Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for your patience. Really appreciate it. Hope you are having a wonderful Monday evening. We are now ready to call our 02/09/2026 County Planning Commission meeting into order. Madam Clerk, would you please take the role?

Absolutely. Members Corona Sabaniano?

Here.

Members Virgo? Here. And members Borja?

Here.

And with those members present, we do have a quorum.

Thank you. Would you please stand up and join me for the pledge of allegiance? Madam clerk, can you please read us the meeting announcement?

The county fosters public engagement during the meeting and encourages public participation civility and the use of courteous language. The commission does not condone the use of profanity vulgar language gestures or other inappropriate behavior including personal attacks or threats directed toward any meeting participant seating may be limited and available on a first come first served basis to make a in person public comments please complete and submit a speaker request form to the clerk. Each individual will be invited to the podium to make a comment. Members of the public may send a written comment which is distributed to commission members and filed in the record. Contact information is optional and should include the meeting date and agenda off agenda item number to be sent as followed e mail a comment to boardclerk@satcounty.gov mail a comment to 700 H Street, Suite 2450, Sacramento, California 95814.

And that concludes the announcement.

Thank you, ma'am. Can we go ahead and please call item number one?

Item number one is PLMP2020Three-two90 bar none auctions. This is a general plan amendment, county plan amendment, rezone, use permit, special development permit and a design review the property is located at 6190 Bradshaw Road in the Vineyard community and the environmental document is a mitigated negative declaration

Commissioner, the item was listed as non contested. Would you like a presentation from staff?

Looking at my fellow commissioners here in the dais. Seeing none, I think we'll be passing the item for presentation at this time.

The applicant is present.

Thank you. I will now like to ask the applicant if you would like to proceed to the podium and make any public comments.

Thank you for being here tonight, and thank you for having a quorum. Appreciate it. I'm here to answer any questions you have. I think staff has done a great job of pulling this together. As you saw, it was kind of a laundry list of things that we were asking for. And keeping us on track and keeping all the various departments working together was no small feat. Emma, thank you very much. And I'm here to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, sir. Looking at folks on the dais. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Thank you don' have any questions at this time. Madam Clerk are there any public comments for this item?

Yes we have received public comment for this item. If I may for any members of the public who will be speaking on any of the items, can you please stand to be administered an oath? And that's for items one through three. Please raise your right hand and the appropriate response is, I do. Do you swear the testimony that you are about to give to this Board is the truth, so help you God.

If you do not swear, do you so affirm? Thank you. And then when you do come up to the podium, please state your name for the record and the statement I have been sworn. Yes, please scratch that. That was the public commenter who we had signed up. I thought he was the commenter, but he was the applicant.

Understood. Okay. Seeing that we don't have any public comments at this item I do want to turn it back to the diets. Are there any commissioners who would like to provide any comments or feedback? I would like to entertain a motion.

I will make a motion to approve staff recommendation.

I second the motion.

We have a motion from Commissioner Corona Savagliano and a second from Commissioner Virga and we are now voting for this item.

And with those members present, that item does pass with all members voting yes.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, let's move on to item number two.

Item number two is PLMP twenty twenty five-ten Quikwak Car Wash at 6717 Fair Oaks Boulevard. This is a use permit, a special development permit and a design review. As I stated, the property is located at 6717 Fair Oaks Boulevard in the Carmichael community, and the environmental document is exempt.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Irving Huerta, associate planner and project manager for the QuickQueck Car Wash at 6717 Fair Oaks Boulevard. Oh, looks like the presentation's up here. Perfect. I'll go ahead and kick us off with a short presentation of the project.

Location and setting. So the project site, as denoted in that yellow rectangle over here on the right, is located over at 6717 Fair Oaks Boulevard, approximately just northwest of the corner of Angelina Avenue and Fair Oaks Boulevard in the Carmichael community. The project site is currently vacant, no structures at this time, but it is paved as an empty parking lot, as well as with some landscaping planters. Moving on to community context. So the project site is located within the Fair Oaks Main Street special planning area, and it's located within the Main Street District sub area of the SPA.

Surrounding land uses includes an auto repair shop over to the North, commercial and retail uses over to the South and East, as well as existing multifamily apartments over to the West. Moving on to site and entitlement history. So according to county records, there are no records of prior planning entitlements associated with the project site. However, aerial imagery does indicate that the site was developed in this instance into the current parking lot sometime between 1973 and 1985. Additionally, staff has reviewed recent code enforcement violations and has concluded that there are no active cases.

The entitlement request that's being brought forth this evening for consideration is composed of a use permit, and that is to allow for a drive through car wash on a point nine acre lot within the Fair Oaks Main Street special planning area. It also includes a special development permit, and that is to allow for the proposed project to deviate from the following development standard. That is the landscape setback between drive through lane and right of way. The request also includes a design review to determine substantial compliance with the Sacramento County Countywide design guidelines. These next couple of slides, we're gonna go over real brief over the project exhibits associated with this entitlement request.

As depicted over here on your screen, we are looking at the site plan. So, again, this is an overview of the proposed site plan. Access wise, we'll talk a little bit about that. So the car wash buildings could be located right here, but essentially patrons are gonna be able to enter the site along the Fair Oaks Boulevard frontage over here within this existing entranceway. Essentially, you're gonna have your dual lanes right here for queuing for the cars in order to enter the car wash building, and then right over here, exit the car wash tunnel itself.

And then, you're going to have your vacuum area right here. That vacuum area is going to be composed of 17 vacuum stalls. That's also going to have two parking stalls for staff parking. And then, we do have two existing cross access entrances over here to the parcel over here just south of the site. They do have currently common ownership, so that's just one thing to point out.

Some additional items. We do have the vacuum equipment enclosure and canopy structures as well. They're gonna be located right over here in the vacuum area. That vacuum canopy stall is gonna be situated right over here as well as with the proposed trash enclosure. Moving on to the floor plan.

So this is just a floor plan overview of the proposed building. So again, that's gonna be the one that's gonna be housing the the car wash tunnel itself. The building size itself is gonna be approximately 3,600 square feet. Of those 3,600 square feet, just under 2,500 square feet is gonna be dedicated to the car wash tunnel area. So, again, this is where your cars are essentially gonna enter, get washed, and dried.

And so this is located right here along this area. The remaining area of the building, which is located right over here on the northern part, that's gonna be composed of equipment rooms, storage rooms, restrooms, as well as the office rooms for the proposed use. Just for orientation purposes, so right over here, this is gonna be the entrance over here located along the western side, and then our exit is gonna be located over here on the eastern side facing over here towards Fair Oaks Boulevard. These next two slides are depictions of the proposed building elevations for that car wash tunnel building. So as you can see right here, this one depicts the building facing north and south.

Meanwhile, this depicts over here the east and west sides of the buildings. So, again, those would be where the entrances and exits are located. The building in height wise is gonna be just under 30 feet in height, and as you could see, the color theme that we have going on is pretty typical for car wash car quick wet car washes. Again, green, yellow, gray colorways for the most part. And while it's not shown right here in these elevations, we do have some quick quack signage that's gonna be proposed around the building.

You can kinda see right here where they're gonna have some quick quack signage right here, as well as over here, and pretty much just around the building. This slide right here depicts the proposed landscape plan. So we do have extensive new landscaping that's gonna be proposed pretty much throughout the project site, particularly along the property lines of the property and around the car wash tunnel, and then as well as the car wash tunnel exit area, and then along the street frontage along Fair Oaks Boulevard. Trees are gonna be proposed in the landscaping planters along the property lines, as well as the street frontage with evergreen trees located along the western property line. Again, that's gonna be the one adjacent to the multi family residential.

And then we also do have some evergreens as well proposed to be here along the northern property line. Also wanna point out, might not be shown, but there is some notes right here on the landscape plan. There is as well a proposed seven foot tall masonry screening wall located along the what would be the western property line right here. And, again, that would be adjacent to the existing multifamily residential. And then according to the landscape plan, there's a note right there stating that the screening wall is gonna be covered in vine for aesthetic purposes.

