Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Staff, can we please get thirty seconds on the timer to start the livestream?

Twenty twenty five Planning and Design Commission meeting. The meeting is now called to order. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Lee?

Here.

Commissioner Tao? Is absent. Commissioner Lamas? Is absent. Commissioner Nybo?

Here.

Commissioner Caden?

Here.

Commissioner Hernandez? Absent. Commissioner Masias Reid? Is absent. Commissioner Ortiz? Here. Commissioner Blunt? Here. Vice Chair Chase?

Here.

Commissioner Rischke is absent. Commissioner Thompson is absent. And Chair Young?

Here.

Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you. I would like to remind members of the public in chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip when the item begins. You will have three minutes to speak once you are called on. After the first speaker, we will no longer accept speaker slips. We will now proceed with today's agenda.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisenan people, the Southern Maidu Valley and Plains Miwok, PatwinWintun peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federalized recognized tribe, may we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgment and appreciation of Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contributions, and lives. Please remain standing 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. Alright.

Thank you. Do we have a director's report?

I have no director's report this evening.

Okay. Thank you. We're going to move some items around in the agenda. So let's see. Oh, you know what? Before we do that, let's do the approval of the minutes. So, are there let's do the consent calendar. Okay. Okay. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Thank you, Chair. I have no speaker slips for this item. Alright.

Can I get

a motion and a second on

the consent calendar? Commissioner Blunt? Motion to pass. Motion to get a second. Commissioner Caden?

Second.

Got a second. Alright. Will the clerk please call for the roll?

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Lee? Aye. Commissioner Tao is absent. Commissioner Lamas is absent. Commissioner Nybo?

Aye.

Commissioner Caden?

Aye.

Commissioner Hernandez is absent. Commissioner Masas Reid is absent. Commissioner Ortiz? Aye. Commissioner Blunt?

Aye.

Vice chair Chase?

Aye.

Commissioner Rischke is absent. Commissioner Thompson is absent. And chair Young? Aye. Thank you. The motion passes.

Okay. Alright. So, two on the public hearing has been continued to the next meeting, I believe. And then, we're going to jump to item four, proposed minor text amendments to the 2040 general plan. Miss Amy Yang is gonna be doing her presentation.

Alright. Good evening, commissioners and Tara Young. My name is Amy Yang. I'm a senior planner with the community development department. Today, I'd like to provide an overview of some minor text updates staff are proposing to the 2040 general plan.

So at the end of this item, we will ask the commission to initiate these text amendments to the 2040 general plan and to forward a recommendation of approval to the city council. As you all might remember, in 2024, the Sacramento City City Council adopted the 2040 general plan, which provides long range policy direction to guide city decision making related to development in the city. And, since the adoption of the 2040 general plan last year, staff have identified minor text edits to chapters one, two, and three. These include typographical errors and an update to the employment mixed use land use description. The minor text edits to the employment mixed use land use description are shown here on the screen and serve to clarify the types of allowable uses appropriate for these areas.

Light industrial uses are already identified as a compatible use for this designation, and the proposed tax changes would further clarify the intention of this designation to include light industrial uses. Uses. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you for your time.

Do we need to do any recusals or disclosures because this is a no, right? Okay. Alright. Thank you. Do we have any comments from the public?

Chair, I have no speaker slips for this item.

Alright. Thank you. Questions from the commission or motions? Commissioner Nyboe? I make a motion to move. And a motion? Second. Do I have a second from Commissioner Kaden?

Second.

Alright. Will the click call roll?

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Lee?

Aye.

Commissioner Tao? Aye. Commissioner Lamas is absent. Commissioner Nybo?

Aye.

Commissioner Kaden?

Aye.

Commissioner Hernandez is absent. Commissioner Masas Reid is absent. Commissioner Ortiz? Aye. Commissioner Blunt?

Aye.

Vice Chair Chase? Aye. Commissioner Rischke is absent. Commissioner Thompson is absent. And Chair Young?

Aye.

Thank you. The motion passes.

All right. Thank you. We'll move on to item three, an ordinance amending section fifteen point zero eight point zero seven zero and adding chapter 17.868 to the Sacramento City Code. Jamie will be presenting.

Yeah. Alright. Good evening, chair and commissioners. I'm Jamie Mosler, associate planner, and I'll be providing tonight's presentation on an ordinance to implement senate bill six eighty four, which creates a new statewide pathway for small lots of divisions and housing developments. As an overview of this presentation, I'll first provide some background on this item.

