code amendments do follow fall under a number of statutory exemptions um the all the items implementing the housing element are exempt and are also consistent with the negative declaration adopted with the housing element there's a specific exemption to modifications to the accessory dwelling unit regulations and then remaining modifications would fall under the common sense exemption there is no possibility of significant effect on the environment from a regulatory change In terms of public notice and comments, this is notice under a 20-day notice, newspaper and key city buildings. We did notify developer stakeholders, letting them know that we were proposing modifications to the way projects are processed in case they wanted to speak. I don't know that we have anybody. We did receive no public comments on this item prior to the hearing. And running back to our recommendation, recommending opening the hearing, discussing, providing direction to staff, and then continuing that hearing to allow us to prepare necessary amendments. Okay. Thank you.

All right. With that, I will open up the public hearing. If there's anybody in our audience that has a comment, now would be the time to come to the podium. All right, close public hearing. I'll open it up for discussion amongst the commission. So at this point, Elliot, if I understand correctly, especially on the buy-write issue, we should be making recommendations tonight and have discussions so that if we so choose, we can continue the public hearing on December 11th as recommended. And I would have one question for our city attorney. We are missing a commissioner this evening. She'll be able to participate?

Yes, she'll be able to participate.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. We don't have a discussion, so I'll open it up in no particular order. So, Commissioner Epstein, if you want to start us off.

Yeah, again, I want to thank you all. I know this took a lot of work. And I have done a lot of, as I said, homework on this, and I fully understand and it's not lost on me that a majority of the changes here are mandated by state housing law. and that we're making an effort to streamline those processes, but there are some things in this packet that are non-mandatory, and they're city-initiated changes, and one of the effects of pushing those changes in in that way is that less projects will come to the Planning Commission, And then by default, that means less projects will be seen by city council and then by the public and have that public transparency. And I know that I am particularly sensitive to that given some things that have gone on this year surrounding the perception of a lack of transparency. And so I just want to give caution to the very next, just the optics of our, because we haven't had a planning commission meeting in some months, the very next planning commission meeting we're having, we're talking about reducing the amount of items that are open to the public and have that level of transparency. And so while I absolutely assume best intent, I am concerned about the public, the optics of that, and I think that in this community, especially right now, the more things, even though the process may be arduous, that we make sure have transparency and the view of the public. I think the more the better we're serving our constituency. So as we move forward, I would just say that any motion that comes out of us, which will have to wait till the 11th, I personally would like to see, as you stated, a fourth option that separates out the things that we absolutely have to do by law. I don't want to waste your time in spinning you guys up on every process or dragging the commission in on things that we absolutely have no say about. A great example of that is something that we've already passed is the mandate when it comes to Not the alternative fuel, the hydrogen gas stations, right? We had no say on that, and those don't come before the commission anymore. If somebody were to put in a permit for that, and they met the criteria, it would get approved, and we would never see it. And I know that. That's the law. There are things here that are not. And so I think that my fourth option would be anything that we... have to approve by stature, that does not need to come before us. But I'd like to avoid shrouding anything else or moving anything else from the public eye that is beyond the state requirements.

Commissioner Campbell, comment, questions?

Just a comment, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. There is a lot of information here, so I do have a lot of questions that will go back to staff, especially a lot of the definitions, looking just for clarity on where it says one under a land use versus one under a site use. I want to make sure I'm on the same page for some of those definitions, but I can get back to you on that. But I do think we do need more time for this and would support continuing this until December 11th.

Agreed. I support the continued conversation on December 11th.

Okay. I mean, we can include that in a, someone can make a motion. I guess the question that I would have is, is there any direction we want to give to staff today on the items, the three items that they brought forth, I think, the three different slides. I'll entertain questions or comments here.

Yes, and I believe staff is looking for some direction on that in order for us to draft the ordinance so we can have a formal recommendation at the next hearing. And it sounds like what I've heard, at least from two commissioners, is looking at a fourth option, which basically confirms that all of the items that would go through this administrative planning review process are the items on which the commission would not have any say and which would have to be approved at a staff level. The intent was that the buy-write process includes all of those, but we can certainly go back and confirm that, that any of those administrative planning review items are ones that have to be approved if they're met, along with a follow-up that was mentioned by the Commission that there's some notification or some informational process that any of those permits are.

