Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Good morning and welcome to the Planning Commission meeting of November 20, 2025. Until further notice, Planning Commission meetings will be conducted pursuant to the provisions of California Government Code Section 54953A as amended by Assembly Bill 2249, which allows the public to participate in person as well as a hybrid format. This meeting will be livestreamed on the City of San Diego's Public Hearing YouTube channel and on CityTV. Members of the public using the hybrid format will be able to provide comments using the Zoom webinar platform. Members of the public who wish to provide testimony remotely must enter the virtual queue by clicking on the raised hand icon before the queue closes. The virtual queue will close five minutes after in-person testimony ends. Also per Section 2.6.2 of the Rules of Counsel, speakers participating virtually may not allocate their time to other speakers. Time can only be seated by speakers who are in the hearing room. Michael Prince will now go over the specifics of how the public can participate and give their public testimony.

Thank you, Chair Mourdain. If you are in person, please complete a speaker slip if you wish to speak. In-person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins. Members of the public can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link, which is listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the Planning Commission's webpage. or you may dial 1-669-254-5252. The webinar ID is 160-944-0367. Please note that if you are watching online, there may be a 30-second delay. Please participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak. Thank you.

I would now like to take roll call. As I call your name, please indicate if you are present. Commissioner Mazzari? Present. Commissioner Malbrough?

Present.

Commissioner Miyahara?

Present.

Commissioner Reeves?

Present.

Commissioner Renger? Present. Vice Chair Boomhauer?

Present.

Chair Modena is present. The staff members present with us today are Michael Prince, Assistant Deputy Director from Development Services. Marlon Pangilinan, Program Coordinator, City Planning Department. Corinne Neufer, Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney. Mehdi Khalili, Senior Civil Engineer and our legislative staff. We will now start our agenda with public comment for non-agenda items. This portion of the agenda is an opportunity for the public to make comments on planning related items that are not on today's agenda. Any person wishing to speak will have three minutes maximum to provide testimony. If you would like to speak, please click on the raised hand icon on your screen. David Mody, you'll have three minutes.

Thank you. Since I'm here, the public needs access to water. I'll say this every time I'm here until you actually deliver the water. Thank you.

Thank you. Dana, give it.

Thank you. I'm here representing myself. On October 9th, the chair admonished the college area community members for not coming before the planning commission sooner to register our dissatisfaction with the city's proposed community plan update. I am here to respectfully inform the chair and the commission that we did participate in every planning commission meeting and workshop on the college area community plan update. including those meetings on june 10 2021 november 12 2022 and march 13 2025 to support the community seven visions plan in addition to these meetings i also appeared before this commission on april 21st 2022 to discuss the availability of sandag series 14 data and the fact that the planning department was still relying on outdated series 13 data for the college area community plan update and other CPUs when the series 14 data was significantly different. I would like the record to show that the college area community members have consistently come before this commission to support their seven visions plan and oppose the city's aggressive and discriminatory college area community plan proposal. our appearance in these chambers on october 9th was not unusual but rather the continuation of our community's commitment to the seven visions plan it spent six years developing the chair's contention to the contrary was not consistent with the facts which a review of your minutes and videos makes clear thank you for this opportunity to correct the record paul krueger

You'll have three minutes.

Before I start, I want to be sure you have the two full screens that I sent both in web comment and to Mr. Prince. the first one I'd like you to show is the title November 9th 2025 planning commission meeting vice chair Matthew Boomhauer could you please enlarge it so that the audience can read it a little larger please Thank you. On November 9th, Mr. Boomhauer, you said the following, if members of the public during public testimony are making threats that could be intended to influence a decision by an appointed board or body, is that something they should be warned against? To which the assistant city attorney said, are you talking about threats of litigation? Potentially, you answered, or just, I don't know, designating a project that a member of the board might have in process. Your effort to silence any member of this audience, any member of the public who comes to talk to this board, your effort to warn them about any protected speech is completely unacceptable. You owe your fellow board members, everyone in this audience and everyone that heard your statement an apology. You owe the mayor an apology and you owe the city council apology because they approved your appointment. You're an attorney. so let's look at the next slide please and i expect my time to be restored well I gave you a full day to prepare for this. Could you please enlarge? Thank you. This is a summary of what's allowed in public comment at any government board or agency. Public comments that are not allowed at public meetings typically include those that are disruptive. Was it disruptive? Those that are personal attacks, was there any personal attacks? Those that are threatening. And just so we all know, threatening means to allege a physical harm, to allege a threat of imprisonment. It does not involve a threat of a lawsuit. And I can stand up here and tell each and every one of you that I am going to sue you. And you cannot in any way make any effort to try to quiet me. obscene or irrelevant to the agenda other prohibited comments include include those that are defamatory harassing or violate the rules of decorum established by the governing body such as excessive length or speaking out of turn which we of course know is not the case Your comments, in fact, were worse because they weren't even directed specifically at whatever person you alleged said them. You didn't single out a person, so you left everybody in this audience wondering who was it who said what. So I'm going to say again, There's nothing more privileged, more respected in this country than the ability of people to speak out to their elected and appointed officials. And any effort to quiet or intimidate them is beyond reproach. I also want to take just one moment to thank the Assistant City Attorney who made a point of saying, we err on the side of allowing comment. Thank you.

Please refrain from clapping. I believe we have one online speaker.

Alexander Greiner, please unmute yourself. You will have three minutes.

Yes, good morning. I usually don't attend the meetings, but I appreciate you just hearing my concerns. I live in Vista La Jolla, which is a little community of 56 homes abutting the ice ring. And I just... we're not against any development we're just humbly asking that of all the divisions the lot number nine remains smaller so we don't have a 23 story building potentially there that casts really i mean the houses in our neighborhood sir excuse me are you referring to item one on the agenda sorry to interrupt i i apologize i i i have the minute late i didn't know we had an order i don't have the agenda

Okay, are you speaking to the Sarah Tosh? Yeah, the Sarah Tosh project? Yes, sir. Okay, that is this is non agenda comment. Since that is on the agenda. You have to wait until that item is presented. Speak on that. Thank you. We will call you then. Thank you.

Doreen Diaz.

During this here from Hammershaw, and once again, I'm trying to ask for equity. I have emailed Marlin Pangolini, the planning commission, Heidi Vaughn Bloom district for about having. the fact that the city is not following community plans they're not following the skyline paradise hills community plan they actually have and even when mr marble was a president on the skyline paradise hills community you were not a president Oh, and can't oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I thought you were the 1 there. So correction. So, all the way back to 2010, all the way back to 1994, when they name a re, Wyman park, they did not do amendment to the community plan. And 2021, whoever was on this board in 2021, when they did the approval of the Black Arts District, they did not do an amendment to the community plan. That area between Woodman and 69th is called Incantata in the community plan. No amendment was done. When the bylaw map, which is inaccurate, was approved in 2015, that bylaw map was not amended into the community plan. We have six communities in Hammershaw. Hammershaw is separate from Lameda. There's no such thing as Hammershaw-Lameda, and every single one of your maps is inaccurate, Hammershaw-Lameda. The District 4 neighborhood map, the blueprint, the master mobility plans, and all the other maps that you were using. There's over 42 other maps that are using your inaccurate district Data it's offensive. It's disrespectful. And frankly, any of you on this board, how are you making decisions when you don't even know the names of neighborhoods? I found a 4456 difference in residents between the 2021 demographics on your website and the 20. THERE WAS TWO DIFFERENT ONES. SAN DIEGO DEMOGRAPHICS AND THE OTHER ONE WAS SAN DIEGO COMMUNITIES. BOTH OF THEM DO NOT MATCH FOR THE NUMBER OF RESIDENTS. IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE NUMBER OF RESIDENTS AND Your council districts, how are you approving parks? How are you approving anything with this false data? You should be embarrassed. I would be embarrassed to be sitting up here when you have maps that don't comply with the community plan. You should be embarrassed. The mayor should be embarrassed. Thank you.

Okay, that concludes public comment for non-agenda items. Are there any items to be continued or withdrawn? Okay.

is there a request by the commission to place any items on consent uh through the chair i'd like to make a motion we put items one and three on consent okay are there any members of the public who wish to speak on items one or three sorry we have a raised hand for uh um uh online for uh fred sue can you please unmute yourself and explain which item you want to speak to

I'd like to speak about the Seritage project. I believe that's on.

Yes, thank you. We will get to you when that item is heard.

Oh.

OK, then I'll just move that we place item three on consent.

OK. Is there any commissioner discussion on item number three? Okay. Is there a motion to approve the items on consent?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. We go to a vote. Do I press the start button? Okay, that passes unanimously. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes from October 30 and the November 6 2025 hearings?

So moved.

Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second we can go to a vote on the meeting minutes.

those pass unanimously uh do we have any directors reports yes thank you chair uh the last planning commission hearing was held on november 6th at the hearing the commission heard two items the commission heard an item to recommend to the city council package a the first of two comprehensive packages of amendments uh that update the city's heritage preservation program the Package A includes amendments to the Land Development Code related to Historical Resources Board appointments, noticing of designation actions, the appeal of decisions by the Historical Resources Board to designate historical resources, review of National Register nominations, and clarifying amendments related to the application of Complete Communities housing solutions in emerging and thematic historic districts. amendments to the hazard excuse me amendments to the historic preservation element and appendix f of the general plan were also included the commission voted to recommend city council approved package a by a vote of seven to zero City the Commission heard a request to initiate a community plan amendment to redesignate approximately six acres from industrial park to high medium residential in the Scripps Miramar Ranch community plan area it would also remove the site from the prime industrial land designation from both the general plan and the community plan the Commission voted seven to zero on that action At the meeting, the City of San Diego's Ethics Commission provided planning commissioners with the required biannual training on the City's ethics ordinance. As a couple of other items for public notice, tomorrow in this room, the California Energy Commission and the City of San Diego are hosting the San Diego Regional Energy Code Forum, focused on commercial projects. This free event will feature live training, an Ask Anything session, and peer discussions. Additional information on the event and tips on how to register is available in the latest news section of the Development Services Department's webpage. And finally, as a reminder, the state updates the California Building Standards Code every three years. The current edition is the 2022 California Code of Regulations, Title 24. The new 2025 California Building Standards Code will go into effect on January 1, 2026. All project applications on or after that date must conform to the new regulations. We expect that application submittal volumes may increase in the coming weeks. This means that applications submitted toward the end of 2025 may not be reviewed for accuracy and deemed complete by intake staff and setup staff until or after January 1, 2026. However, the City will honor the current 2022 edition of the Building Code for project applications submitted before January 1, 2026, as long as staff determines they substantially conform to submittal requirements. Please be advised that projects with applications currently in their fourth and final extension may have to comply with the new 2025 regulations regardless of when the determination is made. For more information about the code changes, please visit dgs.ca.gov slash bsc. That concludes my report. Thank you.

Good morning commissioners just wanted to report that the college area and Claremont Community plan updates will be presented at a special meeting of the land use and housing committee tomorrow at 9am in Council chambers that concludes my report from city planning.

Thank you, is there any non agenda Commission comment. No okay, then we can move forward to our agenda with item number one staff whenever you're ready.

One moment, please. Phone-in testimony is now open. Please review the instructions provided on the screen. Good morning planning commissioners and those in attendance from the public. My name is Robin McCarty and I will be presenting item number one on today's agenda. The project being presented today is located at 4577 La Jolla Village Drive. The 12.88 acre project site is in the Employment Mixed Use zone within the University Community Plan area. The project is requesting Planning Commission approval of a Process 4 tentative map. The environmental evaluation found the project to be within the scope of a previously approved program EIR that adequately describes the proposed activity for the purposes of CEQA. The project scope includes a tentative map to subdivide one existing lot into 10 lots. The project does not propose any development. The proposed mapping action will ensure that any future development is subject to the requirements of the Land Development Code and the EMX 3 Zone, which align with the community plan goals to encourage transit-oriented development design practices that support walking and transit use, offer convenient access to neighborhood resources, and promote reduced greenhouse gas emissions. project is located in university on the corner of la jolla village drive and town center drive the site is approximately one-third of a mile east of the blue line trolley stop 1.25 miles east of the five freeway and half a mile west of interstate 805. the site is buffered by transit sorry the site is buffered by bus transit on both la jolla village and town center drive The project is requesting approval of a tentative map to subdivide the existing lot into 10 lots. The new lot configurations will help align the site with the university community plans and vision of compact mixed use urban villages near transit stops stations and major transportation corridors. The new configuration will allow the transformation of the land use, which is currently comprised of large commercial uses with automobiles as the primary transportation mode to more compact residential villages with public transportation as the primary transportation mode. On July 8, 2025, the University Community Planning Group voted 8-0 to recommend approval of the project. Staff has determined that the project meets the regulated guidelines of the San Diego municipal code and the university community plan and request the request that the planning commission approved tentative map number PMT 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 7, 5. This concludes the presentation subject matter matter experts and the applicant team are available. Should you have any questions? Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any clarifying questions from the commission? Commissioner Miyahara.

Um, yeah, I just had 1 question and looking at the tentative map, um, can staff for the city attorney. Um, clarify whether or not lot 10. Uh, has it doesn't have direct frontage on city street, but does it have. Easiness in place, uh, for. Public access for the and, uh, what I would assume would be. You know, proposed public space at some point to comply with the.