And then coming back over here towards the exit of the tunnel, we also do have a proposed just under three and a half feet tall screening wall. It's gonna be composed of CMU block, and, essentially, it's gonna help screen that exit right here from the car wash tunnel. That screening wall is also gonna be covered in vine for aesthetic purposes. Lastly, I just wanna talk about the landscaping deviation that's being requested under the special development permit, as it can be seen right here. So this is where we're looking at the deviation.

And sorry that the pointer is a little off. Might be this might be interfering a little bit, but I'll try my best to explain. So the requirement for the landscape setback between drive through lanes and right of way is when a drive through lane is adjacent to public right of way, a minimum of 25 feet of landscaping shall be provided between the drive through lane and right of way as measured from the back of the sidewalk. In this instance, the applicant is proposing a landscape planter. So, again, this is this area right here.

That's gonna be approximately 13 feet wide. So moving on to advisory recommendations. The design review advisory committee known as the DRAC met on 11/13/2025, and, they do recommend that the board of supervisors find the project in substantial compliance with the design guidelines. As well, the Carmichael Community Planning Advisory Council, known as the CPAC, met on 11/12/2025, and they recommend that the board of supervisors approve the request entitlements as well. That vote was a seven yes, zero no, and zero absent.

At the CPAC meeting, we did have some public comments, a total of three public comments in opposition to the proposed entitlements. Pretty much the public commenters cited concerns with the potential for increased traffic, increased safety concerns regarding pedestrians, increased noise, overconcentration of car washes, as well as concerns with compatibility regarding the proposed use with the SPA and Carmichael plan. Moving on to project analysis. So the proposed project is consistent with the general plan, committee plan, and zoning code as conditioned. The project is compatible with the surrounding zoning and land uses.

There are no significant environmental concerns. The project was supported by the Carmichael CPAC and found consistent with the design guidelines by the DRAC. Additionally, staff has provided some conditions or has conditioned the project, I should say, with the key conditions. I'll go over them real brief with y'all. Condition number eight is hours of operation.

Condition nine is pertaining to having entrance and exit closures. The condition number 10 is regarding compressed unit location. Condition 11 is regarding the CMU wall requirements. Condition 12 is regarding having signage posted in regards to sound amplification devices. And lastly, condition number 13 is in regards to compliance with the noise with the county's noise ordinance.

So, again, these are key conditions that were added by staff in anticipation to relieve some of the concerns brought forth at the CPAC. Moving on to staff's recommendation. So planning environmental review staff recommends that the planning commission make the following recommendations to the board of supervisors. That is to recognize that the project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA, pursuant to CEQA guidelines section fifteen three zero three, approve the use permit subject to findings and conditions, Approve the special development permit subject to findings and conditions. And lastly, find the project in substantial compliance with the design guidelines subject to findings and conditions.

This concludes the end of my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions that you may have. Additionally, we do have our applicant representatives in attendance as well who are available for questions if needed. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Any questions from fellow commissioners? I do have a couple of questions, If you can walk me through, we use 15,303 as a categorical exemption. What in the 15,303 guidelines would make this exempt? There was a public comment regarding why the project did not look at potential groundwater runoff, any infiltration that could potentially affect stormwater and groundwater. Can we just go on a record as to why this is exempt based on that category?

I'll defer to our environmental coordinator, Julie Newton, who's in attendance.

Good evening. Julie Newton, environmental coordinator. So when we're reviewing projects for c qa purposes the first thing we look at is if they meet criteria for an exemption under class three this is our small structures class which generally exempts new projects that are of a certain size which this one did in the small structure. In reviewing the project we do have to confirm that there are no unusual circumstances that would prompt us that would warrant further analysis which is something that we consider when we' reviewing all of our projects. Issues such as runoff and drainage are accounted for by our drainage standards and requirements of swift during construction we also consider things like noise traffic and we have this applicant did submit a traffic study and a noise study in support of their application which demonstrated that there would not be impacts associated with the project.

We do look holistically at those impacts when we determine that there are not any unusual circumstances then we move forward with an exemption.

I'm looking at the exemption here and it says that it's typically for projects not exceeding 2,500 square feet of floor area. It's from the staff presentation, the car wash itself might be at 3,000. I drove at the site. I think it used to be a Bank of America site. Yes. And then we're turning a section of the parking lot into a car wash, would then be introducing like a different purpose. It's not a parking lot anymore, right? Now, we're gonna be washing cars and potentially using, I don't wanna assume that it's harmful chemicals, but chemicals nonetheless, right? I I did use to use quick back before. They they tend to do a really good job.

So, I was just wondering why it seems like it's a very different use case from what it originally was intended and now we're we're telling the public that it would be exempt. That's where I'm I'm a little kind of lost as to why we're I mean, it's it's over 2,500 square feet.

The the secret guidelines are that they are they're general recommendations and not necessarily exclusive limits.

Okay. Okay. I'm assuming that the water that is captured from the car wash purposes would be going through sewage system or a combined storm water system, something to that extent.

That's my that's yeah. That's my understanding.

Do you know if SAC sewer or regional sand required a pretreatment?

I know they did provide Collections. Conditions of approval for the project, where I believe they would scope that out. Okay. Potentially, maybe the applicant might know a little bit more about how that process kind of functions. I know I used my first job actually out of high school was at a car wash. Wasn't a quick quack, but I know that usually when a was it the drying and the the washing, it all kind of drains into a sewage system and gets treated. But specific to this site, maybe perhaps our applicant might have more details on how that functions.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Any other questions from my fellow commissioners at this time? Thank you, sir. Appreciate the presentation. I'd now like to ask the applicant to maybe join us at the podium. Sorry.

My name is dawn shively represent qui quack. I' here to ask for approval of our application and answer any questions that you may have for me.

Biggest question that I have is, in your opinion how do we exempt the project from having it or do you guys have any treatment waste? Because there was some question about water quality and how that could potentially impact our sewer system.

Well, we don't use any chemicals. We use biodegradable soaps. And the the process is is that we capture all of our water on-site. There's gonna be very little water that is gonna be on cars residual or truck beds that'll drive off the lot that we just can't control on that. But we typically are able to capture over 95%, 98% of the water that we consume on there.

What happens is that is as it runs off of our in our building, it goes into our drains and our drains filter into three large holding tanks that then filter through this process. We then will use it for our own purpose, which we will do an osmosis system to clean it and reuse it on-site for that. Anything that we cannot reuse has already been filtered through our through our tanks and will go back into the Steward system.

Alright. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that with me. As far as like the traffic study is concerned, what did you guys find on traffic study? Would there be an additional impact to this specific corner or corridor?

We will not add additional to it. What we do is we capture traffic in the area as they're going to get coffee, run to the kids to the store or to school, that we're able to capture it at that point. Our traffic engineers have worked with the engineer department on a report that shows very little impact to the community. Awesome.

Thank you, sir. And your operating hours, what are you guys hoping to open and close?

Working with the staff, we know that we need to open from 8AM to 8PM.

Got it. Understood. Thank you. Any questions for the rest of the commissioners? Alright. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time. Alright. Moving on to Madam Clerk. Do we have any comments from the public?

Yes. We do have one public comment.

May we invite the public commenter to

Anna Gather.

Evening.

Hello. My name is Anna Grother. And I think I'm supposed to say that I take that pledge. And I don't have a bunch of fancy words to say. All I have to say is that I live on Angelina Avenue.

It's adjacent where the Bank of America is. It's a dead end street. I've been there since 1958, and my father and his family have been there since the forties. It is a dead end street, and when those apartments had come at the top of the street we tried to oppose that because of what has now caused traffic jams because it' a curved street going up angelina. To this day we have people speeding down the street thinking it' a through way or they' getting mad because it' not and they speed back up the street.

Our eldest resident has been there as long as I' been live and she' 105 and she still walks up and down that street my uncle is 88 he lives right next door. There is a car wash that' less than a quarter of a mile south of where they' speaking of putting this quack quack. I don' see that it' feasible to have another car worse there in little old Carmichael especially right there at Angeliina. We have been impacted by the apartments. It is detrimental to the people that live on Angelina.