And I would entertain that option where we are just identifying those subject to the buy-ride option and where we have no I mean I guess we can influence manage somebody that comes here if we choose to but you know if we don't have any say then I think that the best thing to do would be to create a process where those those projects are are socialized on the website somehow or through the community at large or to those directly affected and maybe it's a combination of all three because I mean if you have a project let's just say that is adjacent to a property that is affected, let me say by, I don't know, a school or whatnot that has a greater effect on the community, it may be best to socialize that in a greater way. Do you understand? So I think you have to do something in that regard. I'll entertain.

And to that point that the chair mentioned, I definitely don't want to read about a big change in the newspaper. And so I think it's important that even if we can't impact it, we should still be notified, still get some of the similar paperwork so we can articulate that and do our best to support the city's decision to follow the law. And I think that... you know, inadvertently in the past that we've had that not happen.

Well, the general public is not going to understand the process. Right. And so if we aren't made aware of those projects that fall subject to this, then we can't answer questions or at least direct people that this is the reasoning that this project was approved. Yes.

And with any motion that we move forward with to or plan down the road, I think there needs to be a serious education piece to the public of what does this mean, what falls under it, and where they can get the information about what's happening. Because, you know, if it's state law, it's state law. But by the time people are upset, nobody's listening to that.

Is that enough?

So I'm just going to say what I think I heard. So this is just for the buy-write process. And what I think I'm hearing is that there is an administrative, there's a motion for, or support for an administrative planning review where the community is involved, the planning commission, the council are notified, hey, this is happening, and whether, however we do that, as far as noticing or putting it online, if we can do that, have to figure that one out. And this is just for the buy-write process, and we would be...

it might be that you can wait till after i mean it is not subject to the normal way right so i don't know that you have to inform ahead of the project but i think you have to inform directly after it's approved well when yes when it's all checked and yeah it's you know then been submitted to the go through the building permit process right something like that and so somebody just doesn't you know wake up one morning and there's construction going on next door

So they know what's happening. Is that what I'm hearing?

I would say just to, and I know we're talking about it as the same, but just to be clear, the buy-write or any administrative process decision, like anything that's not coming here that's going to impact the community, I think we have an opportunity now to kind of... freshen up that piece of the process where if there is going to be a permit that's issued that doesn't necessarily have to come through here, and I'm not talking about every little thing, or that, you know, again, the prior process, any of these administrative processes that are done without the same transparency, to the Chair's point, it doesn't have to be done, you know, the day you get it or in that 60 days. But as the project is coming to fruition and the public is going to be notified, it'd be good if we were notified and educated before that.

Okay, so different things. So if I can put by right process over here for right now. So I think what you're talking about is when staff processes an administrative use permit, say, and the immediate neighbors are notified during that process and it goes through a staff level process director approval. So what I think I'm hearing you say is that it would be good for when that notice goes out or when that process happens that the Planning Commission and the City Council and I'm including them because I'm, or are notified as well. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay, so we don't have that in there, but we can put that in there.

Okay. Great. What additional do you need from us? I think what we might need from you is just what's the cleanup? Where's the brooms? You know, that would be helpful on whatever document you bring back on the 11th. So we can sort of like check those off, you know?

Right. And I'm looking at Elliot who has done yeoman's duty on all of this.

Maybe it's color. Maybe you just change the color of the font or something.

Or just two different. Sets of slides like this is what we have to do and we'll talk about it Here's what we want to do and why and I think those are two different things that have a different level of conversation Okay, I actually see three but which is like the cleanups with which are just like typos and numbering.

That's the third Yeah, yes the that's the low-hanging fruit that I'd like to just get put outside and like let's fix it and not talk a lot about it and then what has to be done by law and

I would say what we are proposing in line with the TOC and then any other changes that would impact process or non-TYPO changes. How's that?

Yes, but I do want to just, and I'm harping on this point, the difference between the changes that, you know, and I think that was a good example of that one slide, the changes that are required by law that we make and then ones that your office is recommending that we change for various reasons, you know, like the open space, was it the OSARM, right? We're changing, we're making that decision, right? nobody's mandating it, but it's for a very good reason. We don't have any land, right? But I'm saying that's a great example of one of the things that are in there that if you didn't look it up, I wouldn't have known the difference. And it's important to identify the things that, as a city, we're making a choice to do, or we're talking about making the choice, versus the things that we are mandated by statute.