Thank you for that question. I will let the planner, Sucharita, answer that question.

Good morning. Thank you for the question. So there is no physical development proposed at this time, but we have worked with the applicant to ensure that any physical development moving forward will be required to meet CEPA's requirements once there are plans for physical buildings in place.

Okay, thanks for confirming.

Are there any other clarifying questions? Okay, we can move on to public comment. I don't believe we have any in-person comment, but we have online speakers.

We have no in-person comment. We have one online speaker who has raised their hand, Fred Su. Please unmute yourself. You will have three minutes.

Hi, thank you. Yeah, I'm representing a small community. We're at the base of that planned development. It's called Vista La Jolla. And we just request that no tall building be put on lot nine that would look into our community and greatly impede our privacy. We just like that on the record. That's it.

Thank you, Alexander Greiner. You will please unmute yourself. You have three minutes.

Thank you again. Hello. And I just want to, I live in the same neighborhood that Mr. Fred does. And we have a lot of families who've lived here. I've lived here for 25 years. We've had a lot of families that have lived there longer than I have. And if you look at the map, We obviously don't have any details regarding to the buildings, but Lot 9, which is the Sears Tower Center, really towers literally over our entire 56 homes. And so any large structure there would... cast a shadow over the buildings that are abutting that on January Place. And if you look at the map, I think you should see that for yourself. I believe Mr. I wasn't involved, but our President Bill Back, President of Vista La Jolla, which is the homeowners association director here, met with peter spencer who was representing saratosh at least at the time and i think we we uh already at that time discussed our concern with having something that hopefully is only two or three stories and then would fill that lot nine. It would really be a wonderful balanced outcome for us, respecting property rights, the livability, noise, and then the overall impact on our quality of life. And that's it. Thank you very much for your time and listening.

That concludes our online speakers on this item.

Okay, that concludes public comment. We can move on to commission comment. Vice Chair Boomhauer.

Thank you, Mr. McCarty for the presentation. I don't have any additional comments. I'm just going to go ahead and make a motion to approve staff's recommendation to approve the tentative map.

Okay, we have a motion. Commissioner Miyahara?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. I do want to ask staff for clarity regarding the height. I know this is just a subdivision map and does not determine heights at this moment, but if you could address some of the public comment with those concerns and how in the future those heights would be determined based off those applications.

uh any future development will need to follow the regulations of the land development code and the community plan that that height is is regulated through those mechanisms if there's a specific concern that would be addressed in that that review each lot would be reviewed separately depending on the type of development that's being proposed so at that time

those concerns would be addressed or the height limit would be addressed understood okay we have a motion and a second i think we can go to a vote that passes unanimously we can move on to item number two staff whenever you're ready

Just a second while I queue up my presentation. Okay, good morning. The phone-in testimony for the Emerald Hills project, project number 1107880, is now open. I'll leave this on the screen for a few seconds. Okay, good morning. My name is Martin Mendez. I am the development project manager representing the development services department for the city of San Diego on this project. And I will be presenting the Emerald Hills project today. This project is located at 5702 Old Memory Lane within the Encanto Neighborhoods Community Planning Area. It is currently zoned RS1-2. The parcel size is a 31.1 acre site. And the request for approvals for this project include the adoption of an addendum to a program environmental impact report, that's number 386029, and a mitigation monitoring and reporting program. Additionally, they're requesting approval of a vesting tentative map, a site development permit, a neighborhood development permit, and a neighborhood use permit. The site development permit is for the subdivision of land containing environmentally sensitive lands. A site development permit is also required for encroachments within the public right-of-way. A neighborhood development permit is also required for encroachments within the public right of way where the property owner is the fronting owner. The SDP is for where the property owner is not the fronting owner. And a neighborhood use permit for a proposed neighborhood identification sign. Also, I'd like to identify that the impacts to the environmentally sensitive lands will be mitigated at an offsite location and the applicant proposes to purchase the mitigation lands and ultimately proposes a transfer of the mitigation lands to the City of San Diego. Before I continue with my presentation, I'd also like to read into the record that prior to today's meeting, I issued a memorandum, which has been now posted on the Planning Commission's website. This memorandum addresses corrections and clarifications to the documents that were prepared for today's hearing. The following are the corrections made. The project name just for for noticing purposes the project name did change from when we originally noticed the project and the notice of application this was the project name was 5702 old memory lane and it was changed to emerald hills to be consistent with the project name that the applicant had for the project that has the emerald hills name was distributed with the notice of public hearing The notice of public hearing also identified that the mitigation monitoring reporting program to be considered for adoption would be for transportation biological resources and paleontological resources, whereas transportation is not part of the project's mitigation monitoring reporting program. Additionally, the hearing documents previously identified the incorrect program EIR report number, whereas it was previously identified as 310077, and the number was corrected to be 386029. And the word clearinghouse was incorrectly spelled in that, so we changed it, corrected that spelling. This correction is found in the staff report, staff presentation, the draft program EIR addendum resolution, the draft permit, conditions number 29 and 30, and the draft EIR addendum, which is the link to the EIR addendum that is attachment 13. Additionally, we remove reference to sustainable development area located within that. That reference is located within the following document that is in the draft tentative map resolution, attachment number five, page one, second paragraph, and page three under finding one, third paragraph. This correction made as part of the project site is not located within the sustainable development area. And references to the site located within a sustainable development area was not removed from the draft tentative map resolution. Additionally, correction to the statement in the hearing documents that the biological technical report, the BTR, included a slope analysis of the site, whereas the statement is corrected to be that the BTR references a slope analysis of the site prepared by Hunsaker and Associates in the report from 2023. This correction was made to the staff report, the draft tentative map resolution, and the draft permit resolution. Additionally, correction to the draft permanent attachment 7 where a number was missing for the condition listed following condition number 21. The condition should be identified as condition number 22 and all subsequent conditions would be renumbered accordingly. Additionally, a change to the incentive and waivers table, where the table identifies the requested waiver is for the driveway width, whereas the requested waiver is for the driveway opening width, and reference to the driveway width requirements is removed from the table. The table was revised to just identify the municipal code section that references a driveway with openings and reference number, or sorry, city standard drawing number SDG 164, driveway location and width requirements. Whereas not more than 40% of the property frontage on residential lots may be allocated for driveway curb openings. And the project proposes 22-foot driveway curb openings, which consist of a 16-foot wide driveway with three-foot flares on each side. This is for lots numbers 1 through 61, 71 through 83, 85 through 97, and lots 99 through 101, lots 104 through 108, and lots 112 to 123. This would affect 107 of the 123 residential lots that are requesting this waiver. This correction was made on the staff report, staff presentation, draft tentative map resolution attachment five, and the draft permit resolution. Okay, the scope of the project is for the subdivision of the existing 31.1 acre site for 123 residential lots for single dwelling units. 110 of those would be for market rate dwelling units. 13 of those are allocated for affordable dwelling units. The affordable dwelling units would be deed restricted affordable units with prices set aside for households with an income of no more than 100% of the area median income. Additionally, the subdivision includes seven private open space lots, which will consist of seven privately owned and maintained pocket parks, which will be publicly accessible through recreation easement. three storm drain bioinfiltration detention basins, which will be intended on capturing the project's stormwater, go through a biofiltration system, and then dissipating water into the city's storm drain system. Additionally, there will be additional open space slots that will be landscaped and irrigated. The project site is located south of Highway 94, east of Interstate 805, and southeast of the existing Emerald Hills neighborhood park. This is all within the Encanto Neighborhoods Community Planning Area. The next slide is an aerial photograph showing the relationship of the site in comparison to the adjacent existing residential neighborhood or residential development found to the north of the project site and then the residential developments located on the south side and the Emerald Hills Neighborhood Park at the northwest corner and Johnson Magnet School to the west. The current slide shows a community plan land use designation for the project site. The land use designation is for residential, very low density land uses, which are designated at zero to four dwelling units per acre. This land use designation allows 125 dwelling units. And the existing zoning for the project site, as previously stated, is RS 1-2, which is for residential single unit development. I would like to point out that this project is relying on the use of footnote seven from table 131-04D found in chapter 13, article one, division four of the municipal code. This project was deemed complete on December 6th, 2023, which is prior to the repeal of footnote seven, which went into effect on April 24th, 2025. The slide this current slide shows the proposed site plan in indicating the 123 residential dwelling units and the seven open space slots and again emphasis on the areas in light blue, which are the storm drain. bio detention basins. The project is also requesting incentives and waivers that are allowed through the provision of affordable housing. The incentive being requested is for a street side fence height incentive. And then the waivers are to modify the lot street frontage, lot width, lot width for corner lots, lot depth, and driveway curb openings. The project also includes right-of-way encroachments, as were previously discussed, which were the requirements for the SDP and the NDP, so Site Development Permit and Neighborhood Development Permit. The encroachments consist of retaining walls that are at the north uh east corner of the project site portion of the wall is within private property and a portion of it extends um northerly in fronting the adjacent property there is also a retaining wall on the east side of 60th street that retaining wall again fronts own sorry property owned by by a different property owner that's retaining wall will be accepted by the city and maintained by the city There is also a retaining wall proposed at the southeast corner. Again, that is a retaining wall that is fronting just the property. That wall and the wall at the northeast corner are going to be privately maintained. Additionally, there are encroachments for two vehicle access gates at the west side of the project site that is for the emergency access alley that is intended for emergency vehicles. Those gates will have a Knox box for emergency services to be able to open the gates in the event of an emergency. The current slide just shows pedestrian circulation as it relates to the project site. So the project site does propose a pedestrian trail along with a pedestrian sidewalk fronting 60th Street. The pedestrian sidewalk will be within the right of way. The trail will be outside of the right of way. Additionally, there is The blue line shown through the site going from east to west, that just shows how the general public from east of the project site would be able to traverse through the project site and make their way to the Emerald Hills Park or the Johnson Magnet School. on the opposite side of the project. Additionally, the project proposes, as previously mentioned, pocket parks. So there is public access to those parks and the orange line shows the meandering path that goes through the project parks and connects the sidewalks and parkway throughout the site to those pocket parks. This slide shows a rendering from the applicant that identifies the public improvements. The public improvements, as previously stated, do include right of way improvements to include a non-contiguous sidewalk and the separated trail. Again, the separated trail will provide additional pedestrian pathway that moves them away from traffic lanes. Additional improvements on 60th Street includes improvements to the entire street, which will allow for improving the line of sight for vehicles at any of the streets that are intersecting. This slide shows the neighborhood identification sign. That identification sign will be located at the entryway, the primary entryway to the project site from 60th Street. That sign will be required to be outside of the line of sight lines that are required at intersections. This next slide just shows a rendering that was provided by the applicant. Apologies, that last slide, although it was not showing up correctly on the screen, illustrated the pocket parks. And I can go back to another slide after the fact. But it does show the pocket parks that are proposed for the project. Again, there are four pocket parks with various park benches and seating areas for the general public to access. The pocket parks will be privately maintained. by an HOA and they will be publicly accessible through a recreation easement. Okay, these are the conceptual elevations for the two story units. They have three proposed design options for each one of the two story layouts. They have different options for the floor plans as well. There's a three bedroom, two and a half bath with a loft or an optional fourth bedroom and two car garage. They also have an option for a five bedroom home with three baths, a loft and a two car garage. This is conceptual elevations for the single story. Again, they have the three architectural styles. And then these homes would consist of three-bedroom, two-bath homes with a two-car garage. The following slides are going to show how the project is consistent with the community plan. In particular here, we're looking at the land use consistency with the land use elements. And I'm not going to read into all of these, but the first one does address the Provision of affordable housing, so this project will be providing affordable housing at the median income which falls within the moderate income bracket. Additionally there is design compatibility with the existing neighborhood and so compatibility with the character and the form of the existing neighborhood. Diversity of housing types through the provision of affordable housing and the provision of high quality private open space through the pocket parks. Land use element consistency where this project is utilizing density bonus incentives to promote larger housing sustainable for families and children, creation of publicly accessible but privately maintained parks and homeownership opportunities. Here we have consistency with the provision of shade producing street trees along routes to schools and transit, adequate lighting for safety and security. It is important to note that the project will have adequate lighting through the project site including at adding street lighting along 60th Street. So there will be street lighting added by the project. Additionally, this project is consistent through a complete streets network throughout the proposed community and in connection to the surrounding established community. And then as previously mentioned, the public right-of-way improvements include intersection improvements to improve safety and operations. The project is also consistent with the urban design element by creating well-defined spaces, again, through the pocket parks. Varied building articulation as shown through the various architectural styles and options. And then the link to pedestrian walkways and bikeways by proposing the linkages through the project site and then the linkages along 60th Street. and then the use of high quality sustainable landscaping. The project does propose landscaping that is consistent with our municipal code requirements and the provision of low water use landscaping. The project did go before the Chollos Valley and Canto Neighborhoods Community Planning Group on October 28, 2024. The group voted 13-0-0 to deny the proposed subdivision and the project. Staff's recommendation is to adopt the addendum to the program EIR and adopt the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. Additionally, staff recommends approval of vesting tentative map, the site development permit, neighborhood development permit, and the neighborhood use permit. That concludes staff's presentation. The current slide again, phone and testimony is now open for this project. And please follow the instructions on the screen.