We're old school people there. We've been there for long years. Just recently, actually, in my front yard, the county had to come out and repair some sewage problems because it' very old down there. Gentleman then tonight I believe a lot of my neighbors haven'92t been here tonight because the county'92s actually laying asphalt on the street today.

Out of respect for other speakers, if you could wrap up your comment just because we have time.

I want to say I oppose.

You very much.

You.

Appreciated. Might there be any other speakers to the item?

There are no other speakers for this item.

Thank you. Okay. Now, we'll bring it back to the commissioners. Actually, yeah. I'd welcome the applicant back to the podium if you have any responses to any of the public comments.

Our traffic study has shown that we have that will add very little impact to Angelina. Most of our all of our traffic will be coming in and right in, right out onto Fair Oaks. And our traffic report supports that finding on it. And car wash use, we're competition out there. We want to be able to capture our clients that are in the area. We are a membership based model. And what happens is we offer convenience to our customers that they're able to use our facilities at any one of our car washes.

Thank you, sir. Let's move Okay. On to commissioner deliberation. Any comments, questions, feedback? Do we have motion?

I just have a question maybe to staff. Do we It sounds like the problem on that street is existing and not a new problem that this potential car wash could bring. But I'm just wondering if there' anything that we can do to look into that? Or put any signage or in this business put a signage or something to say that it's not it's what is it? It's dead It's

Commissioner dead Sabanello, Todd Smith, planning director. I can contact our department of Transportation, see what they can do there. Obviously, if there is not signage, then folks are coming through expecting it to go through and getting upset as the commenter indicated, that's an issue we can solve for.

Okay. Thank you.

May I entertain a motion or is there any commissioner who would like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to pass the item with the staff recommendations.

Second.

Okay. Let's go for a vote.

And that item does pass with all members present voting yes.

Thank you. We are now ready for item number three

item number three is plmp 2024Dash00226 crowing foul ordinance zoning code amendment a zoning ordinance amendment and this is countywide and the environmental document is exempt.

Commissioners before young gets started I just wanted to have a couple of opening remarks. This is a zoning code amendment that you're hearing tonight. There is an accompanying county code amendment that just for your information, county code amendments go straight to the board of supervisors. They do not come before the planning commission. It's just a matter of practice.

Think Young is going to provide some background on this, but the reason we're here tonight with this zoning code amendment is to try to address what is, from my perspective, a loophole in our zoning code that does not have an upper limit on the number of crowing fowl or roosters in this case that an individual may keep on their property. There are circumstances out in the county where some members some residents have been adversely affected by neighbors on ag res zoning property and some ag properties holding upwards of 200 birds roosters in certain conditions where they' crowing very loudly at all hours of the day we receive videos pictures etcetera It is creating a nuisance issue that we don't have the enforcement tools to solve for right now. So that's the, in a very high level nutshell overview, the reason we're pursuing the zoning code amendment and Young and Wendy can and as well as Chris, our Ag Commissioner can speak to any details, just want to give you some opening remarks before we get into it.

Thank you, Todd, and good evening commissioners. My name is Young with Planning and Environment Review. I do want to make a quick correction that the today date is February 9, not sixth. Again, as Todd had mentioned, I'm here with Ms. Wendy Hartman and Ms.

Chris Flores, will be assisting me with answering some of the questions that you may have. I know Todd quickly went over some of the background, but I'll quickly go over them as well. This is an amendment to Chapters three, five and seven of the Sacramento County Zoning Code to address keeping of growing foul. This zoning code is part of the larger county effort to address ongoing concern and amendment is being the county code amendment is being concurrently proposed as well. The final decision body will be the Board of Supervisors and this amendment will affect countywide.

So the county has been seeing increasing number of concerns related to the noise, health, safety and language compatibility of growing fowl. And we had initial outreach to our agriculture advisory committee and indicated that the amendment should really target the roosters rather than the entire growing fowl species. With that, County has received over about 800 unique cases related to growing fowl since 2022 to July '25. And majority of these complaints were related to the noise and keeping of roosters, inhumane treatment and cockfighting as well. Almost all complaints were related to roosters with about thirty cases being about peacocks and few other cases that just generally mentioned the fowl.

I did provide a quick map today for you today that highlighted some of the areas that we're seeing. Even though the highest number of the concentration is in our South Sacramento vineyard, most of our cases is really in all of our urban areas in our county. I wanted to quickly go over our current growing fowl ordinance. We currently define growing fowl as any rooster, peacock, goose, quaking duck or guinea fowl as growing fowl. And our county allows growing fowl on lots over 10,000 square feet.

It is not allowed in RD-ten through RD-forty, RM2O mixed use and M2 zoning district. As Todd had mentioned, there is no limitation of number of roosters that could be kept. Currently, the minor use permit is being offered to reduce a lot size only if they are part of educational program. So, through the extensive public outreach and stakeholder meetings, planning staff developed the following proposed amendments to the existing zoning code. This reflects the really the community input concerns at the values that we've heard from the previous outreach that we've done.

So majority of the amendment is on the section three ninety three gs, which pertains to the incidental agricultural accessory structure uses and or keeping of animals. In our amendment, we are going to clarify that this ordinance only applies to small scale non commercial agriculture activity and that is incidental and accessory to the primary residential use. We are also amending to include the language to say that the compliance is a complaint driven with a thirty day period to comply or register with our agriculture commissioner, if applicable. Do want to note that this was a requested change from the public outreach that we've heard. Previously, and almost all of our ordinance, the compliance date really starts on the date of ordinance.

However, on this case, it will be a complaint driven. Lastly, all of the equipment and material that has been utilized for keeping of animals will now be subject to applicable development standards, which is the setbacks. Continuing on, we are also clarifying the general standards for keeping of animals. This is not a new standard. This was nestled under Section three forty six.

For clarification, we have brought that over to the current section of the ordinance. Next, we are allowing our planning director to enforce the entirety section of Section three ninety three gs. Currently, our director is only limited to enforce on incidental egg laying chickens and ducks. And lastly, the appeal of our director's determination will now be heard by the Board of Zoning Appeal, which is consistent with other director's determination appeals. Continuing on, the keeping of Rooster will continue to be permitted on a noncommercial incidental base on the lot that is currently being allowed on which are agricultural, agricultural residential, and RD1 through RD7 zoning district.

We are proposing a minimum lot size with a rooster limit, which I will go over in the next slide. I do want to emphasize that with the new ordinance, education programs such as FFA or four h will no longer require use permit, and they will not require to even register with the County Agriculture Commission. The registration process will allow legitimate hobbyist, breeders or any individual maintaining roost accruing file for legitimate use as determined by agriculture commission will be allowed to exceed the standard rooster limits or to reduce the minimum lot size at no cost. I do want to spend just a little bit of time going over the maximum allowed limitation by lot size and zoning district. Staff is proposing two categories of the limitation, one for the agriculture and agriculture residential and big residential lots.

Second being more smaller typical small single family lots. So for agricultural, agricultural residential and RD one, RD two and RD three zoning districts, if you have 10,000 square feet to one acre, you are allowed five roosters And if you have 20 roosters, you are allowed to have 15. And 40 acres will allow up to 25 roosters. And if you have 40 acres or larger, that will be up to 50 roosters. I do want to clarify this is only the rooster limits, does not include any hens or other growing foul numbers in this.

Separately, in RD4, RD5, RD7, these are a lot of smaller residential lots. We do have two options, but I'll first go ahead with recommendation and talk about our advisory committee's advisory recommendation as well. So, for RD four, RD five and RD seven, if you have up to one acre, you are allowed up to three roosters. If you have one acre or larger, you are allowed up to 10 roosters provided that you provide 10,000 square feet per one rooster. The agriculture, AAC did have concern on smaller lots such as half acre or less or one acre less that they still may have concerns.