I understand. I'm sorry. If I may, on that one specific amendment, Believe it or not, that is actually a housing element commitment. With that change, if we left that zone in, we would have been required to make certain additional amendments to allow farm worker housing in a zone that does not exist.

I totally get it. I don't have any problem with it. But it got lumped in with all the things that were mandated to do. And I'm just using it as an example because it's an easy yes. I don't think there'd be any discussion about that. But I think it's important to differentiate that.

I understand. So we're coming back to you with a buy right process that we had talked about, admin, a new administrative process with notification. And then we're going to call out what has to be done by law, what's just cleanup typos, TOC, which is, you know, we don't have to do it, but I think it's different than just typos. And then other changes, and you had said the one-year extension, having the director be able to do the one-year extension and stuff, et cetera. And we'll figure out some way to pull all those out separately so that it's clearer for you and the community. Is that?

I don't even need the typos and the brooms, just... You do. Well, I want to see the... I feel like that's a little bit in the weeds, and I don't know if I have enough brainpower to even... I trust you all to manage the typos and the letters and... I don't know, that's how I see that. I see the bigger issues that we're discussing more important, so.

Yeah, this just puts them in a different category that we do not have to give a lot of review to. It's just, it separates it as Commissioner Epstein has so eloquently stated. Okay, anything else? Okay. Okay, so I'll entertain a motion to continue the public hearing to December 11th. Can I have a motion?

I will make a motion to continue this meeting till December 7th. Yes. So I think December 11th.

Through the chair, yes.

So December 11th, December 11th. December 11th, right.

I saw that on the slide, right? You're continuing to December. Okay. Okay. Can I have a second? I second. Okay. Roll call, please.

Roll call is as follows. Chair Orloff?

Yes.

Commissioner Austin Dillon?

Yes.

Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Commissioner Epstein?

Yes.

The motion to continue to December 11th is passed by four ayes, zero noes, and one excuse absent.

Thank you. I will just make sure that staff notifies Commissioner Lam that she has some homework to do. Okay. Does anyone need a break or shall we keep going? Okay, we'll take 10 minutes, okay? Thank you. All right, it's 7.30. We're bringing this meeting back to order. We're on item 7.2. Consider a recommendation to the City Council to amend the zoning district on multiple properties at 5435 Snyder Lane from commercial office to high-density residential consistent with the 2023 to 2031 housing element adequate sites program. And with who's... Presenting? Elliot, you're presenting? All right. Welcome back.

Thank you. Good to be here still. Presenting on rezoning a property at 5435 Snyder, referred to kind of throughout this pack as the Cross and Crown rezoning for the Cross and Crown site. We'll be going over recommendations, some background, the proposed zoning change, analysis, environmental determination, public notice, and comments. This item we're recommending you receive the presentation, open the public hearing, receive any public comments, and adopt a resolution recommending City Council approval of a rezoning. For some background, the property we're discussing today is owned by Cross and Crown Lutheran Church of Broner Park. We're discussing nine parcels of this site. This makes up 1.19 acres. These sites were included in our housing element adequate sites program. This program identified out of our housing need by income category, where can we fit those needs? So for the housing element, we had to identify enough land with capacity to meet our housing need. This site was identified with capacity for, if rezoned, for 28 dwelling unit capacity and appropriate for lower income development if it was rezoned to this high density residential. Along with the housing element, the general plan land use designation was changed to high density residential. So this zoning change would be bringing the zoning into conformance with that designation. A look at the site here. The full site area is outlined in orange across the street there from Rancho Cotati, north of the church parcel itself. And on the north and the west, there are existing residential development. We are specifically talking about the nine parcels on the western portion of the site. which were the parcels included in the land use change request and identified in the housing element. The rest of the site is anticipated to continue moving on the pathway of taking on it, which is the rezoning along with the general plan update. This site is currently zoned commercial office. This rezoning would rezone from commercial office to residential high density. This would implement the housing element program and achieve consistency with the general plan. We do not have any active application or anything we're processing for any demolition or physical development on the site at this time. As mentioned, the remaining parcels that were not specifically identified in this program but that make up the rest of that block are still on track to be rezoned with general plan 2040. You see the project site kind of in the middle with the arrow there. This is the general plan land use designation. The site is designated high density and surrounded by high density residential and public institutional land use designations. The zoning on this site is still commercial office, which you see there. The proposed zoning change with this amendment would be changing those subject nine parcels to high density residential. The remaining sites would remain commercial office until the general plan 2040 goes through with the associated zoning changes at that point. This action is specifically meant to address housing program for adequate sites. There are timing components associated with these rezonings for the end of January. And so we sought to bring the site forward as soon as we could. It also implements some additional housing policies for minimizing government constraints and encouraging development of affordable housing by allowing for this high density residential on this site. The findings we consider when looking at a rezoning are consistency with general plan. This would directly bring consistency with general plan in terms of the land use designation as well as the housing element. beneficial to and not detrimental to public health, safety, or welfare. Most of the health, safety, and welfare items would be looked at in terms of the standards we'd apply to a project-specific proposal. However, the increased ability to develop affordable housing does result in benefits to health, safety, and welfare. The third finding is that with the rezoning, adequate sites remain to accommodate regional housing needs. This rezoning is required to increase that capacity that we have to be able to accommodate the regional housing needs. This rezoning of these nine parcels is exempt from CEQA under a new exemption that allows rezoning implementing this program within a housing element. As the site consisting of those nine parcels is included within the adequate sites program, it is exempt and no further environmental review is required. This project proposal, or the amendment proposal, is also subject to a 20-day notice, including the posting newspaper in Key City buildings, as well as a 300-foot mailing radius. As of the end of today, we had received one public comment. I believe you all received that at the dais, is that correct? With that, staff is adopting Resolution 202507, recommending to the City Council approval of the rezoning.