Thank you. Are there any clarifying questions from the Commission? Mr. Miyahara?

Thanks for the presentation. I think one of the PowerPoint slides stated that the project was deemed complete in December of 2023. For purposes of understanding the city's review process, can you clarify whether the San Diego Muni code includes a specific definition of when a development application is deemed complete? And if so, does that establish any procedural rights such as locking in regulations, fees, processing timelines, that sort of thing?

In accordance with the current regulations, once a project is deemed complete, they are then subject to the regulations that are in place at the time that the project was deemed complete.

So is there an actual definition in the muni code that defines what deemed complete is?

Yes, that's correct. Oh, sorry, that was a little loud. Yes, in the chapter 11 in our definition section of the municipal code, deemed complete means that the city manager has determined that an application includes all of the information, materials, fees, and deposits required. That is the adopted definition in the municipal code.

Any other clarifying questions? No? Oh, Commissioner Mazzari.

I could wait until we're going into it. I just wanted to know, you said the planning group voted unanimously in denial. Did they have specific reasons or?

Unfortunately, the form that was submitted to City staff did not include any comments or recommendations, and I was unable to obtain meeting minutes as those meeting minutes are...

Please refrain. Please refrain from outbursts. Thank you.

I was unable to obtain meeting minutes, and those meeting minutes are not posted on the Community Planning Group's website.

If I may, Commissioner Mazzari, the representatives from the Choice Valley Community Planning Group are here as well as the chair, and we would be able to hear from them about their concerns during public comment.

Thank you.

Commissioner Renger.

I just have a clarifying question for our Deputy Attorney. I'm just wondering, has there ever been precedents where a project that has been deemed complete has ever been repealed, like their ability to develop a site once it's been deemed a project application has been deemed complete. Is there any precedents that said, you know, for whatever reason, I don't even know what the reason could be. I'm just wondering, is there any such precedents?

So under state law, we're required to lock them in with the ordinances, policies and standards that are in place at the time that the application is deemed complete. You can apply new regulations if there's a preponderance of the evidence in the record establishing that the project should be subject to the new regulation to mitigate or avoid a specific adverse impact upon public health or safety, and there's no feasible alternative method to satisfy that mitigation or avoid that adverse impact. So it's a very fact-specific analysis, and it goes to public health and safety.

Has that ever been enacted in any such project that you know of?

Are you talking about in the city? Not to my knowledge, but there could be. I just haven't done that research, but I'm not aware of anything. Can you define public safety, please? So, I can define specific adverse impact. It means a significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact based on objective identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions as they exist on the date the application was deemed complete.

Thank you. Any other clarifying questions? Okay. We can move on to public comment. Before we begin the public comment period, I want to set a few ground rules to ensure that this remains a respectful and productive space for everyone. We ask that all speakers direct their comments to the Commission and that personal attacks, inappropriate language, or disruptive behavior will not be permitted. Please refrain from clapping, cheering, or reacting audibly to a speaker. This helps us maintain a neutral environment where all voices can be heard equally without intimidation. Due to the high number of speakers on this item, we will be limiting public comments to one minute per speaker. In the interest of time and ensuring that the Commission hears a broad range of perspectives, we respectfully ask that you refrain from repeating points that you've already been made that have already been made. If you don't have anything new to add, we kindly ask you to consider yielding your time. I'll start with Kenny key. You have people seating time to you, I need to make sure that they're present in the hearing room, Janet clobber. Michelle Thompson. James Mellie. Ken Hughrich. Maybe Hunrich. Sorry, some people have handwriting that's similar to doctors, so I do my best. Kenny Key, you'll have six minutes.

Restore my time.

Your timer hasn't started yet. We'll start it when the when it's ready.

First, I want to thank you guys for what you do. This ain't personal. We here. We are here for our community. Push play. Push play. No sound. It's the internet. It's a computer. You guys got to conveniently break down.

Okay.

Hit that speaker icon on the bottom right corner. cut it all the way up bottom right corner is at the bottom of the screen tv screen bottom right corner hit that why not you gotta know how to work the computer you're not gonna have sound come on now this is the city of san diego

Okay, go.

Why are we going to get here? No, no. This is how we see you guys. City of San Diego, this is how we see you guys.

Mr. Key, can we come back to you so we can try to correct the sound on the video?

Sure.

I'll move on to Andrea Heathery. Okay. We'll move on to Rob Campbell.

Is the issue that you will not be able to play my video?

The issue is we are unable to get the audio to connect to our in-room speakers at the moment.

Is it something that you're working on?

Yes, it is something that we're working on. Yes, so we will go to Robert Campbell.

Mr. Campbell, it looks like you have a few people ceding time to you. I need to make sure that they are present in the hearing room. Lori Freitas. Vicki Estrella. Mary Young. Anthony Merritt. Imani Robinson. Lisa Becerra.

Oh, sure, yeah.

OK. Quetzale Becerra. Epiphany Becerra. Zephaniah Becerra?

Okay.

Susan Ward?

Is Epiphany back in the room? Okay, Rob, I can either move you or I can give you one, two. Or I can give you 10 minutes. OK. You'll have 11 minutes.

Thank you. Hey, my name is Robert Campbell. I live in Encanto. Normally, I have prepared comments. Today, I don't. This move passed very quickly, right? So we've had, I think, six days or so to review the environmental review, which is hundreds of pages long. I do have copies of the last project that went through using Footnote 7 for each of you to review from our attorney. from the Choice Valley Community Planning Group. So you can each have this for the record to review this project and the clobber project that went not before you, but before the city council. I want to touch on environmental justice. So we heard from the deputy city attorney talking about we need bona fide, definable, factual based information to make decisions on public safety and environmental justice is one of those things. So the state of California has a lot of data on environmental justice. It's rooted in science and facts and that would be the basis that I would go on to look at public safety and harm caused to the community going forward. um did you notice that the the city presented a really really nice presentation that looked like everything was great they pulled out a lot of things that complied with the community plan what they didn't include was any of the public comment any of the things that don't conform and they glossed over footnote 7 as an afterthought so um They also didn't show topography. You didn't see a 3D model. Sitting in this room, it appears as though the world is flat. We do not live in a flat neighborhood. We have significant topography. There are enormous elevation gains and falls in this area of Emerald Hills. The reality is we can't make more land. When we look at environmental justice, you look at the burdens that the interstate's highway system put on our community. You look at the burdens that the expansion of Highway 94 has put on. You look at the divisions that have been sewn into the very fabric of San Diego. You can look me in the eye. It's OK. And you can't ignore the fact that this project is significantly more dense than what the general plan says it's supposed to be, which is a park. So that's correct. The San Diego general plan identifies this as a park, an existing park. Our community plan identifies this land in entirety as a potential parkland expansion. Is it zoned for residential? Yes, RS-12, as the city put on the screen. But because of footnote 7, which you heard and voted to repeal, and thank you for that earlier this year, it's repealed. Footnote 7 is RS-17. This land was not evaluated for RS-17 density. And even with RS-17 density, you saw the enormous number of variances, deviations, or exceptions to RS-17 being asked for. They can't meet, based on their design, they cannot meet 123 homes in this area based on RS-17 requirements. Again it's supposed to be RS one to if it was developed, I want to point out disparities right, so we all know that south of interstate eight we've got disparities and here we're just south of highway 94 and so. where it's identified from the state of California as a low resource area. And just to the north of us, we have a project called Fox Hill in La Jolla. Same size lot, almost identical, 32 acres. You know how many homes they're putting on Fox Hill? 18. Same zoning, 18. That's because they're white and they're wealthy. That's the difference. They don't have environmental burdens. They haven't been historically redlined. And they're not a majority working class families that are black, brown, don't look like me, right? They can't be here today because they're working or they have other things affecting their life. They can't speak out. But that's the same size lot, 18 versus 123. They also don't have footnote seven. Ironically, two days ago, well yesterday, two days ago, a person resigned from a state advisory board, the Environmental Justice Board. She was the vice chair for the state of California. I heard this on the radio on my way to work yesterday morning. I want to read to you why she resigned. An environmental justice leader resigned in protest Tuesday from a committee advising a top California climate agency, it was the California Air Resources Board, which was showing growing hostility toward the committee. Catherine Garupa, Co-chair of a panel that advises the influence of California Air Resources Board on environmental justice said in a resignation letter that CARB was dismissing science, quote, at the expense of low-income communities and communities of color, end quote. That is exactly what we have today. We are being dismissed, we are being silenced, and we're dismissing science. Rupa cited Quote, the increasing bias of the agency toward regulated industries, end quote, which was underwhelmed, undermining the integrity of her group, the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee. The group offers guidance to the agency from disadvantaged communities. Again, environmental justice, you look at the suits behind me in the middle, front and center, they've got all the money, they've got all the power. They're a multi-billion dollar agency coming into one of the lowest resource neighborhoods in the city of San Diego that has a deep history of actions against it. And you've heard their story. You haven't heard ours. You've given us one minute per speaker to speak. Yesterday at community engagement at the rules committee for the city of San Diego, a speaker pointed out that it costs her approximately $100 for her one minute. The time it takes for us to take off work to be here and then to be insulted with one minute to speak, we can't even be in the bathroom. These are rules that you've set up in place to benefit the billionaires. Affirm really furthering fair housing. It's state law. It was federal law. The federal law is being dismantled. If that's the way you want to go, it's interesting. I thought we were in the state of California. We followed California state law, AB 686. So I talked about deviations. There's over 15 of them spelled out in this plan. We talk about bicycling and pedestrians. And if you actually walk there, if they actually had a real picture and not a rendering, you would see that there are no sidewalks. There are hills. And the path connecting where that sidewalk ends in that rendering? Where the school is, is a hill that goes down, and you have to walk in it. It floods with water at the bottom. The speeds of cars get up to 60 miles an hour because it's a dip. It's literally a U-shape, and there's no sidewalk. There's no connecting path. You want to ride your bicycle on a 25 percent grade because I think it might be 25 percent. It's a pretty steep grade. In this project, what they didn't show is the grades going in, 12% in. You ever ride your bicycle up a 12% grade? When you look up the definition, that's for extreme cardiovascular exercise. Is that what we're looking for? Communities connecting via bicycle is 12% grade? On the back side, where they have the secondary entrance, it's a 15% grade. Nobody rides 15% grades unless you're mountain biking, like intense mountain biking.

Mr. Campbell, I want to pause you for just one second, please. We were informed that Imani Robinson would like to utilize her one minute and does not want to cede her time to you. So that will leave you with one minute and 30 seconds. And then we will call Imani during her public testimony period.

Sounds about right.

Please proceed.

Thank you. Well, that goes exactly to my point that I'm making, silencing public comment. So we also heard the, you know, sometimes I wonder why we're here. It seems you have all the power. We have now the power. I had 10 minutes. You have no idea the lengths that we go through to be here to speak to you today. We don't have audio. We don't have video. We don't have time. It's all working against us. What I do know is that history is being recorded. that we will look back on this era and we will know if we put our priorities in the right order ultimately When the land is gone in our community that's low resource, has no more ability to get it, and you wonder why kids grew up in concrete playgrounds and they won't have the same access, you'll know why. It was decisions like today. It took away our voice. We've got nine seconds. Let's just reflect on that. Thank you.

Eric Becerra, you have one person ceding time to you. Brandon Becerra, you'll have two minutes.

Good morning, guys. Thank you so much. My name is Eric Becerra and I live in Encanto. Thank you for your questions. You guys had great questions. They haven't reached out. Well, first of all, I can't believe this presentation. It is called Emerald Hills, not Emerald Flatlands, right? So my kids live in this community in our park up in Encanto. There's two benches in the other park. I believe there's maybe two more benches. So four benches for the whole neighborhood. It's an insult when they say these pocket parks are going to help solve these problems. What is the entrance right there to the freeway? If there is a fire here ever, there's only one exit to the freeway right there. And just remember, guys, you guys, they put a great presentation to show how marvelous it's going to look, but they're not showing reality. It makes me extremely sad that something that could be beautiful, we could have an iconic view park there. We could have another Mount Soledad there. They have another beautiful cross in East County where you can go up there and see the beautiful site of San Diego, why we live here, why we pay. to live here we could have another beautiful site here another thing to to say yeah you know i went to san diego and i stopped at this beautiful park and i could see all the way to the ocean i could see all the way to the buildings the coronado bridge that would be beautiful that would be people could could come here and say wow that was cool that was a cool san diego experience but that could all be erased that could all be erased you guys Um, DR Horton is, they build tons of homes, especially in Arizona right now. They are one of the builders that, that don't build up to par. You could, you could go up of installation and everything. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys. Please vote for the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Catalina Ranias.