So, they are providing an option for your commission to make today to also provide their optional, which is 10,000 to half acre, will be only two roosters rather than three. And for half acre to one acre would be three roosters. The AGAC would also keep the one acre or larger, which would allow up to 10 roosters as well. With that, we are now moving to chapter five. We have table 5.6, which is the development standards for incidental agricultural accessory structure.

We are not changing anything. It's just a reformatting for clarity and there are no changes to underlying standards on table 5.6. With 5.1. B, for incidental agriculture accessory structure, we are now aligned for larger group sizes for bigger lots. We have increased setbacks for neighborhood compatibility.

Also, the registration process, which is no cost, would also allow for our residents to deviate from these coop sizes as well. The standards for hog barns pens are not changing. We are also modifying some of the definitions that's contained in chapter seven for the definitions for structures, incidental agriculture, accessory, and incidental keeping of animals, they are very minorly corrected to reflect update from the previous amendment that was already approved by the Board of Supervisors. We are changing our definitions. We are amending the definition of agricultural uses general.

We're updating the definition to recognize certain commercial agriculture activity where the use constitutes the lots of principal dedicated activity and or the primary source of income for the operator. And a new provision is added to supply that the keeping of rooster shall not be considered an agricultural use unless it is directly associated with food production or recognized breeding or exhibition program. We are also including in the definition that the use shall not so as be associated with animal fighting or other unlawful activity under agriculture use general. Staff started the outreach in twenty twenty four December with our Agriculture Advisory Committee. And through that, we have also met with various internal and external stakeholders to really balance the cultural individual needs.

And some of our internal stakeholder department includes environmental management department, our court enforcement, our agricultural our commissioner's office, our animal care services, as well as the Sacramento sheriff's department who provided a lot of insights on some of the enforcement and existing regulatory framework. First, I wanted to share with our Agricultural Advisory Committee on 12/11/2024. This was the very initial meeting that we went to hear about some of the feedbacks for the scope of our zoning code amendment. Our AAC members wanted to learn about how other jurisdictions are regulating their coring fowl or roosters. They had a support for focusing regulation on roosters and rooster hybrids rather than than entire growing fowl species.

They opposed any permits or business license requirements, had concerns about new regulation impacting legitimate operations, educational program, or hobby hobbyist breeders. They also emphasize protecting commercial agricultural operation from unintended consequences such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, which is still being passed around as well. And our Agriculture Commission, Chris may speak a little bit more about the impacts that's being currently having in our commercial agricultural industry. With that, we have started our public outreach from August and September. We have offered CPAC and Delta CIMAC the proposed draft zoning code amendment.

We requested three from North Highlands, Consumbness and Carmichael CPAC. So, key concerns that were raised in the CPAC were the maximum rooster allowance and the minimum lot size requirement. Sorry, before I talk about the concerns, I do want to note that this that we've provided the August version, which was provided to you in September. So, this was the feedback based on our original August version. So, on the August original version, we heard concern that maximum rooster number when the minimum lot size was a concern.

There were potential cost and burden of the use permit requirement, which was included in the August draft. We received a lot of clarification on how we would handle the complaints. And as well as some noise impacts and how distinction of incidental commercial use, tethering limitations and to consider cultural and religious consideration. And in September, Planning Commission hosted also an information workshop countywide. Very similar concern was also received on this one regards to the rooster allowances and neighborhood compatibility, as well as the use permit burden and the noise concern with the public health impacts.

We did provide information from the county code by our director of animal care services. And I do want to note that following the workshop, staff met with additional stakeholders, including cultural organizations to really balance to learn and balance the agriculture needs, community compatibility, and public health and safety. And from this time to November, staff really kinda looked back to the all the comments that we received and really rewrote about the ordinance. And we hosted another workshop in November to the community. On here, we got some of the feedback that we got.

So, on here, as I mentioned, the enforcement timing was changed to a complaint based. We are addressing the noise in the residential zone, but I do want to note that in agriculture and agricultural residential zones, the right to farm still remains. We have increased the maximum rooster allowance based on lot size up to 50 roosters. We have separated the RD 4, RD five, RD seven allowances relative to the agricultural and agricultural residential allowances. We have removed the use permit requirement for education program, and I do want to note that the registration process is also not required for the education program.

And, this registration process really allows any legitimate keeper of roosters to exceed the standard rooster limit as long as they meet the general standards keeping of roosters. We did get some feedback on this draft from the community members. We had a question whether the proposed limits were appropriate. We had a concern about the noise impact whether it would be adequately addressed in residential neighborhood which we are going to use our county noise ordinance. Then we had also request to curb illegal activities and to recognize religious culture uses for production.

And we also had comments just opposing general opposition to any limits of roosters. With that being said, we did get some public speakers that did acknowledge the changes between the August and November draft as well. To quickly go over some of the concerns that were raised, like I mentioned, the noise is being addressed through our residential zone standards. The free registration process does allow any legitimate users to exceed the standard limits without a use permit or any cost involved. Egg laying hens and commercial poultry are not affected by this amendment.

This ordinance is really to aim broader public health, land use compatibility beyond the enforcement of illegal activities. And as I mentioned, the three eleven data also shows that the we do have a current fall problem really all over our urbanized county area as well. So, we went back to our AAC in 12/10/2025 and reintroduced the November version of the draft to our AAC members. I won't go over the same since I just mentioned in the last slide. But I'll do talk about some of the discussion and feedback that we do see from our AAC meeting.

They were generally they thought the limits that we had were generally reasonable for non commercial situations. They did have a concern that even maybe a five rooster could still create a nuisance impact, especially on parcels that are either less than an acre or half an acre, which is the reason I did provide an option for you for the table one that I talked to you about previously. They supported the complaint based and gradual compliance rather than starting, you know, thirty days after adoption of the program. We did receive the tethering concerns. However, that is part of the county code and the zoning code amendment does not touch on the tethering at this time.

We did also receive public comments from the public at the AAC meeting. Hmong community had concerns regards to the religious practices. We also had comments from the Gainfall Preservation Group and local fees for owner, as well as some of the residents and former four H leaders and participants. Our committee emphasized the need for the solutions focused feedback to the staff rather than general objections, and voted five one to recommend the proposed zoning code with directing county staff to continue the public outreach and provide planning commission with updates. We did we did reach out to the stakeholder groups for additional comments, but at this time, we have not yet received any additional comments other than what was already raised previously.

I want to continue on some of the analysis on the rooster ratio and the rooster numbers that county staff has researched. Both the other jurisdiction and recommendation from various cooperative extensions, university, and agricultural organizations. My apologies for the such a small fonts here. I do want to say that the Placer County does allow 20 poultry per acre only when they are in agriculture combining zone. Our ordinance, the Sacramento County ordinance is the most flexible as we do allow free registration program to exceed the numbers.

Some of the counties just outright bans in all residential zones. However, we still do allow roosters in our residential zones. So, this is the distinction between the county jurisdictions. I also have some information on the cities. City is of Sacramento.

Sacramento, research is not allowed. In many cities in residential zones, the research are also not allowed as well. And again, county is providing a no cost registration process to exceed the numbers of roosters or reduce the lot size limitation. And we also looked at the rooster to hand ratios. There were various paper, you know, looking at six or 16.

We also heard from eight to 12. But we picked the middle number 10. The average was one to 10 rooster. Roosters are generally not required for egg laying hens, however they do have potential benefits such as protection, increased egg production, and repopulating the flock. Too many rooster could also cause a problem and also cause some stress anxiety among the head as well.

It could also provide some increased potential for infection and other illnesses if the basic management practice are not kept. So based on these ratios, based on the best management practice, if you have 40 acres, you may have up to 500 hens. And again, this number is not looking at the roosters, but the hens that's allowed. And even in r d four through r d seven, a lot of hens would be still allowed with at the rooster limit. Again, I do want to emphasize that there will not be limitations on hen, but just wanted to provide some of the best managed practice and how many roosters versus the hens that could be support.