Thank you, Elliot. I'll open it up to questions for staff. Mr. Epstein.

Have we done any research or have we looked into whether or not for sewage and water that we're able to adequately support these units based on their location and the drastic change in how much water and sewage will be coming in that area. And I ask this, I'll give you as a caveat, as I know there's a lot of discussions right now about the need to improve our water system and that, you know, in some parts of the cities it's older and needs some upgrades. So have we looked at how this building in 19, how many units did we say? 28. 28. So, you know, I don't know how many people that is 2.5 per unit or something like that, that we usually factor. So are we able to adequately support in that area the increase of water and sewage?

Thank you. Staff is actively, I think, I've actually spoken with both of you this week on this. We are working on what is the most appropriate language to put in our housing checklist that can show what we're requiring. to make sure that regardless of the process a project goes through, that with any project we can get those sewer water capacity needs and able to study that and impose requirements that we can ensure the system is adequate. Did you have?

So there are

we can currently get some of the information. We're looking to bulk that up so that we can get all the information we need. Is that?

Yes, and any project that would move forward on a project site would be required to show that they have, just as part of the conditions of approval and building permit process, would be required to show that they have adequate sewer and water capacity as part of the process.

Right. I'm tracking and I agree. I mean, yes. However, um, the change of this zoning is basic is predicated on the project. So if we don't know that we have enough water, not just for the water and sewer needs for the building, but then also the fire flow that's going to be needed, um, for this residential sprinkler system, which drastically changes when you go from residential to commercial, it'd be good to know that we have that there before we change the zoning.

Thank you. And for this zoning, it was included in the housing element that the city did commit to do this zoning before the end of January next year. But I understand the concerns and the questions, and I think Since we don't have a project application at this point, it's hard to know exactly what the number of units that would come in. We have the maximum number of units, but so those issues, those good issues that you're raising now would be issues that we would have to address through the project review and project appeal of project process.

If I may add, staff is currently looking again in the light of objective standards that are being reviewed staff is looking at creating those standards that that are objective in nature that speak to the issues of capacities water and sewer capacity triggered by certain size developments you know if a single family residence or an adu is going to tie in i shouldn't say to you but a unit, up to four units. would necessarily trigger these requirements, but once we get above that, and this is what staff is exploring, would be requiring some imposition on the project to evaluate the capacity of that system they're tying into. This would be by way of providing required information that the city would use to plug into its model for the system that would result in determining whether there's capacity or deficiency that would have to be addressed with the project. So we're working on that at this point. Yeah, until we publish it. Thank you.

Commissioner Campbell.

Okay, Commissioner. Yeah, I was just curious, how does this project impact affordable housing and what does that look like in that area?