I'll then provide an overview of the local ordinance highlighting state law requirements and what local options we have, and then I'll conclude with describing our next steps. So senate bill six eighty four became effective last summer. This bill created a new statewide pathway for subdivisions and housing developments that allows them to receive ministerial review if they meet specified requirements. The bill has requirements that all local jurisdictions in the state have to follow but also provides a few choices for implementation. This bill has been implemented twice by senate bill eleven twenty three and assembly bill one thirty that both became effective this summer.

We first presented our draft local ordinance to this commission almost a year ago. The commission directed the ordinance and directed staff to conduct to collect stakeholder input on the local choices. Following this, we conducted a focus group meeting in April that was well attended by housing advocates and interested developers to get their feedback. And tonight, we're here presenting a revised ordinance, which includes visions responsive to the commission's direction, feedback from stakeholders, and the changes in state law. So to summarize, SB six eighty four does requires ministerial view of tentative maps with up to 10 lots and housing developments with up to 10 units within sixty days.

It also requires the city to issue a building permit upon approval of the tentative map if the applicant submits a complete application, but this is not required. This slide shows how the SB six eighty four process compares with our existing process for housing and subdivisions. Both start with planning approval of a tentative map and housing development. In our existing processes can take three to four months and requires a public hearing, but under SB six eighty four, it's reviewed within sixty days and there is no public hearing. Otherwise, the process follows the same order with improvement plans, recording the subdivision map, and then issuing the building permit to actually build the housing on those lots.

But as mentioned, if an applicant wants to, they can to build the housing sooner, they can flip the order and start to build the housing before the map is recorded, but this is not a required path. To go down the s b six eighty four path, there's a few requirements that projects have to meet. They have to be on a lot zone for either multiunit or single unit dwellings, and there's maximum site sizes. They're intended to be infill housing development, so it has to be surrounded by urban uses, and it can't be located on any of the environmentally sensitive sites such as those listed on the slide. There's also protections for existing and affordable housing.

You can't demolish or alter affordable housing or housing occupied by tenants. They also don't want this process used repeatedly, so you can't use s B 684 again if you already use it on that lot or if the lot was created through S B 9, though it is a choice if we allow S B 9 later, which I'll touch on. The maximum parcels you can create through this process is 10. Subdividers can designate a remainder parcel, which is an area that they're not putting any new development on currently or not intending to sell, lease, or finance in this moment. The new parcel sizes can be as small as 600 square feet or 1,200 square feet depending on the zone, but there are no requirements for lot width, depth, or frontage.

So the state provides six hundred and twelve hundred square feet as the minimum lot sizes, but does allow local jurisdictions to allow a smaller lot size. We didn't hear from our stakeholders any desire to have or need lot sizes smaller than that, so our recommendation is going with the sizes in the bill in six hundred and twelve hundred square feet. Another option we have is well, we can't you can't do s b six eighty four on the lot if it was created through s b nine. It is a choice if someone that cities can choose whether to allow s b nine later. In our ordinance last year, we recommended not allowing further s b 9 subdivisions.

S B 9 is another similar but different state housing law that allows you to subdivide. We didn't think folks would combine these two pathways. There's different requirements in different zones where they apply, but we did hear from our stakeholders some interest in maybe doing them and combining it and having more flexibility. So we are recommending allowing that tonight with some parameters. We do wanna limit it to if there is a previous subdivision with four or more lots created already to avoid folks doing repeated small subdivisions to avoid any public improvement requirements, is known as quartering under the subdivision map act and a violation of that.

So just requiring that to be consistent. This option was discussed the most at our hearing last year. It is it used to be in the bill, and it to allow cities to require construction of the dwelling units before the map was recorded. But with assembly bill one thirty, this has been removed as an option, and so it's no longer included in the local ordinance tonight. But there is a new option.

So now the default with amendments by a b one thirty is that subdividers can't sell, lease, or finance the property until dwelling units are built on the lot. However, we're not recommending including that in our ordinance. We're only recommending requiring planning approval of the housing development. We wanna be more flexible than the state requirements, really mirroring the feedback we heard from our stakeholders that they wanna process that mirrors the existing where you don't have to build housing on the lot in order to sell it. So that's our for that one.

Another option deals with remainder parcels. So as mentioned, that's an area of the site that they're not proposing any development. They're just, you know, doesn't leaving it alone for now in the meantime, and they might sell it later. They are allowed to sell it later. And if they want to, cities can choose to require what's known as a certificate of compliance to review that parcel since it's not reviewed as part of the current application.