With that being said, other than certain types of specialty breeder, staff have not received any comments specific to the adequate ratio for flock health, we do know that if they are raising more than one breed or rare breed or rare bantam species or if they're looking at conservations to keep the species alive, They do need a higher ratio. However, other than that, we have not heard any specific numbers that works for a lot of people. And in conclusion, we do believe that current limitation, the number that we are proposing, which is up to 50 at 40 acres, is more than adequate to accommodate the needs of individual household as an incidental keeping of animals. Again, the education program will not be subject to use permit or registration, but specialty breeder exhibitor or other legitimate purpose may exceed the number of roosters through our registration program. Staff did an invite in notice of exemption for the environmental review as a general rule exemption.

This proposed amendment only consists of regulatory changes that clarify and modify the development standard for the incidental keeping of current file. This amendment does not authorize new development, does not expand allowable land uses and does not facilitate physical construction activities. This is limited to administrative and regulatory amendment that govern the incidence of keeping of animals and does not result in any physical change to the environment nor create any necessary sorry, any reasonable foreseeable indirect physical environmental effect. Before I move on to the planning staff recommendation, I do want to provide some of the next steps. The next step would be the Board of Supervisor, which we do have tentatively scheduled for March 24.

Staff is still open to we are still getting open to any public comments that we may have. So, send any comments to me or any of our staff here. So with that, planning and staff is recommending the Planning Commission make the following recommendation to the Board of Supervisor. To determine the notice of exemption is adequate and complete and to approve the ordinance amending chapters three, five and seven of the Sacramento County zoning code. Again, and Chris is here to help me answer any questions and I'm also here to answer any of the questions that your commission may have. And, that does conclude my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Choi. Very thorough. I'll turn it back to the rest of the commissioners if you have any questions for staff at this time.

Yes. Thank you for that presentation. Very detailed, thorough. Can you talk a little bit about the registration process and what that's gonna look like?

Sure. I'm gonna have Chris help me with this question. But this is really intended for a very simple registration, no cost. What we're going to be asking for is what they're raising, what they're raising for. So, are they raising their roost for exhibition or breeding, or are they doing for 4H even though it's not required? And, they will be asking for how many roosters they have and a simple site plan of where they will be keeping their animals to their property line and to any existing structures that they have. Chris, do you want to add any other items at the registration process?

Good evening. Chris Flores, Ag Commissioner for Sac County. So we thought of the registration process as being something similar to what we've done in my department with bees. So we register currently apiaries, all the beehives in the county. And so it's a we would as Young mentioned, it would be free of charge.

And what I collect is, like he mentioned, contact information, location, number of roosters, the breed, maybe what they're what they're why they have them, if if there is a specific reason, like cultural reasons, religious reasons, breeding, specialty breeding, showing. And we would ensure that they're following best management practices and that the roosters are being cared for in accordance with our animal welfare. Know? And so, you know, we haven't done this before. It's a little new.

Right? But I would model it after our registration process for bees. So we have something to kind of follow. Okay.

Yeah. So cultural reasons would also be Yes. What? Okay. Mhmm. Okay. Perfect. And then I'm just curious about I'm looking at this diagram that was provided. I'm just curious looking at the zoning districts here, five roosters, 25, 50. Is there a sense of the ones that are 50 plus calls or 21 to 50 calls, what zoning districts those might be?

I don't have that details with me. Majority of the lots were found to be over 10,000 square feet.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions? Commissioner. Just a couple of follow-up, miss Troy. I feel like we we haven't had a chance to really discuss, like, big elephant in the room, which is cockfighting. I think I'm just gonna say that's right. Straight up. What what kind of coordination and input have you received from either the sheriff or the animal control services? What kind of feedback do we have from that?

Sure. It's unfortunate our lieutenant Greg Richford are not able to make it tonight, but they did share some of the enforcement difficulty with our department during some of the many of the stakeholder meetings. At this time, the sheriff cannot act on cockfighting unless they see the activity happening. Even if they know the potential or if they know where it's going to happen unless they catch them in the act, their hands are pretty much tied. At this time, they do suspect certain areas to potentially hold cockfighting.

But with our current ordinance, we do not have any mechanism to assist Sacramento sheriff or a court enforcement with the keeping of roosters as as long as they have 10,000 square feet, they're allowed to have roosters. Understood. You. Wendy, do you have and Todd has additional

Commissioner comments to Borja, excellent question. As Young noted, Lieutenant Guric was not able to be here, he has been engaged throughout this process from the very beginning at the first Ag Advisory Committee or Commission meeting, as well as our Director of Animal Care Services. She has been working behind the scenes with Chris Flores and others on the county code side of this.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

And if I may, we've also had several meetings with our code enforcement officers because they have assisted at times with both animal care and sheriff in some of these complaint issues that we've received.

Thank you, Ms. Hartman.

Just a general question. I guess lieutenant is not here, to my memory, cockfighting is still considered a misdemeanor. Right?

I I know it's illegal. I don't know whether it's a felony or a misdemeanor.

Yeah. If I remember correctly, it's a misdemeanor, but that's it's been years ago since I remembered going through that.

Thank you Commissioner Berger. And if we don't seem to have any questions at this time, I do welcome the clerk or the public to provide their comments.

And, we do have seven individuals signed up for public comment. And, the first speaker is B. Yang.

Hello, all. My name is B. Yang of J. B. Oriental Bantam Game Farm. I'm a advocator for our Hmong community regarding bill AB nine twenty eight that previously did not pass in the senate. The author Chris Roger requested to cancel and pull the bill on 07/01/2025. I previous also wrote article for the Fresno Bee back in 06/25/2025. I'm also a member of the APG California Association for the Preservation of Game File. Before I start, I want to state empathetically that we are against cockfighting and we support legitimate efforts to prosecute those who engage in those types of activities.

Impeeding my rights to practice my religion here in The United States and more so here in Sacramento County is basically a violation of the oath. You all are sitting here today and has sworn into the line of duty. We, the Hmong community, use these roosters to see and see these roosters just as they say, see how important the bald eagle is to them. We cannot specify how many roosters we need because we use them to cure and to seek our ancestors, to help protect our well-being. If you can tell me how many times you are being sick going to be sick, then maybe we can determine how many roosters we need in the Hmong community.

There are at least a minimum of 11 key factors on why roosters are important to the Hmong community. The color of each roosters are being used for specific reasonings in our religious belief. Keep in mind that this violation of religious rights will also impact Catholic, Christians, Buddhists. If we all allow government to impede one religious group, they'll impede upon other religious group. Now, this is a violation of my first amendment right, which is a freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion.

Also, violates my fourth amendment protection, my fifth amendment, my eighth amendment, and my fourteenth amendment. California penal code six zero two, also known as a criminal trespass statue, makes it a misdemeanor to enter or remain on someone else's property without permission. California constitution's article one section one also states that all people by nature are free to impede, independent, and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoyable and defending life, liberty, acquiring, possessing, protecting property, and pursuing, obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy. Looks like my time is up, so I'll just pass on there. I'll go and email my proceeding notes over.

Thank you, mister Yang.

Next speaker is Dow Yang.

Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Dow Yang and I am honored to appear before you guys today as the President of the Mall community Sacramento here. And I represent nearly 50,000 mall residents who live in Sacramento County. And I would like to first acknowledge and respect the Board's intention behind the proposed ordinance to limit the number of groups within the county. We understand that the goal is to reduce a nuisance like with noise concern and promote community harmony.

The Munki community shared this commitment and strive to be responsible and respectful neighbors. However, I have I'm here to respectfully express our serious concern that this ordinance as proposed will have significant and unintended consequences on the cultural, religious and economic life of the hood of Hmong people. For the Hmong community, roosters are not mere animal based for convenience, but it's actually they are essential and sacred components of our religious and cultural practices. Rooster are required for weddings, funerals, healing ceremonies and other traditional rituals that have been practiced by our ancestors for thousands of years. And these traditional these traditions are not optional.