Hello. Timer. Oh, I'm ready. Can you define greed? The art installation in front of you is called a place called home. Deny the project and refund the permit payment. Simple. I am not lost on most people volunteer for boards like this to benefit their businesses and their business relationships. You are volunteering your time and time is money. Many of you have came in knowing how you're going to vote. I hope we can change your mind. You have yet to vote. You still have an opportunity to side with those who live in Emerald Hills. Remember why you went into politics in the first place? Was it to make the city a better place, or did you go into politics to further your family's businesses, sir? If you vote to approve the project, you are sending a clear message to developers. San Diego City Council and San Diego County supervisors are willing to take lobbying money in exchange, and in exchange, they will push projects that are illegal. Let's be clear. This was a setup to lobby and change square footage in Encanto Emerald Hills. It's D.R. Horton a few years ago. It took D.R. Horton a few years, but here we are voting on it. Just to know that developers is a long con, and you are part of the short con. All of us are here losers of both cons. The reason you are having issues with the project is it's sacred burial Kumeyaay land.

good morning i'm evelyn smith i represent the emerald hill town council and i also represent d4 on the park and rec board so i know what a pocket park is Those pocket parks that they're putting in that development, you know who's going to use them? The people that's too lazy to walk their dogs. And they're going to let the dogs out to use the pocket park. I know for a fact that we have been trying to get the city to purchase that property for many, many years. And then all of a sudden, footnote selling came about. Hoover was evil. people uh they get what they want and us honest hard-working people we get nothing from it we don't even get a little extra parking space we don't get nothing from this also when all of this came about They changed the speed limit on my street from 25 to 30. Roswell Street is the access to the 94 freeway. And when the 94 freeway is backed up, all of that traffic comes right on Roswell Street.

Your time is concluded.

Thank you.

Doreen Diaz.

Doreen Diaz from Hammershaw. I support Hold the Hill. I vehemently oppose this horrific project by the Horton. I am not part of the Joyous Valley Planning Group, but I attended the meeting and heard everybody speaking. They heard everybody speaking. And it sounds a bit sneaky that they didn't add a lot of the comment. But one of the main things you need to look at, please, before you vote, please table this vote at least and look at the two open space. If you go on your website right now, you cannot find the data on open space. You can find the data on trails on San Diego open space, but not on undeveloped open space. You can find data in the regional open space, which says 40,000 city of San Diego open space. There's 27,000 undeveloped is not included a lot of box. You don't even know.

Robinson.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm a resident of San Diego. I love San Diego, the entire San Diego. I went to Johnson Elementary. We would get in trouble because we would go into the canyon and play, and my mom had a friend that lived right at the top of that hill, and we would roller skate down and get all type of beat up. And we would get in trouble because we would go in that canyon, in that tower, and we all wanted something great like a park. Everyone has a park, Coles Mountain. mount soledad surrounded by million dollar homes but they still have their space district nine we planted trees along the freeway you could smell the the oil give us a beautiful clean blue green space we deserve it we need it for our health for our mental health every other park is a poop park not a park where we could just look out

just enjoy each other and what about all those homes that's over 100 more cars thank you your time is just disgusting we're going to take a 10 minute break so that staff can address the audio uh issues with the with the video so we will return at um at 10 32.

yeah. yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello.

Hello. Okay.

Oh. Oh.

well you

Oh. Oh.

important and we are pleased today to present finally to you emerald hills a new single family detached

Thank you.

Oh.

. . Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you.

Well,

Excuse me, if everybody can take their seats, we can get started.

Okay, we can resume public comment. Kenny key. You'll have six minutes.

We have We have six speakers who we had called previously, including yourself. Push the button on the lectern, please.

Okay. Sorry about that.

We have you as having six minutes, sir.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. No visual.

Our community's Radio Towers Hill in Emerald Hills is under threat. The proposed project is based on the shameful Footnote 7, which targeted southeastern neighborhoods and was removed from the municipal code in March 2025. Yet, this project is still being allowed to proceed using that very footnote. Instead, we call for a world-class destination park with mounted telescopes, cafes, green space, culture, trails, and outdoor event spaces that will bring the same level of maintenance, tidiness, beautification, and retail investment seen in communities north of Highway 94 to the Imperial Euclid, Logan, and Federal and Market corridors. The city has a revenue problem. This park would generate income for at least several decades. Radio Towers Hill offers a breathtaking 360-degree panoramic view of San Diego and Tijuana, one of the most stunning vantage points in all of San Diego. And it should belong to everyone, not just a few homeowners. This is a once in a generation chance to maximize the value of this land as a revenue generating public partnership that brings local jobs, family recreation, black economic opportunity, beauty and visibility to our neighborhoods. Black San Diego military families, locked out of the GI Bill dream after WRI and the Korean War, built this community from the ground up, especially around Radio Towers Hill, when Emerald Hills finally opened to them. They've been asking for a park on this site since 1978. In that time, every other large parcel has been taken to stack us like sardines. Now, out-of-town developers want to bury our last chance to level up with the same tired tactics that keep our community under-resourced and overburdened. We're not falling for it again. Not after 47 years. Let's harness the full power of this historic hill for joy, justice, and a future. Build the hill.

Build the park.

So I've made that video out of a heartfelt desire to protect this property from greedy developers who care nothing for my community. I'm here today to plead and to connect to the humanity of this commission. I'm trying to appeal to each one of your core right now. For years, both the former and current District 4 Council's office ignored every request for accountability on this development. Their silence was not neutrality. It was alignment with D.R. Horton, an out-of-state developer who contributed to their campaigns instead of representing us. They protected the developer. District 4 residents voted for leadership, but what they got instead was political favors disguised as policy. The origin of this entire situation, why we're here today, was footnote seven pushed through during COVID without proper notice, public involvement, community consent. It was an illegal and corrupt maneuver. exposed by the community and ultimately repealed. Yet this very project, Footnote 7, was designed to benefit, are still pushing forward. That alone should raise red flags. These actions were intentional, targeted, and harmful to the longstanding black community. Now the responsibility falls on you. You are not part of that misconduct. But if you approve this project with your vote, it's going to validate that corruption. most dangerous flaw is the fire evacuation risk blueprint shows a single uh narrow road service in 123 homes man you guys putting our safety over profit over safety how dare you a project of this size should be held to a grading or suitable standards civility suitability standard excuse me by every measure, scale, infrastructure, traffic, equity, safety, cumulative impact, it fails. It overwhelms the neighborhood, contributes nothing to the community. It's built on a foundation of unethical political behavior. Commissioners, you have the opportunity to stand on your own integrity. Separate yourself from this corruption in city council. Do what you were called to do when you accepted that oath to be in that position. Honor your positions and protect this neighborhood, which is being assaulted by out-of-state developer. What allegiance do you guys have to them? What do they have on you guys? We don't get it. The public don't get it. Why y'all keep rubber stamping for these developers? We put you up in there. The developers didn't put you guys up in there. They might give you some money, but you need to represent people. not profit a yes vote to this project i don't care when they put the application in it brings haunts to our community i've lived up over there 50 years my dad was a retired firefighter worked with mr marbury and i i know the conversations i've had about him with him over this project it's a no-brainer that is bringing harm just going to reduce our fire evacuation uh uh uh percentage You can't, I dare any firefighter to come up here and say that it's not going to reduce our fire evacuation. You're going to create a situation just like in LA. Matter of fact, you guys made amendments to the ADU on them cul-de-sacs, stopped them from doing it because they were exploiting it, right, for profit and creating dangerous situations. This is an overblown cul-de-sac that you guys are authorizing. Thank you, Mr. K. Get the heck out of here.

Andrea Heathery. Looks like you have people ceding time to you. I will make sure that they're here in the hearing room. Lucy Preve. Susan Baldwin.

If you could queue up the PDF while she's calling off the names, I put the PDF first. Eric Overstreet. Is that going to be an issue?

Paul Kruger. Rosaline Cook. Corey Ferris. Kenya Becerra.

You can go with that first.

Peter Walding. Sage Walding. Yvonne Jones. Jezla Mima Merritt. You'll have 12 minutes.

I'm Andrea Hetayru with the Whole the Hill Grassroots Initiative. I ask for your forbearance if there's some similarity between the video that you just heard and the one that will be played. I collaborated with and helped write the narrative for the previous video. We have divisions in our community just like any other community. But one thing that we are of one mind here is that we need a park for our health and to develop our community. So, play it. Oh, no, no, no, no. I sent you also a video. Okay, so we're going to do the PDF first. Can I get my time back?

It was just a few seconds, so we put it on pause.

So if you could advance it a few slides, and I'll tell you where to stop. Back, back, back to the first bar graph. Okay, so this is a graph of the resource distribution as determined by the California Tax Allocation Credit Committee and the Housing and Community Development Department of the State of California. And you can see it by districts. We are in District 4. You could look at District 1, District 2, District 3. Dark green is highest resource. Bright green is high resource. Gray is moderate. Red is low resource. Just take a scan and a gander at that. And it does match, in fact, what we know about the city of San Diego, that about 68% More than two-thirds of the land in San Diego that is inhabited is high resource. But when you get to District 4, it's almost all low resource. We have a very small portion of moderate resource, and you see a similar thing in Districts 8 and 9. Okay. If you can go down one more to the parks. This is park space. This is data from the City of San Diego. We're low income, we're non-white, look at our park per person. And now look at parks per person for high income and white. That's us. We need parks for health. Now, if you could play the video, that would be great. Not that one. Well, I'll go with that one. These are the main streets, the main thoroughfares through our community. You get to our community off of highway off ramps on the 94 and the 805. And if you follow those streets, this is what you see. And I haven't cherry picked this. This is the work of the planning entities of the city of San Diego, including this esteemed body. I ask you, are you happy with your work? Take a look. If you're inviting someone to your home and they have to travel these thoroughfares to get to your home, how do you feel about that? In addition to that, do you see any job centers? Do you see any retail? That passes for retail where we buy clothes. Is this something that you're proud of in terms of the ability to make a living, the ability to feel good about where you are, the ability to just have a life like anybody else? This is Euclid and Imperial. This is Imperial, but I don't think we're going to have time to get the Euclid, but it's about the same. Those berms right there, I just want to point out, the reason I definitely took two pictures of those is because that announces, my sister let me know this a while ago. She said, this is announcing that this is the bad part of town. You don't see this anywhere else. You've got blocks of graffiti. You see there, that's our bus stop in front of a tire. The man is sitting in front of tires, but we are homeowners. We have homes here. Unfortunately, to get to our homes, you have to pass this kind of stuff. Okay, now let's go to the main video. While she's doing that, I wanna say this. The decisions that you make, the decisions that bodies like you make, take more lives than police killings than all of the so-called violent crime, which we don't really have much in District 4. That's a false narrative that we have more crime. But the decisions that you make take years off of our lives. They shorten our telomeres. This is a matter of demonstrated fact. The cortisol that comes from not having jobs by not having green space that bring down cortisol causes high blood pressure, causes diabetes. We have more amputations than probably any other part of the city. This is about saving lives.

Thank you.

Southeast San Diego can be a place everyone wants to be. If we have a world-class destination park atop the Radio Towers Hill in Emerald Hills, next to Encanto, with its unmatched 360-degree views drawing people from every corner of San Diego, not just a park, a supermagnet for cafes, fresh markets, arts, culture, and history. an access point to the healing properties of nature a preservation of habitats including the chollis creek watershed at least as far back as 1978 mrs hazel higgins wrote on behalf of the emerald hills neighborhood council advocating for a park in radio canyon after mrs higgins had been successful in getting the canyon preserved for open space But decade after decade, the promise inherent in a hope for justice was not kept. No park, no equal public space for the community begun by black military families using the GI Bill in one of the few places they were permitted to live in San Diego. And without the shared public spaces that make a community thrive, civic engagement was suppressed. So sufficient commercial investment stayed away too. Each time a large green space became available, it was handed to housing. And every time the community managed, against the odds, to raise its voice to ask, Where is our park? Where is the equity we were promised? The city answered, next time but first more housing the people in emerald hills and all of southeast san diego have needs beyond housing just like people in every other part of the city like humans anywhere we need space for health for connection for beauty a park isn't just a patch of grass or tall trees Its native plants, open hillsides, quiet trails, and clean air provide proven lower rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, even depression. Just by being near nature, moving through it, and breathing with it. Now, there is only one last chance. Radio Towers Hill, a majestic open space with 360-degree views of our city. Still untouched. But developers want to replace our last open space with 123 homes. homes that won't bring transformation because the community around them would remain disinvested these houses will have a market rate far below the rest of san diego so that corporate investors can profitably buy and rent them That's why even the marginal benefit of creating home ownership in a disinvested community won't happen in the long run. If the people aren't wealthy, the infrastructure is supposed to be robust, as is the case north of Interstate 8. But let's be clear. A few houses on a hill won't elevate our disinvested community. They won't bring cafes. They won't bring healing. They won't build connection. They won't preserve the watershed. They won't build wealth or a future for our community. The view from the Radio Towers Hill should not belong to a few real estate investors or even homeowners. It should belong to everyone. It should bring to us all the benefits of health and connection. It should bring economic development to Southeast San Diego. And it should bring revenue to our city for decades to come, just like Griffith Park Observatory has for the City of Los Angeles. Fair housing doesn't mean corralling us into one area without the amenities other communities already have under the pretense of caring for our pitiful needs. Affordable housing stock should be built in communities that are already well-appointed. That's how fair housing works. That's how the letter and spirit of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing works. You bring people to where the resources are plentiful. And you build up low resources before you add more people. This hill, our last chance, is the last test of our lifetimes to move things forward in the tradition of our ancestors and hope for our children. Will we, without showing the greatest determination of which we are capable, allow our elected officials and the professionals who should work for them to trade away our future? or will we rise to the cause of building something worthy of our history our people and our potential let's hold the hill let's build the park so we do believe that 123 homes on this hill is a short term

band-aid that will just lock us in. If you are looking at the long-term interests of the city of San Diego and of our community, you don't want to just lock us in on that hill because we can't make more land. That's all we've got. We're built out. So then we're surrounded with all these low-income, high-poverty, concentration of poverty towers. And unlike New York City, we don't have a Central Park. What do you expect us to do? Nature is ruled by the law of compensation. If people or anything needs something and they don't get it, they compensate for it in ways that are usually unpleasant. And a lot of times that unpleasantness, we can't anticipate what it will be, but that unpleasantness can many times spill over to people that we don't think it will spill over to. We have seen that basically with homelessness. It's not going away. So I'm begging you to save limbs, literally to save limbs and to save lives and to allow us to develop our community in the same way that other communities have been developed. We do believe this is a matter of health and safety that even if you were to interpret the municipal code as staff has told you that, you know, you should interpret it. We do believe that you should vote not to approve this project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Jeffrey Huter. You have a few people ceding time to you. David Modi. Dana Gibbett. It's Dana. OK. Alan Conrad. OK. You'll have three minutes.