And so we're recommending to require a certificate of compliance just to review essentially the boundaries of the area that's being created since it's not being reviewed at all as part of the S B 684 map, and then requiring that after the final map is recorded consistent with timing in the subdivision map act. Few other requirements for subdivisions, they have to comply with all the applicable objective requirements of the subdivision map act, including our local objective zoning subdivision and design standards that aren't inconsistent with s b six eighty four. Another unique thing about s b six eighty four is it doesn't allow folks to use this process to subdivide existing units that are on the same parcel and put them on different ones or allow them to be sold separately. Also prevents ministerial condo conversions, so that's another part of this law. Alright.

Looking at the housing development requirements, they can do up to 10 dwelling units. These are intended to be starter home opportunities, so there's a max average unit size of seventeen fifty square feet. There are also minimum density requirements they have to meet. If the site is designated in the housing element for affordable units as part of our RENA, regional housing needs allocation, then they have to provide those units. If the site isn't designated in the housing element, there are no affordability requirements under this law.

One option that we have here is whether to allow ADUs. In our ordinance that was presented last year, we did not recommend permitting them. We assumed they wouldn't be feasible on some of the small lots that would be created through this process, but we did hear feedback from our stakeholders that they were interest that ADUs could be feasible in some situations, and they really wanted the flexibility for homeowners and the benefits that come from that. And so we're recommending to permit ADUs, and the ADUs, if they are allowed, do not count towards the 10 unit maximum. Additionally, this bill is intended to create homeownership opportunities, and so there's requirements for the housing units to meet one of the following list on the slide.

So either things like constructed on fee simple ownership lots or on land owned by a community land trust. We also, as a city, can't oppose any unique requirements on projects of under s b six eighty four just because they're s b six eighty four projects. So all of our objective standards apply as they would for a similar type project that was an s b six eighty four. So things like our height limits, our lot coverage, and front yard setbacks along with some of our missing middle housing standards, but bulk control is not a standard that would apply to projects under s p six eighty four. Other setbacks that do, though, from the state, they say that we can't there can't be any setbacks required between the units.

Only four foot side and rear setbacks are required otherwise, and there is a maximum floor area ratio that gets bigger depending on how many units are provided. Furthermore from that, if there are standards that are preventing a density of 30 dwelling units per acre, relief is granted from those, and so projects can proceed with that density. Additionally, if they're eligible under state density bonus law by providing affordable units, they can receive incentives and concessions to get relief from standards, but they can't use density bonus law to go over the 10 units and still get, ministerial approve approval under s b six eighty four. As mentioned, our review time for these is within sixty days of receiving a complete application. If denied, written comments must be provided to the applicant.

The applications can also be disapproved if there would be specific adverse impact on public health and safety. Last part is the building permit issuance piece. So as mentioned, if someone wants to flip the order and build housing before the map is recorded, they can do that if they got tentative map approval and if they submitted a complete and compliant building permit application. Similarly, the building official can deny this if flipping the order has an adverse impact on health and safety. Building permits still is issued on based on the tentative map and all those conditions of approval, and any dedication, improvement, or sewer requirement has to be guaranteed to the city satisfaction.

There's two local options here that the city has with its implementation. The first is withholding final approval. So we'll have to issue the building permit, but we can hold back the, certificate of occupancy or equivalent final approval until the map is recorded. Additionally, we can require security to ensure the improvements are provided. We're recommending to keep both of these requirements in the ordinance to help ensure that projects are completed and the public improvements are made.

We do require security for improvements as part of our existing subdivision process, so there's already a precedence there. And these really only apply if someone chooses to flip the order and build first. What we heard pretty loudly from stakeholders is that this really complicates the process, and most folks wanna keep the same order and build after the map is recorded. So I don't anticipate that these will come up too often, but these are our recommendations for those options. That concludes my overview of the bill.

In terms of our steps, this will need to be brought to the law and legislation committee tentatively looking at November 18 followed by a hearing at city council anticipated on December 9. Our recommendation tonight is to conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion, move staff's recommendation. That concludes my presentation and staff is available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Clerk, do we have any speaker slips?

Thank you, Chair. I have no speaker slips for this item.

All right. Questions from the dais? Commissioner Kaden?

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. And this is a complicated one. So, yeah, I can imagine folks who weren't at the previous meeting being a little lost. Thank you for walking through all of that just being open, I think, to having that dialogue in the last year on this.