They're actually the foundational to our identity and also spiritual beliefs. Given the size of our community, the need for Russo's to fulfill these cultural obligations is substantial, limiting the number of Russo's individual being raised would make it extremely difficult for families to continue to practice their faith and traditions. And this would place a disproportionate burden on our community and effectively limit our ability to practice or preserve our culture. So I'm here to ask the commissioners to actually think about that as well before you guys making the decision to amend this, because this is part of our culture and we'd like to work with you guys to make sure that it actually works with that city. Same time it also works for our community as well.

We're not here to against it, but we're here to work with you to make sure that this audience will come out and support the entire community overall. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Catherine Plummer.

Good evening. My name is Catherine Plummer. I have been raising and showing fancy exhibition chicken since 1988. I oppose this ordinance. It's trying to tackle noise concerns and cockfighting at once, but does not directly deal with either of those issues.

The people that it will affect mostly are the legit breeders like me. People breeding chickens for show usually have several different breeds and color varieties. To maintain genetic diversity, one must have several roosters of each breed. So that number can vary a lot over the year anywhere from single digits to well over a 100 if you wanna count the babies. In regards to cockfighting, solutions that have been suggested are other than a cap on the number of roosters one can own are to increase the penalty for cockfighting or to set up a tip line and a reward system since currently the only way to catch a fight is in the act.

If this ordinance is indeed about noise, why not treat noise complaints as noise? While roosters can't be told to stop crowing, the noise level can be mitigated by the way they are housed or in select cases perhaps by reducing the number of birds. But I feel that this is something that should be evaluated on a case by case basis, not with an assumption that everyone with multiple roosters is causing a noise problem. Does cockfighting need

to be

addressed? Absolutely. Yes. And I support the increased prosecution of animal cruelty crimes. Are there sometimes noise issues because of roosters? Again, absolutely. Yes. And you're gonna hear from people who have legitimate concerns. But I feel that nothing in this ordinance specifically addresses cockfighting or noise. While the underlying premise has lots of merit, and I do appreciate the progress that has been been made on this ordinance, I don't feel this version is quite ready for it to be the way to go about it. Lastly, today is my birthday, and I'm asking you to vote no for me. This ordinance just isn't quite there. We need something that will target the problem without interfering with the lives and hobbies of people who are doing nothing wrong. Thank you.

Thank you, and happy birthday.

The next speaker is Sue Zhong.

Good evening. My name is Sue. And today, I'm here to represent our California MOOC Chamber of Commerce. At the same time, I'm a proud owner of a retail business store, animal feed store in the Sacramento County. I have a little a letter here for you all. And if I don't have time, I'll have copies. Okay? Dear Commissioner, we are the California MONC Chamber of Commerce headquartered in the state of Capital Region. Our member consists of small business owner across the state and position and the position stated here is that of our members. We are writing on behalf of community stakeholder to express strong opposing to the proposed ordinance to keep roosters within Sacramento County.

We respectfully urge the commissions to reject or substantially revise the proposal, which raised serious constitutional concerns and proposed practical difficulties for communities whose cultures and religious practice depends on the roosters. Under the First Amendment Freedom, the Hmong community in Sacramento County, among other, practice religious rituals that improve that involves roosters as part of ceremony activities and ongoing observances. An ordinance limit rooster would impose a financial burden on families seeking their exercise their sincerely held religious belief. The constitution protects free exercise of religion. Local ordinance must be religiously neutral and generally applicable.

When they are not, they are subject to strict certainty. Court has held that laws which singles out or disproportionately affect religious practice cannot stand unless they advise a compelling interest and are the latest restrictive means of doing so. A rooster orange that has an effect of burdens to the Hmong religious ceremony will fail this test. It directly employs free exercise without demonstrating that the country has adopted the latest restrictive means. Why it interferes with Hmong religious practice and culture?

For the Hmong community, rooster are integral for ceremony offering and daily religious expression. Restricting the number of roosters will intrude on these practices, effectively pricing out families and undermining long standing cultures and spiritual custom. The ordinance is a draft risk disproportionately impacting minorities religious communities, raising equal protection and free exercise concern and fostering unnecessary cultures divisions.

Sir, if you can wrap up so we can get the other speakers.

Thank you.

I have a copy for you guys.

Appreciate it, sir. Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Vince Van Akeed.

Hi, my name is Vince Baniquide. And I'm a game foul enthusiast and hobbyist. And so, I raise a bunch of game foul in order to sit there and show them at shows. Well, there are standards that you have to sit there and take when showing these birds. I sit there and raise different fouls, colors based on different leg colors.

You'll sit there and see white roosters, red roosters, gray roosters, brass back roosters. There's different categories for these roosters and everything like that. And, we have to raise abundance of these roosters in order for them to be flawless. You know, when you sit there and hatch a baby and stuff like that, it's not you can sit there and raise it, and as it grows, if it sits there and perches on the roast wrong, it can develop a crooked breast, crooked toes. And the standards, when you show these birds, if they don't follow in those standards, then they're disqualified.

I sat there and showed birds at the state fair and didn't properly dub the combs and everything like that, meaning cutting it up and cleaning it out. And so, I got disqualified, and they explained to me that you had to follow these criterias in order to show the birds and not disqualify. They also sit there and go after, like, if you enter it into the wrong category, they disqualify you. So, I know they sit there and want to limit us for noise ordinance and everything like that, but I think, you know, to me personally, they're just going they're trying to sit there and limit us and say that we're all cockfighters that raise all these birds, which is wrong. Know, if they want to sit there and go after the cock fighters, go after the cock fighters.

Make it if it's I think Mr. Tim sat there and said that it's a misdemeanor, then make it a felony. You know, go after those guys. Don't penalize me. Don't sit there and say, hey, you know what? He has a 100 roosters. He's a cockfighter. Come on. You know, I enjoy this. It's it's my hobby and stuff like that.

It also affects people that sit the farmers that grow the grains. It also affects the people that own feed stores and everything like that. It affects the economy. So, I mean, if they're going after the noise and everything like that, have they compared the rooster crowing to a diesel truck to to an airplane, to the rice rockets that go down the streets and everything like that, and the modified cars that are excessively loud motor motorcycles. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

The next speaker is Robert Schmidt.

Yep. Yep. Okay. I'm if you can see in the time frame on this, this video was taken this morning at 04:30 this morning. This is in my backyard outside my bedroom. So I'll start the process. Unfortunately, can't get the sound to work. Let you talk for minute, see if I can get this going.

Okay. Good evening. My name is Nancy Dewey. Bob is my neighbor. I live directly behind the property that has over 200 plus roosters. The video that you're going to hear in a few minutes will show you the trauma we go through every day. First of all, let me start over and say, I wanna thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. We're happy to know that Sacramento County is working on the crowing foul ordinance. And you got it? No. Okay. Our neighbors oh, you just got it now.

Well, this is this is over a year ago, 01/05/2024. This compound was put up in less than two months. And since then, we listen to this twenty four hours a day, every day of the week. There's over 200 roosters in this compound all along the wooden fence. There's roosters every three feet.

We cannot get away from this sound. I'll try to see if I can get the other one. Go ahead. This is my bedroom. This is right outside my door.

We listen to this, like I say, every day. One of the things about this new code, religious breeders for it for sure are exempt in this code. These people have their ideas. But remember, it is exempt for you. It is still ahead of the process.

For us, it's not exempt. We have to live with this, and we've been fighting this. In fact, my wife and I and Nancy are the ones who brought this up brought this up over two years ago. They brought it to the city, the planning, everybody else with a petition of 19 people in our neighborhood that complained about the noise. And so we want you to vote yes on this and put the misery that we have to go through for the last two years out.

I wanna finish by saying, you can't begin to imagine the torment we have to listen to crowing fall each and every morning throughout the day and night. We take refuge in our homes with our windows and doors closed twenty four seven for over two years. And my husband and I are in our mid seventies. We have essentially lost over two years of our lives, and we'll never get that time back. Family no longer comes to visit us.