So we won't know until we have a full actual project proposal what it looks like in terms of how affordable housing is, what level of affordability percentage, things like that. What the analysis looked like and how we're bringing this forward is that high density residential development or high density residential zone generally allows for development at the density which allows for affordability. So if we're rezoning to allow high density residential, we are rezoning to allow development to work in a way where someone could make affordable housing pencil, versus if we were rezoning to low-density residential and you have to build only two homes on that lot, that's a lot harder to make those be available at affordable incomes. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, it sounds like we won't really know until we have a project what that's going to look like, but it's a part of the considerations and the planning, maybe, or in whatever.

If somebody came in with a project that didn't have affordable housing, we would still need to be looking at it under our regular rules. There are certain ways where if somebody is going to provide affordable housing, they may get some of those extra incentives. There are things of that nature. But all we can do is zone adequately and kind of encourage saying, hey, if you're going to build housing on the site, we would really love it to be affordable housing, and do you need us to give you any answers on what development would look like, on what the process looks like? That type of support is really what we can do. We can't require it. Is that anything?

Yes, and the projects would have to comply with our inclusionary housing ordinance. So there'd be some standard, you know, affordable housing that would be incorporated. And then as Mr. Pickett noted, then they're also the ability to apply for density bonuses. For example, if they provide some affordable housing and the buy right procedures are only applicable for housing sites. if the project includes 20% affordable housing. So there are some incentives out there in the law that encourage affordable housing, but you are correct that we're not gonna know exactly what's proposed until a project comes in.

So it's conceivable that this site could fall under buy-right depending on the type of project that comes in?

Is this, it's just to confirm that this is a, I hope I didn't speak out of turn, but I believe this is a buy-right site.

It's a buy-right site, right? So we may not even see the plans, correct?

If the project has at least 20% of units affordable at low rates.

It would fall into buy-right. If it doesn't, then it would be reviewed by us.

Under the typical SPAR process, correct.

Okay. I just with that I just make a couple comments I realize that this is part of the housing development and there are timelines here and we're only rezoning we're not approving anything that's there but I don't know if we have a somebody from Crossing Crown in the audience or not that will speak during the public hearing, but I can only state that hopefully traffic studies are completed, ingress-egress issues are delineated, And we have, you know, an opportunity to at least see, you know, what it's going to look like at some point. And that those things are part of the buy-write process. So you have a property that's near a school with liabilities associated with it. You have ingress-egress issues on Snyder as opposed to Camino Cordo. you have other issues here that I would want to make sure that during the buy right process we delineate those things as needs. That makes sense. If it's going to fall under buy right, we need to make sure that it's done correctly. So I don't know if anyone else has comment.

Again, I mean, not to beat the drum, but right on your point is kind of what I was saying earlier tonight. Essentially, we were to approve this and we wouldn't know anything else about what was happening there until they were breaking ground. And so as you know, people who people call when they're mad i think that it's important that you know not only for that sake but then also you know this is one of those projects that it's funny being on the commission there are certain things that happen through the city and you think everyone's going to be talking about it and nobody does and then there's other little things where it's the hot button for the community this happens to be one of those that i've had a lot of people talk to me about because of how bad traffic already is that area and the concern that it's going to continue to be and so to mirror your concern you know approving this tonight it could be the last input we have or control we have over what happens there and and I might just add you know this is just one site on on Snyder we have another one on the st. John's property that will go through the same process of rezoning at some point in time so

It's just whatever we do here, we need to consider that it's going to be mirrored later. How do we uplift Linda Holmes' comment? We'll get there. We're going to get there. Okay, thank you. All right, any other comments? All right, I'm going to open it up to public hearing. With that, I'm just going to take in that we did receive a letter from Linda Holmes. She lives on Camino Cordo, and she is... She has written a letter talking about community safety and zoning, titled Rohnert Park First. I won't read the letter, but we did receive one comment from the community. I open it up to anybody else that wishes to come to the podium. Okay. With that, I close public hearing. Any other questions for staff? Okay. Mr. Campbell.

Could I get a little more background on how it came to a recommendation for high density housing versus medium density? And then a follow up question is what is the zoning for the condominium complexes around the neighborhood? Thank you.