All right. I'll wait for the presentation to come up. All right. So, you know, I think we've already heard some pretty powerful testimony about what this place means to the residents of Choyas Valley and Emerald Hills. So but I just like to expound a little bit on the lost opportunity that this represents for us across San Diego. If you go to the next slide, you look at our parks master plan. We've heard about the community A plan designated this as parks, and it didn't even designate all 36 acres, but there was intended that there would be a park here. I think there was a statement about the fact that it was not voted in favor by the community, that they voted 13-0 against it. One of the things that didn't get probably noticed there, I didn't notice the first time That was over a year ago when the whole controversy of footnote seven was happening. There's never really been any dialogue about this site. And what's really telling is there appears to be, even though this is part of the plan, there appears to be no attempt by the city to ever negotiate a park on this site. And if you go to the next slide, this it's it's not understated i mean it just looks like brown grass here you really should drive up there you can see a little bit from memory lane this is one of the most spectacular views in all of san diego and substituting what could be here as a as a resource for the entire city with a handful of pocket parks, four pocket parks. They're all located on the interior of the development, not where you could see any of these vistas. That's not a fair trade. And the other part is somebody might try and argue later that there's a neighboring park Uh, to the site, but the neighboring site doesn't have the vistas that you're going to get from this site. This is a true landmark in the city of San Diego and something that should be fairly considered. I just want to go. If you skip forward to the next slide, I think a fair points been made about this. This is a roller coaster. You don't get a full sense of what this road looks like from where the development is to get to the so called trolley stations. And I get that they took it out of the sustainable development area because this road disqualifies the site from being in the sustainable development area. But. The CEQA considerations, the mobility element, the environmental justice element, and the conservation elements are all still based on this being a passable road for pedestrians. And so there's a lot that's still open. Footnote seven doesn't make this a ministerial project over which you have no control. There are a whole host of exceptions that you're being asked to make today, and you have the agency to reject the project based on those elements. Thank you.

Thank you, Alan Conrad.

Hi, I'm just here to ask you to please reject this program. It's completely discriminatory, inequitable, unjust, and probably illegal. Today I was on my way here, I stopped, was that radio? And I turned right to go up the 60th, and I had to, I stopped, looking both ways, and there's all these cars coming, zipping down the hill like this. It's the most dangerous intersection in San Diego and you're like, okay. And I go, okay, it's clear. And then I go to go up and my back tire starts spinning out because I couldn't even get the momentum to go up that steep grade. It is a dangerous, dangerous street. That is not safe. So if you're talking about public safety as a reason to not pass this, just drive it and find out. That stuff is super dangerous. People will die.

Dan Boyd. Looks like you have quite a few people ceding time to you. 20 people. And in fact, we kept presentations at 15 minutes. So I don't know if six people out of this group want to speak on their own. I will start listing names, and then they can say if they want to see time or not. Okay. Ryan La... Lavagnier. Lavagnier. Okay. That was a micro script. Julie Howard. Troy Burns. Delaney Tax. Tom Remers. Andrew Garrison. Devin Ergo. Ed Lamont. Tim Birch. John Howard. Meg Carroll. Benjamin Vasquez. Gary Cunningham. Emily Dedick. Okay. Neil Heitenen. John Meijer.

John Meijer.

Okay. Barbara Skoll. Parker Chorich. Beth Ehsan, Charlene So. Okay, you'll have 15 minutes.

Okay, I just need to know, are we ready to go with the presentation? Okay, great. We're going to present a presentation with a few comments following, and that'll be our presentation. residential community. Emerald Hills is a well-designed and balanced community. It includes 123 new single-family detached residential homes. 13 are affordable rate homes. The project will include street widening along 60th Street. It will include onsite public open space areas with amenities. It will also include pedestrian circulation and trail systems. Important to DR Horton, in addition to designing a well-balanced community, was to make sure that we conducted a thorough and extensive community outreach. In doing so, Horton reached out to a number of organizations, including the Local Planning Area Group, Emerald Hills Neighborhood Group, along with meeting the National Black Contractors Association. We spent a lot of time with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. We also were introduced to the San Diego County Urban League. And more importantly, we conducted a number of individual homeowner meetings in homes, listening to the concerns of the community. The process and timeline for our community outreach is clearly illustrated with this diagram. We began our initial outreach in October of 22. It continued through 2023, 2024, ultimately to 2025. This graph clearly demonstrates and highlights the various meeting dates with the various groups in conjunction with our city submittals. We're excited to show you the illustrative site plan that demonstrates our project is very compatible within the existing community. Our project is bordered on the east to 60th Street leading over to the west to Emerald Hills Park and the Johnson Magnet School. What's important to us to demonstrate is that our project, in conformance with the density guidelines, is compatible with the neighborhood, mostly to the west of 60th Street. East of 60th Street, you see the larger lots consumed mostly with larger slopes. But what's important to note future in this presentation is compatibility of our project with the community. The proposed Emerald Hills community will take primary access off of 60th Street as shown here in this illustration. We're excited to show you an artist illustration of the 60th Street access point. This illustration is yet another perspective of the 60th Street entry. You can see the new homes perched on top of the existing slope, as well as the extensive use of landscaping to provide a buffer between the homes and 60th Street. In addition to the 60th Street access point, the project also provides for an emergency vehicle only access point located to the west. Emerald Hills also includes three water quality basins. The purpose for these basins is not only to collect the water, but also discharge the water that is clean before it enters into the storm drain systems of the city. Important to note as well is that this project contains the water at a level at pre-development levels. Therefore, this project will not be impacting the adjacent community. Amenities included within the Emerald Hills proposal includes four distinct pocket park areas individually designed for passive recreation. These areas will be available not just to the residences of Emerald Hills, but available for the general public's use and enjoyment as well. This illustration demonstrates the location of a trail that is being provided as part of the San Diego's overall trail systems. D.R. Horton will be providing this as part of our project. This illustration is a street section for 60th Street. D.R. Horton will be widening the street from curb to curb by 18 feet. But in addition to that, you can see the relationship of the sidewalks and the community trail systems. 60th Street in its present condition is shown here, along with the existing slope condition on D.R. Horton's side. 60th Street, as improved by D.R. Horton, is illustrated in this slide. It shows the relationship of the new 60th Street along with the adjacent sidewalk and trail systems. Important to note, as part of the 60th Street improvement, we'll also include improvement upon the existing line of sight to ensure additional safety for travelers. In addition to the 60th Street trail system, you can see here in blue the sidewalk system that will provide pedestrian access for the general public leading to the west of the project that leads to the Emerald Hills Park as well as the Johnson Magnet School. This is a street section for the interior streets. We're showing here the five foot sidewalks along with a seven foot parkway behind curb. We have this condition on both sides of the street as well as this new street tree is being planted throughout the project. Shown here is the interior circulation that leads to each of the four public park areas shown in orange. The first of four pocket parks is shown here. We include open space along with turf play area. Accommodations for bike parking as well as a repair station for bicycles is also provided. Picnic tables and benches are included for the public enjoyment. The second pocket park is shown here that will provide additional play area and open space for the community and the general public. Park 3 also includes picnic tables and benches, but also meandering trails to promote passive recreation. Unique to this location are the long downtown and ocean views. This is an artist illustration of Park 3. You can see we're promoting passive recreation for the residences as well as the general public to enjoy also the long views towards the ocean. Park 4 is exciting because it provides an overlook of the downtown and ocean views, along with an artistic built-in bench that will provide diversity between this and the other parks. This is an artist illustration of Park 4. Emerald Hills is a unique location because it provides an opportunity for panoramic views, as seen here towards the Mexican border. And this view is showing long views of downtown San Diego, Coronado, the Coronado Bridge. DR Horton is excited to present Emerald with a variety of architectural styles. Beginning with the Spanish style, we're providing a single and two-story home. This style includes board and batten style shutters, clay or ceramic tile pipe gables, and stucco walls with light colors. Next, we are providing a traditional style architecture with key elements that include a concrete flat tile roof, square columns with stucco over wood posts with base and capital trim, and panel style shutters. And last is our craftsman style. Key elements on this will include concrete flat tile roofs, stucco walls with stone veneer accents, along with wooden brackets and kickers. All in all, with four distinct plans with three elevations for each plan, we'll be providing a vibrant and exciting mix of architecture for Emerald Hills. D.R. Horton has worked closely with city staff over the past year or so, making sure that the city's land use policies are implemented within the design of our project. D.R. Horton working closely with staff is promoting a project that provides affordable and market rate housing. Moreover, conformance to the general plan land use and community planning elements We are excited to help the City of San Diego promote quality housing in a well-designed, balanced project. Previously, we had discussed lot sizes and compatibility. Here in this slide, we demonstrate that west of 60th Street, 86% of those lots are below 10,000 square feet, and 50% are between 5 and 6,000 square feet. D.R. Horton's project was designed with a minimum required 5,000 square foot lot. However, I would like to note that our lot averages are nearly 6,000 square feet and we include sevens, eights, and some 9,000 square foot lots. As with every project, CEQA conformance is required. We provided an addendum to an existing program EIR that City staff concluded was in conformance with that document adopted and certified in 2015. The project is within the scope of analysis of that program EIR and provides substantial evidence that the project would not require a major change to the program EIR. DR Horton, while being excited designing a well-balanced community, we're more excited with what this community can do on a long-term basis for the existing community. In that regard, the Emerald Hills Community Benefit Coalition is a coalition made up of a committee that will basically look at various review requests, whether it be a new mailbox, some landscaping, perhaps some painting. but the long-term funding would be initiated by Horton's value-based funding pledge. Subject to all project approvals, including appeals, the funding of this committee will continue long past D.R. Horton through long-term fundraising efforts. It's a collaborative effort, and we're excited to be part of it. And working with city staff and others, we believe that this coalition will provide a long-term benefit to the community. Emerald Hills is also providing nearly $3.4 million in development impact fees. The lion's share of that is going towards parks, nearly $2.3 million. Mobility, fire, and library are also benefits of our project impact fees. Members of the Planning Commission, that concludes D.R. Horton's presentation for Emerald Hills. We are excited and we hope you too in considering the approval of a project that's well designed and provides future homeowner ownership for many to come. We also believe that the combination of market rate and affordable rate homes is important to ensure generational wealth. We thank you for your time. Also, we have a complete team of consultants available for any questions that you may have. Thank you again very much. Madam Chair Modine and members of the Planning Commission, thank you for your review of that project and our project presentation. We are very excited to finally have the opportunity to present to you for your consideration our project. We very much welcome to address the public comments during the testimony, and we obviously have quite a few individuals on our team that are prepared to answer each and every one of your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, your staff has been spectacular. We've been working closely for well over two years, and so we're very excited to finally bring the merits of this project to you, the merits of home ownership, the merits of bringing home ownership to a wide variety of folks, including those seeking their first homes through the affordable housing programs. So we believe that the project includes not just the amenities shown, but we're opening this project up to the public. We're not secluding this project. We're trying to provide a project that's not just well balanced not just meets the housing objectives of the city of san diego but provides a really good opportunity to bring the entire community up and give the community a shot in the arm we believe the public infrastructure is all time is concluded thank you thank you clinton james

Is Clinton James present? Does Greg Hill or Dr. Ethel Sims want to speak? Would you like to speak? Can you please state your name for the record?

Hi, my name is Dr. Ethel Sims, and I'm part of NARAB where Greg Hill is the president and Clinton James is the state NARAB president, but they had other opportunities they had to support. I'm a resident of Coronado View Estates, which is east of the park there. I've been there twice. I moved back to be part of the culture, to be part of the community, and to actually just go deeper in our roots for homeownership. So I bought into the community twice and I see home ownership as an opportunity for generational wealth. I hear all of the concerns about footnote seven. I hear all of the concerns about an infrastructure, but as Dan Boyd just pointed out, there's diff funds that we can use and we'll peel into the city to let those diff funds come into the community so that we can take care of some of the problems in the long term. underserved issues that are pending that are real in the community. But if we can use these funds and we bring a project into the community of that capacity, then the community should benefit directly for D4, for Emery Hills, and all of the surrounding street issues or traffic.

Your time is up. Thank you.

We thank you for your time.

Thank you. Pastor Thomas Sims. You'll have one minute.