We no longer have gatherings with family or celebrations. They can't handle the noise either. And I hope and I pray that you will stop this property owner before spring or summer, this next spring or summer, before the pathogens, odors, and flies start hanging out in our backyard clinging to my doors again, which they do every warm weather season. Thank you. That's all I had to say.

Yeah. This is a fine thing, and I see Todd Smith on here.

Mister mister Smith, out out of just respect of the quorum and our our process we've allocated instead of time, I I Okay. If you could please give the clerk a copy of that, and then we can follow follow-up with you and enter that into into the record. Thank thank you both, mister Smith and miss miss True. Madam clerk, does that conclude our current list of speakers?

That does. Yes.

That we'll was now bring it back to the actual city applicant, which would be our county staff, if you guys would be able to join us or the comfort of the bench works too. I feel like we've maybe I can get started. I feel like we have a very clear concern of potentially catching folks that may may not be the intended may not be the intended target of this ordinance. I do think it's critical for us to make sure that we don't impede religious and cultural rights. With that regard, I was wondering for the staff, if you could please walk us through what in their current process or your intended process if you could walk us through with the community members, how you would, you know, one, maintain and ensure that we're respecting and protecting, you know, cultural and religious autonomy.

And two, to make sure that legitimate breeders are folks that are able to do this as both as a hobby and also as a business, assuming that they're not cockfighting, how they may not be unintended consequences for this change.

Sure. Todd, do you want me to start? So first of all, the biggest change we made was this ordinance, if passed as proposed, will be complaint driven. That's very different than how most of our code updates work, where most of our code updates, the minute that the code becomes effectuated, you have to come into compliance. In this case, it is is complaint based, which means if you are operating and maintaining your flock in such a manner that you are not creating an undue nuisance to your neighbors, chances are we will never know about it because we will not receive a complaint about it.

For those that we do receive a complaint, and as your commission has seen, we have received quite a number of complaints, It would allow our code enforcement and or animal care services to go out there depending on what the type of complaint is. If it's just over the number of roosters, it would probably be our code enforcement. If it's more about the humane treatment, would be more likely our animal care services. So for the zoning code, we focus more on land use compatibility. So our code enforcement officers would go out there and they would verify that the complaint was legitimate, and they would try to educate the property owner on what our ordinance is.

To that end, what we've been very successful with in a couple other ordinance amendments is creating educational documents. So once the board does take action and we know specifically what the provisions are that are adopted, we are prepared to create some handouts or flyers in various languages. Our code enforcement officers office does have folks who are fluent in Hmong as well as Spanish, and so we plan on having them at least in those three languages, English, Spanish, and Hmong, so that the inspectors out in the field can share that information on what the requirements are and give the person an opportunity to come into compliance. If that property owner is making an effort, so, for example, let's just say they have 20 roosters and they're only allowed to have 10. Code enforcement would work with them on a reasonable time frame to get down to the 10 that they're allowed to have because we don't want them just dumping them, getting rid of them in some some fashion that could be inhumane.

So we wanna work with the property owner for them to come into compliance. Alternatively, if they are someone who has 20 and they're only allowed to have 10 and they're a breeder, an exhibitor, or they indicate that for cultural or religious purposes, they have these additional roosters, then we would assist them in how to register with the agricultural commissioner's office, which we will also be able to have any forms that she has translated into those languages as well. So being complaint driven, you don't have to register automatically. If there's no complaint, you just keep doing what you've been doing.

Understood. Thank you. Com commissioner Flores, did you wanna add something?

Yeah. I was just gonna add. I think one of the the other issues is that if it if it was complaint driven and we're going out to the site for a reason, then we would try to probably work with them to eliminate, right, the reason for the complaint, if we could. And so maybe that's just establishing some best management practices for the site. So looking at those as well.

Okay. Would it be safe to assume that we are looking at this even though it's procedurally kind of a uniform, but it's still a case by case basis? Meaning that if I were to practice religion and my shaman would need to have a number of roosters, but let's say my shaman's neighbor does not like the religion that we are practicing. How do you then delineate where there's cultural sensitivity and religious freedom versus, you know, trying to enforce the law?

I think some of that is just gathering the information from the person on why why they have the additional roosters and stuff like that. And I think that's part of the registration program too. They can list, you know, the reasons why they need the additional roosters. Our biggest thing is also then to Chris Flores' point is making sure that even if we say, yes. You we agree that for your religious purposes or your breeding purposes or whatever, you can have these additional ones, it still does not exempt that person from ensuring that they're caring for those those animals in a humane way and that they're doing what they need to do to ensure that dust, flies, odors, and stuff like that are not being maintained through best management practices.

So some of that gets into where the education component would occur and whether that's through the agricultural commissioner's office, animal care, or code enforcement. So there are sections in the proposed zoning code that do talk about some of those best management practices. More of it falls under the county code because that's really kind of where there's the separation between zoning is about land use compatibility to a large degree, and the county code talks more about kind of some of the illegal aspects of things that that the county can can regulate.

I think one thing to add to that, to your question, commissioner Borja, is not all the education component would have to be with the property owner or tenant, whatever the case may be, who holds the rooster. Some of that goes to the complaining party to educate them about the variety of cultural practices that are different from their own. They may not fully understand what's going on and they don't necessarily need to but they need to understand that religious practices are protected. Sometimes that can get a little sticky from an enforcement perspective, but that's something we have to balance as well.

Thank you. Mister Choi mentioned that there's a potential appeals process as well on this. Is is that correct? I think in one of your slides.

I wanted to clarify that section pertains to the enforcement section in our ordinance. So it's not the appeal of the the registration process. So it would be that if our planning director finds that certain property is having a nuisance that we just cannot work with the property owner. So again, as Wendy mentioned, we will do our best to work with the property owner so they could reduce the number or they could fix the violation. In very rare cases, we do have sometimes go through a process where we just cannot work with the property owners.

In that case, we do have mechanism for planning directors to appeal us to basically get rid of their registration process or or to require them to do certain things. In that way, that the process is that they could appeal the planning director's determination that he made, and that goes to the board of appeals for the appeal for that.

You. Commissioner Parker?

Yes, I just have a question. How would this make it clearer if you can, how this new changes would affect our last individuals who were giving us very good footage as to what it's really like to live through. How does what we have done address their issues or what we will be doing address their issues?

So we already have that complaint. That was one of the properties that was the genesis of this effort. So I think the Ms. Dewey and Mr. Schmidt alluded to. We will then, as a result of that complaint, go out with the appropriate parties, whether it's code enforcement or animal care, etcetera, to visit that site and take enforcement action.

So in that manner, would enforcement action would mean is that that's not a registration, right? Would you have them register all those animals and then deal with it after registration?

At this point, we don't I can't say for certain that they can qualify for registration.

Okay. And then if they don't qualify,

what do we do? Then they need to come into compliance with the code requirements. I think that property is AR5, if I'm not mistaken. They obviously can't have that number of roosters.

You would use a normal mechanism to have someone come into compliance with the COVID requirements?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Torres Habanana.

Yes.

Thank you. I just want to follow-up on the question I asked earlier about the registration process for cultural purposes. I was looking at the material that we have, and I don't see that specified. I mean, maybe I missed it, but it it talks about hobbyists, breeders, independent exhibitors, or individuals maintaining poultry for other legitimate purposes? But it doesn't really speak to cultural reasons.

So the individual maintaining poultry for other legitimate purpose will include culture and religious purposes. Yeah. Purposely kept it very broad, not to limit on cultural religious purposes. So, any culture or religious would fall into a legitimate purpose as determined by our commissioner's office.

What is the reason to keep it vague and not include it there?

There was some indication from our county council, not your county council, that keeping it vague was better. There was some concern if we called out specific religions, religious practices change. There's also some regulations under our LUPA, which is the Religious Land Use and Something Act about basically just treating people the same, which they felt that because we weren't specifically calling out religion and we were basically saying regardless of why you are keeping them, if you show it's for a legitimate purpose, that that's how we stayed in concert with some of those provisions versus specifically calling out certain cultures or or religions.

Okay. Thank you.