I think getting back to the core of what this is about, right? This is about trying to create more affordable homeownership opportunities. We've done a lot of work through our missing middle ordinance and through our general plan more generally on building a lot of multi family and making it easier to build rental housing, which is great. We need that. We don't build condos in this state thanks to a variety of state rules around condo defect and all kinds of things, so that's not something we can control.

The levers that we have on home ownership are largely around few simple subdivision processes. That for a long time was outside of our control as well, but this is a state enabling process that makes it easier and ministerial to go through the Subdivision Map Act, which is a tool and that's great and we should use it. It's a complicated set of laws that don't really They give discretion, I think, to local governments for how you're interpreting, and there's a range of ways that you can interpret it. Again, I just want to express my most appreciation for how open staff has been to having a dialogue, listening to stakeholders on how to implement this in ways that set it up for success and make it a process that can actually work for small builders. When this was discussed last time, I had four primary concerns.

So the original ordinance didn't allow ADUs and JADUs, and the new one does, and they don't count towards the 10, which is fantastic. I was, second of all, concerned about just why we wouldn't allow state density bonus to apply. Just, you know, if someone was willing to voluntarily deed restrict their, some of the units for affordable housing without subsidy, I think that's something that we should do. It's great to see that the new ordinance allows for that. The old ordinance applied some design standards, like bolt control in particular, that I think would have made it impossible to build what I think is gonna be a really common typology for this, which is like a three story townhome project.

A lot of the townhomes that we see are these three story townhome projects, right? That would have been impossible under bulk control. I think the new ordinance does not apply bulk control to these projects per some guidance from HCD, which I'm especially just, again, appreciative to staff and for for council for kind of exploring that. And then the the the final one so the original ordinance also said you you can't record the final map until the project is under construction. And I know this was kind of the the primary thing that we we talked about as a commission, and, you know, some some potential users of this process kind of expressed some concerns about that because it really does kind of blow up the the entire business model because you can't get a, you know, construction loan without collateralizing against the subdivided parcel, and then you can't go under construction until you to record the final map without the loan, so you're kind of in this catch 22.

So the staff recommendation I think is great to kind of allow for selling or financing parcels if the parcel is kind of planning approval through that six eighty four process, I think that is a great solution, completely support it. My only question is that, so for the remainder parcels option, which I think is actually gonna be a common use as well for this process. So, you know, these are situations where like you maybe have a single family house on a big lot and you want to like buy the property, keep that house intact, and then do like a small lot subdivision in the back. So the the staff recommendation is to have what seems like a higher standard in these situations, and it's to, quote, require a certificate of compliance for the sale of a remainder parcel that may be filed may not be filed until after the final map is recorded. Can you just maybe just help us understand like what that means, what a a certificate of compliance is, and yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Great question. So the remainder parcel, they can designate without the present intent to sell, but they are allowed to sell later. When they do wanna sell, we can't require a final map or a parcel map for that. So instead, we would we have the option to require a certificate of compliance. It's just a staff level ministerial review, essentially reviewing the boundaries of the area since it wasn't reviewed as part of the previous subdivision application. So that's all that it is.

So okay. So could you I guess my question is, like, say that situation I just described. You buy a single family house, has a big lot, and you wanna subdivide, you know, townhomes on the back. Could you do that and sell the existing house, use that money to help finance the construction of the townhomes, or does the timing not work if you're requiring this COC?

You would not be able to sell the lot with that existing house that you're designating as a remainder, but that's part of the subdivision map act. Like, you're not supposed to be creating a remainder parcel with the present intent to sell. So later you can sell it, absolutely, it's just not until after that subdivision is done.

Right. So you couldn't use it to help finance this on the end. And I hearing that right, that it's the City's hands are tied on that and that is a requirement per Subdivision Map Act? Is that right?

Yeah. Not having the present intent to sell us a Subdivision Map Act, our choice is just the Certificate of Compliance before sale, yes or no.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. So, yeah, I mean, I think that, again, thanks for being open to kind of flipping that process around and, you know, allowing for kind of this process to happen at the planning approval. The last thing that I just wanted to mention is, you know, as a part of the I've followed this bill closely as it's going through the legislature, all three versions, and part of the political compromise for the bill is that it precludes projects on sites where there's been housing that's occupied by a tenant in the last five years, right?

And that's you understand where that's coming from, of course. You don't want to displace naturally occurring affordable housing, I get that. But it is somewhat restrictive, right? It basically means you can't redevelop a vacant, falling apart, single family house into some townhomes if someone rented that home before it started falling apart four years ago. A lot of other cities in the implementation of this bill have made this kind of requirement extremely difficult to provide the like, requiring documentation that may or may not be possible to provide basically.