Thank you. I'm Pastor Thomas L. Sims. I'm a native of San Diego, and I've seen the development down in the, excuse me, down in Seaport Village. And as I was a boy down in Seaport Village, I used to go fishing down there, and I would be down there hours by myself. down there fishing. And when the development came, I was taken back and didn't really like the development. But as I go down there, I see how it benefit not just me, but others. So what I'm here to say is that home ownership can build generational wealth. And it is a privilege and it is an honor to be in that community where that could happen and take place not just for me, but for those who will come after me. So I am for the project. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now transition to the online speakers.

We currently have eight online speakers, and we will begin the five minute timer for those who wish to raise their hand. After the five minutes concludes at 1127, any speakers who raise their hand will not be allowed to speak. But we currently have roughly eight speakers in the queue who have raised their hand. Again, the five minute timer is on now for those online who also wish to speak. We will begin with the phone number ending in 4528. Please unmute yourself and identify yourself. You will have one minute. You may unmute yourself caller 4528. Okay, we're going to move on to, to the next caller for faith to aid, you can raise your hand if you're able to unmute yourself at the end of this. The speaker M off down off the Leo, please unmute yourself and identify yourself. You have one minute.

Hello, can you hear me? yes we can hear you now thank you uh just a small comment as a young person who lives in San Diego one of my main issues is housing I think that this project would do a lot to alleviate a lot of the housing issues in San Diego I still live in the city and my parents still live off Imperial Avenue lived here in San Diego my whole life graduated San Diego State University and I'd like to continue living and working here in San Diego without uh being fair priced out. So that's my main concern. Thank you.

Thank you, Brooke Velasquez. Please unmute yourself. You have one minute.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, please proceed.

Hi, I am a native San Diegan as well. grew up in Encinitas, live in Rancho Panasquitos, been all over the community for over 40 years, watched the development and been a part of the construction industry for over 20 years. And any development I've seen from the flower fields being developed in Encinitas to communities in Chula Vista, it's only improved the communities that surround it. And housing is such a deficit. There's such a crisis for housing in San Diego. I've got three kids. I want my kids to be able to have a home. And this type of community will help make that happen. The only other thing I'll add is being a part of the construction industry, it also helps promote jobs and brings jobs and careers to our community as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Sally Small.

Thank you. Hi, Sally Small, Emerald Hills Neighborhood Council co-president, former member of the Troy's Valley Community Planning Group. DR Horton puts on a good show, but when they came to the Emerald Hills Neighborhood Council, it was very clear we did not appreciate what they were doing. They made no offers to help us. They distinctly said they didn't want to help with our park. uh improvements they did not want to help the residents that lived right off of old memory lane they did not want to do anything for 60th street which is a traffic concern uh high fire uh safety hazard zone with only one ingress and egress for the entire complex um Have to admit, I enjoy the radio towers. When I see it, it means I'm coming home. It was supposed to be in our view from the community planning group, 2015 community plan was to- Thank you, your time has ended.

Jake Buchanan.

Hello, can you guys hear me?

Yes, please proceed.

Yeah, so I'm a long term renter and San Diego resident. I just like to express my support for the housing development. I'm Affordability, as we all know, continues to be a challenge here, especially for younger individuals like myself trying to build equity within the community. And I think this project directly contributes to California's housing shortage in a positive way. And these additional homes will make a positive impact and make housing more accessible for young working individuals like myself trying to build equity here in my home. Thank you.

Carmen and Graham.

Hi, good morning. Hello, good morning. Yes, hi, sorry. Please proceed. Thank you. We're longtime residents of Emerald Hills, and we are opposed to this project. We believe this will impact our community, the traffic, the environment. We stand for greener space in our community. And this home shortage, this does not promise affordable housing. I would like to see what the pricings of these houses are. I'm sure only 13 homes does not fulfill the shortage that California is experiencing. And this impacts so many of us in this community have been standing strong up here. And yes, so that's really just my note, just a resident of Emerald Hills that opposes this project. And I wish for a greener space for our children, for our elders.

for a community it was promised as park space as part of the 200 2015 plan yes thank you louis hello i want to voice my uh opposition to uh this project i think this is a terrible thing for our community it we don't need it um we're on the verge of a recession and when that occurs Houses are gonna become available in our neighborhood. People are going to lose their homes. Are they gonna have to compete with 123 new pieces of inventory? That's disingenuous to the people that have made their lives and built their equity in the community already. If you're talking safety, traffic is crazy along 60th. It's only gonna get worse. And this is just, You got to get your boots off our neck. We need you to say no to this project. Thank you.

B Norman?

Good morning. My name is Buddy Norman. I'm a partner and vice president of real estate development at Vertical Bridge. We are the owners of the radio tower property. And the purpose of my testimony today is to confirm for the record that our company is under contract with D.R. Horton to transfer the property under the terms and conditions of our contract. D.R. Horton will build, construct and sell the homes being proposed at today's hearing. We appreciate your consideration today and thank you for your time.

Peggy Walker.

Well, thank you. I'm a planning group attendee and I oppose this unwanted proposal and support the suggested larger park with commercial opportunities that benefits all San Diego. I speak because residents should have the deciding voice in what happens in terms of housing density, quality of life, safety, health, land development, and long-term community interests, not developers. I speak for equity, healing, connection, beauty, economic opportunity, and land preservation. This is yet another of too many situations in which resident voices are snuffed out by those with bigger lobbying dollars. I've seen the same with other forced developments, with marijuana, commercial expansion, and other decisions residents didn't ask for. Please vote no on this project.

Our final speaker is Citizen. Can you please identify yourself? You will have one minute.

My name is C. Arenas.

Thank you. Please proceed.

Only 10.5% of the homes in the project are affordable housing. DR Horton can definitely sell the homes at below market value. They choose not to because it'll cut into their profits. This is not about expanding community and helping expansion of home ownership. One of the parks is butted up against the water filtration. we shouldn't be known for the four corners of death we should be known for the beautiful views that you can see corn auto to tijuana to downtown this could be a destination for fourth of july you can see six fireworks across the board at that park dr horton should not be allowed to continue and shame on the choias owners or the choias radio tower for following through on the project thank you thank you that concludes public comment uh a virtual public comment

Okay, we can move on to Commission comment. Vice Chair Boomhauer.

Thank you, Chair Modane. And thank you, Mr. Mendez and staff for the presentation. It was very thorough, especially reading into the record all the modifications. I also appreciate all the public comments from neighborhood residents and from the applicants. It helps us get a feel for... Well, you've got it all the way up. for everybody's uh feelings on this and and this project i want to go through and ask a series of questions up front just a lot of this is coming from public comment either written public comment that we received uh there were a couple hundred of those or um public speakers here today um and Mr Mendez I'll let you flip off to whichever appropriate staff members might need to do this so just starting with parks um is the subject property indicated in the current adopted general plan as being a park

It is currently designated as residential land use within the general plan. It is also designated as residential land use within the community plan. The community plan does have a, I guess it's a possible park designation within the community plan. That designation did identify though that the project site is privately owned. And if it were to be developed, it would have to go through an acquisition process.

You just answered like my next three questions. That was awesome. Let's jump on to land use and the applicant talked about this, but can staff comment on how the proposed density for this property matches with the density in the currently approved community plan?

The project has a proposed density of 3.9 dwelling units per acre. The community plan land use designation is zero to four dwelling units per acre. So it is in conformance with the maximum of four dwelling units per acre as designated in the community plan.

And is that zero to four dwelling units per acre density consistent with the density of the existing development around the subject site?

That is consistent with the developments to the north and to the south of the project site. I would say it's not consistent with the existing development to the east of the project site across 60th Street. Okay, thank you.

Nobody taught well one person mentioned it today briefly, but several people in the written public comments seem to indicate that this is a indigenous kumeyaay burial site I didn't see any reference to that in any of the supporting documents is.

We do have the environmental staff here and the archaeologists from the applicant team, but from the records and the archaeology report that was prepared for the project site, there are no indications that this is a native burial site.

Okay, thank you. It seemed like that was the case, but I just wanted to double check.

uh and then finally and this might be for engineering um does 60th street and the proposed developer improvements meet the city's requirements in the street design manual um the project was reviewed in conformance to the street design manual so the improvements at this point as proposed are in conformance if there are specific questions i do have engineering staff here that can answer those questions

I was going to say, I'm sure some of my other colleagues that are a little more versed in traffic and engineering will have some questions. So, okay, that takes care of all the questions that I had. So I'll throw out a couple of comments. I really think this proposal is great because it's bringing market rate housing, a for sale market rate project into an area that has had a lack of market rate housing projects being developed in recent decades. And by recent decades, I mean like 40 years. Um, I also appreciate that this is all housing targeting the needs of families. So every house here is multiple bedrooms. We hear regularly from our friends at Neighbors for a Better San Diego that the housing we're producing isn't sufficient for families. They've talked about this on a number of occasions, and here we have a project that is fully targeted at family housing and multiple bedroom setups. So I really think that that is a very good thing. One of the public speakers today mentioned how affordable housing should be placed in highest resource areas, but in efforts to, as they were speaking about furthering Affirmatively furthering fair housing, but this is actually just the opposite. This is actually bringing market rate housing into a lower resourced area, which is allowing for capital improvements and the diff fees and some of these other things. So this is the flip side of that same coin. We should be doing more affordable housing in highest resource areas. We've approved a number of those projects. Uh, so with that, I, just to get the ball rolling, I can make all the required findings and I feel that this is an important project for this neighborhood and for San Diego. So I therefore moved to approve staff's recommendations based on the corrected and amendment documents that were provided to us.

Okay. We have a motion, uh, commissioner Mazzari.

Thank you, staff, for all your hard work and the community for showing up. I have a couple of questions. They said the community planning group recommended denial. Was there anything specific that they said if the developer did that, that they could be in support or did they have any recommendation of what they're looking for?

Unfortunately, the form that I received was just the recommendation of denial with a vote. There was no additional documentation to support that. And as I previously mentioned, we did not obtain a copy of the meeting minutes from that meeting on October 28th.

But earlier you said that they're here and they could answer questions. Are they not here?

Correct. The chair is here.

Yeah, that was there.

Okay, can somebody come up and answer questions? She is the chair.

At the time that they presented, I was the chair of Choice Valley Community Planning Group. This is Robert Campbell, who was the vice chair. And they have asked what was the reason that we had a vote of 13-0-0 to deny the project, not to recommend the project. We voted not to recommend the project because it was reliant on footnote 7. And if you want to speak to the EIR that was in place at the time.

Sure, I mean, if you look back, and you can look at the environmental document that was released six days ago, it shows that there was significant unavoidable impacts to the roadway, specifically 60th Street. That is what I recall. Is there anything else?

No.

OK. And regarding 60th Street, the traffic engineer will not die in me. You said that the project is providing improvements for line of sight, sight distance, visibility, intersection improvements. Can you expand on any of those and see?

Yeah, we've got our transportation reviewer here that can answer that question.

Hi, Megan Lipko, Transportation Development. The project proposes to widen, to dedicate approximately 30 feet along the project frontage on 60th Street. And it's going to widen the curb to curb by 18 feet. It's going to construct a 12-foot wide parkway, including a five-foot wide sidewalk and a seven-foot green street swale. Additionally, within the project site, The project will provide a 10-foot recreational easement to include a 5-foot decomposed granite trail with an additional landscape buffer. The project will also be providing stormwater improvements and generally changing the grade of the road. If you have questions regarding stormwater, I'm going to defer to engineering here.

Yeah, no, I don't. I have traffic questions. So with those improvements, they're mostly at the 60th at their entrance. So it's not additional intersections along the way. Correct. It's only at the new entrance to their property.

They're proposing a new driveway as the entrance to their property. There's also the emergency vehicle access road that they're improving as well with new paving and new sidewalk along that to connect to the nearby school. Okay.

And then the new driveway entrance from the renderings looks like a curb return. It is not a standard driveway entrance, right? Yes. And unsignalized that they did not qualify for a traffic signal?

It did not. It's going to be stop controlled at this location.

For exiting traffic? Correct. Okay. And the pocket parks don't have any designated visitor parking?

No, they do not. It's for use by the community.

And mostly very internal to the development. So it's... not very open to public to come up there. I mean, they're not prohibited, but it doesn't, when I look at the site plan, it doesn't look like something, it's not at the edge where they can enjoy the views. It's not large enough to accommodate much of public parking for it. So it's mostly for people who live there to walk to those little parks.

lot of the pictures show just one bench or like little green area i'm going to defer to the developer yeah regarding the parks yeah or or planning stuff madam commissioner the project as we know is including four pocket parks the design and intent of those pocket parks were certainly as part of the community in which we're proposing orton is opening these pocket parks up to the general public with respect to parking we have 170 street parking spaces available the design and intent of these pocket parks is for passive recreation there's no basketball courts there's no tennis courts that kind of thing it's passive recreation so we're very confident that we can accommodate the parking if somebody wants to drive from outside the community There's plenty of street parking along these pocket parks.

Okay. The way it typically works with these kind of housing with four or five bedrooms, multi-generation people live in it, there's typically more than two cars. I understand that those people are going to park in the driveways, on the streets. They're going to take a lot of these open parking that you're talking about, which is fine, but... And these pocket parks are great, they're perfect for people who live there, but to classify it as a community amenity, I have a problem with that.