What I'm just interested, Hartman and and director Smith. What might be our mechanism of looking back? Let's say if we were to make this move and that the board was to pass it, what is our kind of our intention to close the feedback loop with the community and say, look, in two years, we've made this change or in one year, we've made this change. How do we measure success and how do

we make sure that we do not inadvertently again pinch the folks that are law abiding or they're just practicing their cultural beliefs and practices? Good question. Commissioner Borja, I'll take that one. We have built into our processes that we're doing in the last couple of years, these kind of internal trying to think of a nice way to say it, just a review of what we're doing and is it working. It's some people call it a postmortem, an after action evaluation, whatever you want to call it, where whether it's six months out, a year out, whatever the frequency needs to be, we ask ourselves as a result of this change in the code, the zoning code in this case, is it effective in what we set out to do?

And so we expect to be doing that on this one and a number of other zoning code amendments that we're working on. And we can always come back and make fixes through the normal zoning code amendment process to address whatever challenges might come up if we find that it's not working as intended, if we identify new issues that are coming up that we didn't think of or didn't receive feedback on as a result of all the outreach over the last two years. That's our mechanism for looking forward into the future while also looking back at what's working and what isn't.

Thank you. Appreciate that. I guess another follow-up question. As far as like educating both the public and then the folks that are making complaints, what is our I guess, what is our intention or our our commitment to the community that we're also gonna be educating our own internal staff, whether Sacramento County Enforcement, Animal Cult Services, or the Office of the Agricultural Commissioners so that we do recognize that there are cultural sensitivities and religious sensitivities when it comes to passing this. Do you mind just sharing a couple of things about, you know, maybe understanding where one might be improper and one might be appropriate versus, you know, the opposite.

Go ahead.

Okay. So, I work with the Hmong community already through the agricultural, you know, industry and what we do, the farms, the small farms. We I have a couple of colleagues over at UC Cooperative Extension who are Hmong and work directly with the Hmong community as well. And so we have actually done some staff training around the Hmong culture and the Mian culture. And I will be doing that kind of around this rooster issue as well.

And I've learned a lot through this process, things that I didn't know. And so we're always continually educating staff about cultural differences, and that's that's one of my big, you know, points that I like to share with staff and make sure that we are conscientious of those when we go out in the field and we're working with different people. So, yeah, thank you for the question.

I'm going add to that. I think that opportunity is also one that can be shared with our code enforcement group that are in the field day in, day out working with all sorts of folks. So, I'll we know how to get in touch.

Do we have any other further questions from the dais? Procedurally, Director Smith and Mr. Troy, we have a staff recommendation here if I recall correctly. And then there is also in parallel enforcement that is going directly to the board of supervisors is that correct?

The county code amendment is going directly to the board this zoning code piece comes up for the planning commission before it comes to the board And so we needed to come here first before the two come back together for the board. I think Young also mentioned some differences in the max number of roosters if the commission wanted to entertain those or not.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I was gonna ask him to put up the chart.

Yeah. Yeah. We did receive a formal recommendation. You it was in your packet from the agricultural advisory committee and on the slide, and I'll let Young go ahead and and talk about what their recommendation was because they felt that staff's recommendation was a little high in the RD zones.

So I'll first go with the staff recommendation on RD four, RD five, and RD seven, then talk about the AAC's recommendation on RD four, RD five, and RD seven. So the county's original recommendation was to keep it in just two brackets, which is 10,000 square feet to one acre, which allows up to three roosters or one acre or larger, which will allow up to 10 roosters with each requiring 10,000 square feet. The difference with the AAC's version is that they wanted to create a different additional tier, is between half acre, which is 10,000 to half acre and half acre to one acre and one acre or larger. So the AAC's recommendation was that if you have 10,000 square feet to half acre, you have maximum of two roosters. And if you have between half acre and one acre, that would be three roosters.

If you have one acre larger, there'll be three roosters would not exceed 10 with one additional 10,000 square feet. Or alternatively, the Planning Commission could also make a separate number recommendation as well.

Do we have any feedbacks from the commission? Questions? No. If you can go back to that chart. These are the proposed numbers by the Agriculture Commissioner or by staff.

There's a little bit of both. It's mixed in into the second column, which is RD four, RD five, and RD seven. So, the very first two, which is 10,000 to half acre, twenty one thousand seven eight hundred square feet. That is the recommendation from the AAC, which is to keep it at two roosters. Additional one is a half acre to one acre, will be maximum of three roosters by the AAC. County staff's version did not separate between 10,000 square feet or half acre or half acre to one acre. So the AAC's version kind of creates a separation between half acre mark.

Understood.

Unless have more questions I'm ready to make a motion on this issue.

Any commissioner comments?

I just have a comment yes I think as we appreciate all the work that has been put into this for over a year I guess over a year I think as it goes forward I believe that this should specify cultural purposes and cultural reasons and making sure that' clear and not left up to interpretation into the future or at this moment. And so for me, I think I' like for it to specify that as it goes forward.

So, I'll make the motion that we move forward with this as presented by staff with the AAC recommendations and with further commissioners concern about adding clarification in terms of the religious aspect of that process the process.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Before I vote I would like to appreciate or at least extend my appreciation to everyone that came out here and sent letters and the organizations that also represent a number of your community members about this. This has been an educational opportunity, but I've also had the chance to drive over to kind of Mr. Dwight's and Ms. Dyer's neighborhood to really see the issue.

That's really actually kind of close by to where I live, and I didn't realize how extensive the potential Asian problem is. So I appreciate you guys coming over here and sharing. I think collectively, we could agree, at least from what I'm hearing from the public comments and also from the staff recommendation that talk fighting is indeed bad. The issue and the conundrum that we have here is that it's also a highly highly organized type of activity that knows the moment that we have a complaint that speed is of the essence and therefore the act of cockfighting is something that they're going to be stopping to do because then we would not be able to enforce. I think we feel like we've been circling around that issue and where the evidence is there.

I just caution this to staff, and again, I'm I'm very cognizant about the Hmong community and their concerns because we do not want to create an enforcement that unfortunately trances on religious freedom. And I think that from what I'm hearing from the staff recommendation that this would be a case by case basis. And that we, along with the legal review of the amendments being proposed, ensure that we are not one going against the constitution and or the rules that we have in the county and as the state and as this country, but also that we provide an opportunity or a vehicle for folks to really understand what a religious or a cultural importance of of the research can be. Same thing with the folks that are breeding that are trying to have legitimate businesses in their hand. And so I welcome that opportunity to continue that dialogue and hopefully that again, like my line of questioning says, have that feedback loop a year from now or two years from now to to make sure that we again continue this discussion with our community members, but also recognize that we would we don't want to inadvertently impact communities and make it a burden for them to practice their religion.

But also playing a little bit of devil's advocate, we don't want to inadvertently weaponize the code enforcement for folks that might be practicing a certain religion because of a difference in their beliefs. And so I'm very cognizant of that. And and the third, that we may not inadvertently use the cultural exemption as a way to continue having 200 or so flocks of birds and then still diminish the quality of life that some of our neighbors have shown here. So it's a fine balance, and I I I appreciate that you guys are willing to consider that. And thank you for bringing up the the perspectives from our sheriff's department and animal control services and all of the other organizations that have been working on this behind the scenes.

And so I think we do have a motion as presented and a second, and I think I'm ready to call for a vote.

And with all members present voting yes, that item does pass.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, are we ready for item number four?

Yes. Item number four is planning director's report.

Nothing this evening to report on. I do note that I think February is pretty light by way of commissioners. We'll be obviously moving forward to fill the vacancies on the planning commission. I know there are a couple of applicants in District 3 that the supervisor is considering but I don't know time frame as to when an appointment might be made.

Madam Clerk, are we ready for item number five?

Yes. Item number five is miscellaneous scheduling items and I currently have none.

Thank you. Okay. Ready to move on to item number six, public comments.

And I have not received any additional public comments.

Okay. With that, I'm closing our meeting at 07:28 p. M. Thank you very much.