Thank you. So the zoning, I actually have a map. The zoning for those condo complexes on the north and the west are also high density residential. That allows for development 12 to 24 units per acre under our zoning code. This was initiated in, I believe, 2019, we'll see in the staff report, by a land use change request from the property owner when we were doing outreach as a city for the general plan update. At that point, we said, hey, anybody who's interested in a land use change on your site, please let us know. And those were considered by the commission and the council at that point. Since the site was identified with a request for allowing high density housing at that point, when the housing element process came along, that was already identified as a site with some interest and it was brought along. The medium density only goes up to 12 units per acre. for the calculations that the state has in order of how dense do you have to be in a jurisdiction like Rohnert Park for it to be dense enough for affordability, the medium density zone would not have met those criteria. So we needed to zone for the high density category in order to show that we're zoning at a level that will allow for affordable housing.

Yeah, this originally came up, I'm going to say, five to six years ago, Planning Commission back then. So when both churches asked to rezone those properties for future development and sale. I was on the Planning Commission on that at that time, the only one here. So we've changed a lot. Okay, with that, Assuming no more questions for staff, I'll entertain a motion. We can have discussion after we make a motion if we want. Any motions out there? Well, I'll move that we make a recommendation to the City Council to amend the zoning district on multiple properties at 5435 Snyder Lane from commercial office high density residential consistent with the 2023 to 2031 housing element adequate sites program. Is there a second?

I second the motion. Discussion?

Well, I never thought you'd catch me having some caution about creating housing. But one, there's no guarantee that this is low income, that there's affordable housing that's attached to this. I have concerns about the area, about the precedent. I have concerns about not having control or purview over not only what they do now, but what they can possibly do later when the other units come up. and the impact to the community when it comes to Snyder Lane and then the high school. I'm also concerned about the zoning change. We don't know about the water. And trust me, I've worked on a couple of projects later where that's become an issue, especially when you're dealing with not just the water service to the building, but the fire flow and the needs for public safety in that perspective. And we don't have the answers to that. It just seems like there's a lot of things we don't know, can't control, and may not have the ability to influence later. So yeah, I have some concerns.

Can we ask the housing manager, interim manager, any questions?

I haven't closed public hearing yet, so I suppose you can. I should have closed public hearing, but I didn't. Great. Staff, okay. Is that okay right now? Yeah, you can.

I honestly just want to hear your thoughts as the housing manager about this rezoning, like your perspective.

Yeah, thank you for the question. I fully support the staff recommendation. This was a site identified on our housing element, so this recommendation would would allow us to move forward and actualize affordable housing there.

And I did just want to add for the commission's information that the, as noted in the staff report, the site is already designated in the general plan for high density residential. So for example, if a project did come in, we would have to process this already as high density residential. There's provisions in state law that say if a general plan and the zoning are inconsistent with one another, the general plan prevails. So I did just want to note that.

And I will give a little historical context since I was here then. The Planning Commission at that time had the same concerns for both properties on Snyder due to traffic, due to other issues, liabilities that might exist because both properties are adjacent to schools, the traffic issues with pickup and drop-offs at each location, especially the one adjacent to St. John's at Lawrence Jones. i could tell you that i believe we made a recommendation that these should not be part of the housing element and the city council voted to put it in so if that gives you some context there's some context so and in my meeting with staff yesterday this is the exact same conversation we had this is not necessarily um Controllable, I'll say that.

May I ask you a clarifying question? So if a project were to come to the planning commission for high density construction there, and we approved that project, we would have to allow it regardless of zoning? that's correct because the general plan is high density residential so that is what right if there's an inconsistency we would look to the general plan so then what I'm asking is if we voted no tonight and the zoning didn't change but down the line in line with the housing plan if somebody came forward with a project which then we approved there's nothing that would stop that project from moving forward

Although the general plan would prevail if a project moves forward, we do have the issue of compliance with the housing element and our commitment to rezone these sites before January 31st of next year. So HCD will be checking next year and whether we've rezoned the sites. as well as I believe the city had already received some correspondence from some of the housing advocacy groups checking to see if we're on schedule to do that. So that would be the risk of not rezoning is that we would be subject to potential action to comply with our housing element.

So the repercussion would be that they could take legal action for failure to comply? That's correct.

If I could also add, and I'll defer to the city attorney on that, if we don't go forward with that, they could take legal action, but our housing element would not be in compliance. And that opens up some more issues.

That's correct. I would anticipate that if the rezoning is not done, that we would get a letter from HCD saying we're not in compliance and telling us to get in compliance or face various repercussions.