So for example, say a house is like in a trust that bought that house two years ago and you're a small builder looking to buy the house and do a small lot subdivision on it, it may be really difficult to prove that there hasn't been a tenant there five years ago and track down a previous owner of the previous owner to prove that. So it's okay if staff hasn't kind of thought through yet exactly how you're gonna be enforcing that requirement, but I guess I would ask that you do what you can to be flexible, I guess, recognizing that sometimes the documentation you're requiring might not exist. So some more flexible ways of kind of interpreting that that I've seen in other cities to comply with that requirement are looking at assessor data to see if they use the homeowner exemption. I've also seen just requiring an affidavit from the developer. So, again, no worries if you haven't gotten there yet, but do you have a sense of how you're gonna be doing that process?

Yeah. We have a memo and checklist out now to provide guidance until we have our final application form, and right now it's asking applicants to just certify on the form whether it's been tenant occupied in the last five years.

Perfect. That's great. Okay. I'll yield my time for now. I'd love to hear from other commissioners. Quick questions. Yeah.

I have one question, since I'm not seeing any right now at this moment. What so this compresses the time it takes to process and approve a project. I was just kind of thinking in terms of just staff time and whatnot, like how long does it typically take for staff to be able to process something like this? Because sixty days seems pretty aggressive in my mind.

So, we don't have a large number of applications to give you any trends. I can give you some anecdotal information from what I'm hearing from our planning section staff that are processing. It's gotten a little more popular, so we're getting inquiries, you know, on a weekly basis as opposed to monthly or longer. And I think as Commissioner Kaden described, is a very complicated law, so there is a learning curve, which is just a part of that process. And I'm hearing the same echo to the community in terms of customers or applicants that are submitting.

And sixty days is, you know, depending on your perspective, for an applicant, it's advantageous. For staff, it is not the norm, you know, in terms of how discretionary application would routinely be processed. We're still going to comply and are complying with that timeframe. It just means we have to sort of adjust our priorities. I don't know if am I answering your question adequately?

I you know, I guess I think about it in kind of worst case scenarios, right? Like, if you just had a flood of applications hit your desk, right? I'm just trying to get a sense of what the average amount of time is, you know, for a capable staffer to be able to review everything that's needed to be able to approve? I mean, because really we're bypassing this kind of other public hearing. Does that real I mean bypass do you put in more work given the fact that there's a public hearing? How much time is are we really saving here for

Oh, yeah. There are if we thought of it in terms of deliverables and materials that are necessary, there are fewer materials. So there's no notice, there's no staff report, meaning there's no staff coming to a hearing like this. There is Yeah. Over in terms of hours and actual documents produced, there are fewer. It's just taking a little bit long. It feels it feels like more, I think, initially right now. We could Okay. Give you an update later on how it actually is panning out. Okay.

Because this is a state imposed timeline. Right? It's mandatory. Yeah. So. We we're doing it for

SB nine if it helps you understand which are the urban lot splits, duplexes. And it it was like this initially when that they had that sixty day time frame kicked in for that law. It was last year. So we're Okay. We'll be fine.

Okay. Yeah, I'm just thinking potentially, right, this may I mean, if there was a deluge of projects that came through, like, planning department would have to hire more staff, I mean, in order to process within a timely manner, right, if that if it came down to that.

It'd be a good problem to have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, if it did. But anyways, just thinking ahead. So thank you. Any other questions? Comments? All right. Any motions? Commissioner Kaden? Okay.

Happy to move the item. Commissioner Blunt.

I'll second. Thank you. Will the clerk please call roll.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Lee? Aye. Commissioner Tao? Yes. Commissioner Lamas is absent. Commissioner Nibo? Aye. Commissioner Kaden?

Aye.

Commissioner Hernandez is absent. Commissioner Masas Reid is absent. Commissioner Artis? Aye. Commissioner Blunt?

Aye.

Vice Chair Chase?

Aye.

Commissioner Rischke is absent. Commissioner Thompson is absent. And Chair Young?

Aye.

Thank you. And the motion passes.

Thank you. Alright. Moving on to the agenda. Commissioner comments, ideas, and questions. Do we have any anything? Okay. Public comments matters not on the agenda.

Chair, I have no speakers list for this item.

Thank you. I think we're officially adjourned. Thank you.

Okay.

There we go. I didn't think we'd get through that so quickly.

Yeah.

I texted her. Yeah. Yeah.