Well, the community amenity is referring to the new community.

Yeah, for the people who are going to live there, it's perfect. They're going to enjoy it and they're going to walk to it.

We're on the same page. I also want to make a notation that this project has got about 862 parking spaces okay the two car garages you also have two cars in your driveway along with 170 parking spaces yeah this project is well over part i understand okay i get it thank you thank you and i while you're here without footnote 7 what could you have built here Without footnote seven, we could have taken advantage of the density bonus afforded to this project as a result of the affordable units. It's been projected that the number of units could be as high as 246 units if we were to pursue a density bonus. So footnote seven was in play at the time we were processing the project. And therefore, it did not require a zone change or any amendments to the general plan or the community plan. But to answer your question again, without footnote 7, D.R. Horton would have explored a density bonus, would have then created much smaller lots and much more density afforded to that project as a result of the city's affordable density program.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Reeves. Thank you, Chairman. And I'd actually like to hear from Commissioner Marlborough. And then so if we could swap, I'd love to hear his comments and then I'll go.

Okay. I just go on the order on here. Commissioner Marlborough.

You just put pressure on me right now, didn't you?

I have to get him to go first.

First of all, I want to thank staff for your report and your hard work. And I also appreciate all the public comment that we had today. A lot of good information was passed on to that. But I wanna say one little thing about public comment. I sat on that planning group for seven and a half years and I chaired it for seven years, no, eight years, and I chaired it for seven and a half years. And I'm open to public comment. And it's very interesting to me that there are people who are commenting who don't live in this area. My question, it's not a question, it's just a statement. Where were you when we have projects coming in for multiple family housing, 100% affordable? Where were you in our meetings? Where were you at the planning commission meetings? But you're here today to try to stop um houses for sale that i'm bothered by that but i'll appreciate you can keep coming keep doing what you need to do i'm okay with that but i questioned that because i sat there and i saw the pain on my members on the board and the communities i fully get that and fully understand that So secondly, I want to apologize for the technology issues that we had, but I know the staff very well that is not going to happen again. They learn from these issues and I pretty much guarantee you that's not going to happen. I was surprised that we didn't get as much concern about fire, especially because they're in a very high fire severity area. So I thought, well, I'm not going to have to bother fire people here, but I am because it got brought up. And I'd like for you to talk about that. Also, I would like for you to talk about the emergency access. You don't have to spend a lot of time. Just go real quickly over it.

Perfect. My name is Tyler Larson. I'm a supervising deputy fire marshal for San Diego Fire Rescue's Community Risk Reduction Division. I oversee new construction. My deputy fire marshal Nathaniel Boyle is here as well. He did the review on the project but we anticipated this issue coming up. So I'll read the base code regarding the need for a second access road and then I'll read our what we amended and then that amendment went through before this project's deemed complete date. So one and two family residential developments. So where their number of dwelling units exceed 30, you need two access roads. If you provide every unit or every dwelling with an automatic sprinkler system, you're allowed to exceed 30 with no cap. if they're all sprinkler, kind of shows the reliability of the sprinkler system, buys people more time. That was kind of the idea. And the intent was for our access into the site, right? More and more conversations happen about very high fire severity zone and the evacuation aspect. So we amended that to if you're in a very high fire severity zone, regardless of if you're sprinkler or not, you need two access roads. So we have one on the west, one on the east, It meets our requirements, our slope requirements, those two gates on the west side. We're going to work with the developer as far as the egress part of it for the evacuation purposes, something that works for both the fire department and the community on that site. And they're going to meet all our gate requirements, Opticom, Knox key switch. But ideally, we want the flow in and out as well.

Well, I'll just ask you a quick question. Is your department ready to handle 123 homes into that area?

That's a good question. We'd have to look more into it. We have to look at the, and we're doing it with other areas. We're looking at current response times, current density, what's the plan for the increased density, a lot of analysis that we haven't had for a long time. So luckily we're our fire marshal chief task. He's working on that.

And that was actually a good question for your boss. So I don't blame you for answering it in that way. Good job. Good job on that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. This is for the applicant. Are you planning on having a first time home user programs that are offered throughout the state?

Absolutely. We have at DR Horton a program that we actually are proactive, qualifying, working with individual homeowners that basically have low FICA scores. So we have a program that encourages the ability for them to secure a new loan. We're also working very closely and will be working closely similarly with the San Diego League. And they too have a very similar program. So we have a coalition from the National Association of Real Estate Brokers that also are very proactive. So we are looking forward to working closely with the San Diego's Housing Authority in which their program requirements we're compliant with. So we're going to be reaching out and yes, to answer your direct question, we're looking forward to getting 13 qualified individuals into these homes. Thank you. You're welcome.

Um, this might go to traffic. I'm not a specialist. We do have one here, but I do have a couple questions or just a few questions about that. You're saying that right now with what they're proposing, it will be okay. It will satisfy that, correct?

Yes. And a local mobility analysis was prepared for the project as well as the VMT analysis.

Okay. So in the... I did a little looking up. So in the Encanto CPU, the PEIR, it basically says that they're used average daily trips of 5,050 trips a day, right? So in this project, we'll produce 1,107 trips a day. The decision that is fine, does that work with that 5,000? That's the part that I don't understand. Does that mesh with that? And you're saying it's acceptable for what they're proposing right now?

What is the 5,000 count from?

The 5,000 is in the PEIR for the Encanto neighborhood planning area.

Okay, is that referring to the...

Sorry, you're right. Let me be... It's 60th Street from Imperial to Federal.

Okay, so those are the average daily... Correct. Those are the projected traffic counts for that.

Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

Okay. The... Okay, is that the existing or the preferred? Okay. Yes. So when this local mobility analysis was prepared, there were traffic counts that were taken for this. Right. Those can vary on a day-to-day basis, but basically we evaluate roadway segments and intersections based on the criteria in the Transportation Study Manual. So we're required to evaluate studies that would add um a thousand ADT and have a planned classification um or for for build out uh we evaluated the fronting segments even though they didn't meet that criteria as a conservative analysis so so are you saying it hasn't changed much since because that was done what I the information I gave you was in 2012 so it's been 13 years I would have to consult this study if you'd like the exact numbers that were taken for those counts

yeah that's an important aspect to me uh in that and a couple other questions uh one more question rather um what would uh instigate the possibility of having a street light at their plan um uh Street A at 60th Street what would what would Target what would make that happen

There would have to be a traffic signal warrant analysis performed for it, and that looks at the ADT or the average daily trips along 60th Street, either during those eight different warrants that you can perform for that, either for peak hours or for daily traffic.

Okay. So someone would have to, how would that happen? Did you do that? Let me just say that.

There was no warrant analysis done.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay. So, you know, this morning I came to work, I went through that way from Imperial all the way. It wasn't too bad, but I know the street. I live in the area, not too far from it. It's very narrow. And the problem that I have, and I like the project, so don't get me wrong, but what I don't want is to be a safety issue, a health and safety issue. It's very difficult. I feel like it'll be very difficult to turn left with no control of the traffic going north and south. And what I have a feeling what's going to happen is everyone who wants to go out during rush hour, it's going to go right, go to Old Memory, go through that small community, very narrow street as well. And that's going to create some issues and stuff. So I'm not going to sit here and stop just because of that, but I'm hoping that at some point in time that you do put a traffic signal on that spot because I think it'll be safer. And also in the renderings, and that's just the renderings, I didn't see crosswalks, but I saw people walking. I didn't see any crosswalks throughout the rendering. Will there be crosswalks there?

Internal to the site or outside?

No, outside on 60th Street.

I don't believe that there were proposed crosswalks on the plants. For there to be a crosswalk, it would have to be at an intersection, and the driveway itself does not have an opposing intersection on the other side of the road.

guess why i asked it because i heard a comment about how kids can walk through and and go to to the elementary yes well they live across some kids who live across 60th street how do they get across in that kind of traffic so that's just a concern that i okay yeah but i'm done thank you for your okay your comments i appreciate it um My last thing that I'll say, and I'm trying not to take too much of your time, I'm sorry, but he made me go first, so you owe it to me. A lot of talk about parks, a lot of public comment about parks. I remember during the community plan, because I chaired that when we were looking at that, and a lot of members on the planning group and also they wanted to have that as a park. I get that. But we were told that that's private property. We were told that that would not be easy to do. But that's okay. They still wanted to have that. And so I keep hearing, I've heard this, like, it's designated park. It's supposed to be, and it got swapped. That's not true. And so if you go on your community plan page in the recreation section, which is seven, seven dash seven, there's a park there, there's a park map. And that map states that that particular area was a potential park, not a proposed, not a dedicated park land, but a potential. In fact, they put a disclaimer on that map and here's what it says it says identification of private property as a potential park site does not preclude permitted development per the underlying underlying land use or zone and i'm going to ask my planning uh personal staff can you explain what that means to the public

Certainly in our community plans, the recreation elements typically identify opportunities for parks. These could be existing. They could be publicly owned or privately owned as potential park sites. The language in the Encanto Community Plan mentions that although the recreation element sees this park site as an opportunity for a park, that it is still privately owned and the property owners of that property still have the right to develop that site based on existing land use policy and zoning.

Okay, thank you. So I wanted to get that out because there was a lot of information put out and a lot of people felt that, oh, it was supposed to be a park. No, it was a potential idea for a park, unfortunately. I sat on the San Diego Park Foundation, so I'm a supporter of parks. but i know when it's true what you can do and can't do and you can't really you can't fight that i'm sorry it's privately owned you can't tell somebody or make somebody who owns property to say it's going to be a park it doesn't work that way it doesn't work that way and i'm sorry about that so and i worry because and i'm directly talking to the planning group i support you not wanting 100 multi-family um buildings affordable. That hurts our community. But I don't understand why you're turning down market rate housing in our community. I've heard a couple of public comments on what that means. That would do more for this community in many ways. Businesses, I know I'm looking at you and I'm so sorry. I don't mean to do that. that but businesses that's going to affect businesses in your in your community right now your your rooftop income does not support what big businesses want to have but the more you bring market rate in that does make a change in things and so i'm going to support this and i'm sorry i i understand that's a beautiful idea about the park but it's just not it's not going to work here but you're going to get over three million dollars and div fees for parks. So you know what, that makes a difference. So I will be supporting this. Is there a second on this?

Just a second, Commissioner Marlboro. Just wanted to clarify, I want to point out that the project, I think it was earlier stated that goes over density, but the project is in conformance with the community plan density by proposing 3.9 dwelling units per acre where four is allowed. Additionally, we do have those traffic values if you would like for traffic staff to come up and provide those.

Go ahead.

Uh, Megan, let's go transportation development. So, as anticipated, there has been some growth since the traffic counts were taken with the, uh, the current, uh, volume as, um, measured in 2024 is 7339 trips. Along that fronting road.

Okay, so it's approaching at 8000 where that's a concern. Correct? Right. So that's that's. That's my problem. It's a level of service of C at this point. Level of service. It's a C or D? It's a C. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. So anyway, I've asked all the questions I've needed and I'm going to go ahead and support this and I'll actually make the second

And I apologize to interrupt again, but also wanted to clarify that the state regulations related to two means of fire access to the site. The project site does have two fire access. They do have the access that is the primary entrance to the site that comes in from the east, and then they have the secondary access that goes to the west out onto Old Memory Lane, which is the emergency access.

I'm from here. Thank you. You're sorry.

Thank you. Commissioner Reeves.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate everyone's time today coming out and engaging in this process. I have a couple of questions. First one goes to our city attorney here today. We received some public comment, written public comment, regarding, and I'm not an attorney, so please forgive me here, the constitutionality of footnote 7, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the the inference from that public comment regarding what our obligations are with regard to footnote 7.

Sure. Our office did issue a memorandum and it was a public memorandum on footnote 7 as this issue did come up earlier this year. All of the zoning regulations are presumed to be valid unless there is an arbitrariness to them or they're not reasonably related to public health and safety morals or general welfare of the public. As such, we have not determined that there are any issues with footnote seven.

Understood. Thank you. And therefore, relying on Fit Note 7 in your interpretation is legal from the city's standpoint. Thank you. Okay. I wanted to ask, actually, I have a question for staff and then a couple questions for the developer. The question for staff regarding the... the 13 affordable units. Can you just explain for me and for the community how once those are sold initially to the first property owners, how they maintain their affordability status moving forward and for however many, 50 years or whatever the deed restriction is? Or if you need to defer to someone else, please feel free. I'm just once, you know, we don't, if somebody buys a property that's at a reduced affordable rate and they purchase that property that's built in equity, if they then turn around and sell it at market rate. So there's, there's protection built into that through the housing commission, I believe.

Uh, if I can have a second, I just like to see if we've got, um, staff member from the housing commission online, and I don't see them. So I'll have to defer that question to our LDR planning staff.

Good morning, Antoinette Gibbs, LDR Planning. I don't actually have the answer for that. If you give me a moment, I could look that up.

No problem. So the deed restriction applies to the unit and it runs with the unit for the timeframe that is established in the agreement. So it is recorded in the permit and then it applies to the specific unit that applies to the property.

So it runs with the land. That's correct. For 50 years or whatever.

And usually there's a cap on growth.

Okay, that is the detail that I was looking for. There has to be some degree of growth in equity just naturally occurring, but it can't be equivalent to what a market rate unit next door would be. Yes.