Keep in mind, this is a recommendation to city council.

All right.

I'm going to go ahead and close public hearing since I didn't. Public hearing closed. And we have a first and second. Roll call, please.

Roll call is as follows. Chair Orloff.

Yes.

Commissioner Austin Dillon.

No.

Commissioner Campbell.

No.

Commissioner Epstein.

I'm going to vote yes.

Motion does not pass.

Motion does not pass.

The motion is denied.

So I think the best course of action would be to make sure that the City Council hears both sides of this issue when this comes before them. I don't know if it's on their agenda for the 18th or it'll wait till December, but I assume that they'll deal with it at that time.

It will need to go in December because the public hearing notice requires the action of the Planning Commission and the notice.

So through the chair for the city attorney, do we need to bring back findings for this action?

As it's 2-2, it's an effective denial, so we can move forward. So we don't need that? Exactly. Thank you for asking.

Through the chair, this is planned to be brought to the city council in January, just for clarity.

Okay, thank you. So understanding that they'll... likely vote to approve, it just would be nice if the concerns of the Planning Commission could be presented to City Council. Thanks. All right. With that, we'll move to item eight, items from the Planning Commission. We'll start off with Commissioner Epstein, anything?

Mostly just follow up to the staff. I've asked a couple times now about the standards of coverage as it relates to the staffing and ability for public safety in the city. And I know I've probably been asking for a better part of a year to understand what we're looking at with that and when that might be something that is done in the context of I find it important when looking at and approving an increase of residents or commercial that we have the right amount of public safety to protect those assets in those communities. And I just, I haven't, I've been asking and asking and no one's gotten back to me. So I'll keep bringing it up. But if we can find out where public safety is with that and what that looks like, I would appreciate it.

Commissioner Campbell. Just an observation. I've recently been made aware that the county multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan is out for public comment. So there's a whole section for Rona Park. So I am reviewing that. So always that in the back of my mind, looking at future needs, future risk reduction, and just want to make it known that if other commissioners would like to do that, it'd be a good opportunity just to look at it and take a review. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Austin Dillon. Downtown, anything new?

Yeah.

Why yes?

We can wait till item nine for that. Okay.

And then my only other thing is dates, and maybe that can wait too, but is December 11th our last meeting of the year? What does our first meeting in January look like? Just for clarification. All right.

I'm covered, so we'll move on to items from the Development Services staff. I invite somebody to let Commissioner Austin Dillon know that there's something on the agenda next week with the City Council in downtown. How's that?

Yes, so speaking to the downtown item, there is an item on the City Council agenda that is for going over the term sheet for the development agreement. that agenda and I believe the full packet is, and I'm not speaking correctly into my microphone, thank you, Clotilde. I believe that full agenda packet is already out, so that will be going to council on the 18th. We'll also be having Kevin King come in our December meeting to give that presentation and answer any questions from the commissioners. Additionally, on that December 11th meeting, we will be having a study session on objective design standards. So we've talked a lot in this meeting today about where the commission no longer has any say. And at the same time, we're trying to work on this packet of How can we adopt objective design standards that talk to the elements of development, residential development that you do and don't like, what you want to see, and how do we put very objective metrics to that so that we can use them when reviewing projects? So with that being said, we'd like to ask you to, over the next month, be thinking about those design elements as you drive around. Think about what specific projects you do and don't like and why. and think maybe about how, where you want to be stricter and where you want to be looser in those regulations. So we'll be having the study session where you're able to give that input and then the consultant that will be bringing back what these standards actually look like for adoption later on in the new year. We also do have scheduled a public comment session on the General Plan Environmental Impact Report on that date. I believe that's still going forward on that same date. Is that what we've got? So with that and the continuance of this public hearing, it will be a busy December, but hopefully an exciting December. Second December meeting is closed, is canceled. That's the holiday date. But we'll be looking at having a January meeting. We've got some items we're getting ready for that meeting.

So the first meeting in the new year will be January 8th, if I'm doing my weeks right?

I believe that's correct, yes. I think there's at least one discretionary item that's coming before you at that time.

Thank you.

Yes, and that was all for me unless anybody else has other items from staff.

one thing that through the chair I wanted to note and the chair actually mentioned it is Elliot Pickett is has been promoted to senior planner so well deserved all right so nothing else meeting adjourned thanks everybody

Amen.