That's correct. And it's all stipulated in the deed itself in terms of what that cap is. Understood. Thank you.

And are there any ADUs proposed with this project? I think I know the answer to that, but I just want to put it on the record.

No, there are not any ADUs proposed.

I know that there's a lot of heartburn with regard to ADUs, especially as they increase density. So we're looking at truly the number of units is the number of units here, no additional units, no additional living units here besides what's being proposed, 123, correct? That is correct. Thank you. And then my question for the developer, for the applicant. without locking you into something before you have a shovel in the ground. Do you have an idea of what the range will be on price point for the homes in this community?

Hit the button. Oh, sorry. It's very difficult to project an exact number, meaning I can't answer your direct question. However, I can say a couple of things. One is we don't have yet all the costs collected for the project. We know what the land price is, but we don't know what the labor and the union and the material costs. This project probably won't be contracted for several months following all the approvals. I can say though that what we do like to look at is the resale market and we like to look and see what's going on with the local resale market and there'd be no reason for us not to chase the resale market. That fluctuates as well. I don't want to be evasive nor I'm being dismissive with your answer, but that's always a question that's very difficult to answer. The best answer I can tell you is we will follow the market. There's no reason not to follow the market.

Does that make... Yeah, I mean, it doesn't answer my question, but I do appreciate that you can't, you know, again, I don't want to, you know...

If I told you... I wouldn't hold you to it. If I gave you a hypothetical number, it'd probably be wrong.

we don't want to do anything this lady okay um follow follow up to that might be a little tricky um without an actual number but uh can you speak to how the the the price point would would change if these were twenty thousand square foot lots instead of five thousand square foot lots i mean we're talking there's several comparisons to a project in la jolla but The, you know, a home on a 20,000 square foot lot goes for a lot different price point than a home on a 5,000 square foot lot. And I just want to see if we can drill into the affordability question there.

Well, there's actually two questions. Let me tackle it this way. The marketability for a 20,000 square foot lot is absolutely tremendous. very challenging people today can't afford to maintain a 20 000 square foot lot the housing trends and market is going to where what we're proposing proposing quality square footage on a lot that's reasonably sized to provide ample recreation opportunity for the family you put a 20 000 square foot lot where your house is going to be about the same size, but the maintenance factor is going to be so different that in our professional opinion, a 20,000 square foot is not marketable. And therefore, that's the reason why you've never seen any activity on a 20,000 square foot lot in today's marketplace.

Yep. Okay. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Okay. So... All of this is leading somewhere, and I'll get there, but I just have one question for the community planning group if you're available to answer a question. This is a lot of comments regarding what the community would like to see here, a park. Totally understand that. Is there anything other than a park that would be an acceptable proposal for this site?

If I'm speaking for my community, no. And if I could take this time. I understand the rooftop argument, but I thought that I had addressed that in the video. That's a short-term gain. You're going to increase income by 123 homes. The idea though, we have 54,000 people in Choice Valley, and I don't know how many units of housing that is, but probably at least half, right? What we're trying to do is long-term, get people to come in from out of state, out of our area, come in and increase the property values because they have a higher income and they see it as a desirable place to live. Long-term, that's gonna increase the rooftop much more than 123 homes. 123 homes is in an undesirable area. So it's not gonna go for what it would other places. And it's just a short-term gain and we're looking for some long-term solutions.

Thank you. That answers my question. And I just want to say the Bravo to the community for coming out and the ingenuity showing videos. I know AI helps with that these days, but it still takes a lot of time. And showing the art of the possible for this site. What could this be for the community? And frankly, I want that for this community. I want that for you. I think that it would be a beautiful thing for this neighborhood, for this community to have that. This is a privately owned site. Commissioner Marlboro mentioned that and I just want to reiterate that. Has there been any, I am well aware of what the city's fiscal situation is these days, but has there in the last several years been any conversations with the city to purchase this land for use as a public open space or a public park?

Not that I'm aware of.

And is there any budget for that in the foreseeable future for the city to be acquiring private land to build a park? Unfortunately, I don't think that's a question I can answer. I'm just trying to make a point here. Were this already publicly owned? 100%. I would agree with the community on this. It's privately owned land and it's zoned for low density residential, which is what's being proposed for it. Imagine if you have you know you had a parcel of land in this community zone for one home and you want to build your home on it and the community comes out and says no no no no no we want your land to be available for all of us because it's got a great view and we all want to be able to come here and look at the view you'd say sure can buy it from me and then the community can benefit from the view of my land but you're not going to say understood i'm not going to build my home here let's build a park here instead it's just it doesn't work that way unfortunately i would love if the city did have the budget and the wherewithal to purchase this this site i do agree that it would make a great park with incredible vistas Um, it's just not the situation that we're in. So, given that it is privately owned land and it's owned appropriately and we've established, you know, the legality of of the analysis with regard to footnote 7 and everything that went into that. Um, I, I, you know, I have no problem supporting the project. I want to reiterate. This is a single family. Um, for sale units, um, in a community that has been asking for that and. You know, to somebody's point earlier, through density bonus rules, we could have seen a lot more density on this site probably and would have probably met with a lot more resistance. So overall, I'm happy with it. I would say, I don't know if it's something that we can just assert, but I think a traffic signal at that point entrance on 60th makes sense. Without having done the study, I don't know if there's a way to say, let's just put a traffic signal there, but I'd say, let's just put a traffic signal there if we can put that into the motion. I think it makes a lot of sense. And with regard to the safety issues that have been brought up for 60th, I'd like to see that personally. I'm not going to ask the motion maker to change his motion unless he'd like to on that point, but I think that it makes sense to add that request.

I was going to ask the motion maker.

Would you be comfortable?

Sorry, can I say one thing before you change your motion?

I'm sorry.

Megan? I apologize. I know I asked this earlier, but I'm not clear that if you said it was not studied, the warrant analysis was not done, or was it done and it did not meet a traffic signal?

So the study, excuse me, the proposed entrance was analyzed as a side street stop controlled with a stop sign for exiting vehicles. And it was shown to operate a level of service of C, which is an acceptable level of service. Therefore, a signal was not proposed there. And again, there is no opposite curb at this location. So it wouldn't be connecting to another stop.

i understand that so a lot of t intersections are signalized which is i mean it's nothing against there's no rule against that but this many homes 123 homes it's over 1200 addt and if it hasn't been analyzed i don't know if we can say just to add it to the motion to put a traffic signal because the unwarranted signal is not something that the city wants to stand behind right and if so But top of my head, I think it would have met a traffic signal because it's going to be very difficult for the people exiting that side street. I know that. And the school traffic, and you said kids are going to walk across the street and use this. All of that is going to make it just top of my head that it would have made a traffic signal warrant. But if you haven't done one and we can't really stand behind the signal warrant, I don't know how we would add it to the...

Okay, question for the motion maker?

Go ahead. Yeah, so actually you asked almost exactly what I was going to ask, Grafik. So now I'll go to the city attorney's office. I know that you're going to tell us it's a really bad idea to require it without any kind of studies to back it up. Could we require them to perform the studies as part of the ministerial permit process, or does that exceed our authority?

I would ask staff, does it warrant or trigger that study?

No, that study is not triggered.

So, you know, as you mentioned, there needs to be a nexus and proportionality to requiring that. And right now, what we're hearing from staff is that there is no nexus for that.

Yeah. And Commissioner Reeves, that's my concern is I hear what you're saying. I kind of, I really, really wish they'd done the Warren analysis and just known the answer to that question. The hindsight being 2020, you know, fine. But I just don't know how we can amend the motion in a way that would actually survive a legal challenge.

Totally fine. And that's why, just a minute, Commissioner. That's why I said I don't necessarily think that we need to amend the motion or I put it to you to decide whether or not you wanted to amend the motion. Let's just let the record show that there's some degree of interest from the Planning Commission to study a signal for this location. I know that this is a process for, this could be the final say. If it's not, maybe there's an opportunity for that to be looked at going forward. That's all I'll say, and I will end my comments by saying I will support the motion as it stands. Again, thank you to staff for your time. Thank you to the community for coming out. I'm sorry that this is not going to be a park. I wish it were, but the reality is it's privately owned property, and that's the situation we've been handed to make a decision on today. Thank you.

Correct. One more second. One more thing I was going to add is regardless if it met that signal warrant today or not, if in the future it needs one, it's going to fall on the taxpayers once all these people move here and something, all this traffic. So maybe, I mean, I know legally we can't ask them to do it, but if the developer was going to throw it in as a project feature or something that they'll be willing to look at, I don't think there's anything stopping us from having that.

There we go. Thank you. I'll learn this one way or the other. I'd like to introduce Charlene So, who is our traffic engineer expert that did the traffic analysis for the project. Charlene, would you please join me? So I think what we're hearing is this. I think that what we're saying is that there wasn't sufficient trigger points to warrant a traffic analysis and therefore no signal given the level of service. But I'm going to let Charlene, our expert, help me with that answer.

Hi, my name is Charlene. So I'm a principal at Urban Crossroads and we prepared the traffic study. As Megan had mentioned, because the intersection operates at an acceptable level of service, we didn't take any addition. We weren't required to do any additional analysis in terms of looking at a traffic signal warrant analysis. I can tell you, I just briefly looked at the volumes and I've been doing traffic studies for 20 years and one of the most basic warrants is the peak hour warrant. As Megan mentioned, there's nine warrants in total, but typically you look at a peak hour warrant and I can tell you with the amount of traffic that you have coming out of this project alone during the peak hours, you wouldn't meet the minimum side street volume in order to meet this warrant. So even if we ran the peak hour warrant, you wouldn't meet that particular warrant. There's other warrants, but it's unlikely you'd meet those other warrants as well.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Renger, did you want to speak you are on cue and then and then you got removed with me going back to Commissioner Reeves.

I removed myself because Commissioner Reeves made a lot of the points that I make and wanted to get clarification on. So I removed myself. Thank you.

Okay. Commissioner Miyahara.

Thanks again, staff. And thank you to the community for coming out today. And also thank you to the other commissioners. They asked some really hard questions, made some really good comments. I had most of my questions answered. I understand that this project was deemed complete amid some controversy, footnote seven, that the city later removed. The fact of the matter is development rights were granted. We can't reverse those rights. I sympathize with the community and some of the public comment that was made today. That history is understandably frustrating. I can appreciate why you might feel upset, even angry about how things may have transpired. At the same time, I believe that communities like this one represent the type of development that the city of San Diego genuinely needs. We are running out of land to develop. It's essential that the remaining land that we do have is used in a way that we maximize housing production while respecting neighborhoods and the existing character that they have. Modest sized lots, appropriately scaled homes are exactly the type of development that this community needs. This will help us address our housing shortage without overwhelming the community. So I will be supporting today's action.

Thank you. Thank you to my fellow commissioners. I think you had some really great comments. I do have a couple of questions for staff. So I understand that the density proposed in this, although it has elements of footnote seven, but it still complies with the underlying land use density. However, the lot size tied to the underlying land use, would it permit lots to be 5,000 square feet with the exception of the footnote seven?

Do you mean the lot size for the zoning designation? Yes. The lot size for the zoning designation as it currently stands with RS 1-2 requires 20,000 square foot lots. The footnote 7 reduces that to a 5,000 square foot lot.

So, although the density is aligned with the zoning. The lot size is permittable at these smaller lots due to the footnote 7.

That is correct.

And would multifamily be allowed on this site under the underlying land use?

Sorry, I defer to LDR planning staff.

Again, Antoinette Gibbs. So no, it's a single family zone. So multifamily would not be allowed.

OK.

I also want to talk a little bit more about traffic. Sorry, Ms. Lithgow. Yeah, I know. This road does scare me a little bit and having a stop sign and people trying to turn left out of it with people zooming down. I mean, the renderings do not accurately reflect the grade of that road and I'm looking at the maps here. Now it only pertains to the site, but I'm seeing grades from 25 to 50%. So although the ADT and all of that doesn't trigger a light, but what about the safety of turning left out of that road with the speeds without having traffic calming measures?

So 60th Street is being improved with the stormwater improvements, and they are changing the grade with it. There was also a site distance analysis that was prepared for the project, and the site distance evaluated both turning left for vehicles looking up the hill, and the project was able to demonstrate adequate site distance.

Is there any traffic calming measures we could put on that road?

That would have to be, again, evaluated at a later date. I mean, that's not precluding in the future in the case that that intersection met with traffic signal warrant analyses.

Is the stormwater a CIP project?

No, it's part of this.

It's part of the, it's an exaction as part of the development. Yes. It's a condition of a correct.

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. I also want to address the park. I know Commissioner Reeves kind of talked a lot about it, but as Planning Commission, we look at land use. We don't look at real estate. So we have no nexus to the real estate assets department and whether or not this land should have been procured or acquired for a park. We have no connection to that at all. we can only look at it from this point in time and what the land use is and what's been proposed um so i i understand the desire to have a park here but this is completely out of you know our purview to to talk about um the lack of the acquisition from a park perspective I am also in support of the motion and I don't have any further comments. I wish we could require a stoplight there because I do have concerns about it but it doesn't look like there's any trigger that we can we can do that but I think we can go ahead to a vote now unless anybody else has any further comments. And that passes unanimously. And our hearing today is adjourned.