Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Ready.

Alright. Recording in progress.

Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting of the planning commission, Tuesday, September 23. The meeting is called to order. Margaret, please take the roll calls. Good evening.

Commissioner Rondo Alvarez? Good evening. Commissioner Haven? Here. Commissioner Zade? Here. Kish excuse me. Commissioner Rodney?

Here.

Commissioner Summers?

Here. Chair Mercado? Present. We have

a unanimous full attendance, sir.

Awesome. Thank you, and welcome to our new commissioner. Your first meeting. Right? Awesome. Glad glad to have you. Alright. Order of the agenda. Are there any commissioners that wanna request a change to the order of the agenda? I assume not. K. Next, we'll move to our meeting procedures. City of San Rafael remains committed for all to participate in our public meetings. I wanna welcome everyone that's here. Margaret, can you please tell the public how comment will work this evening?

Absolutely. Tonight's meeting is being recorded and streamed live on YouTube. Viewers can also watch directly through Zoom using the link on the agenda or by dialing (669) 444-9171 and entering the meeting ID, which is 83651049034Pound. We are offering closed captioning for this evening's Zoom meeting this meet this evening's meeting on Zoom. Select the live transcript button on Zoom to enable this feature.

If you're having any difficult technical difficulties doing any of this, please contact me, and I have my computer right here at Margaret.Kavanaugh-Lynch@cityofSanRafael.org, and I will step in and try to assist. In order to provide oral testimony, speakers must be present. Displayed on the podium is a timer to help you stay within your allotted time frame. You are invited, though not required, to introduce yourself and say what part of San Rafael you reside in or if you reside from outside the city. If you'd like to request accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide public comment virtually, please submit your request to Margaret Kavanaugh at city of San Rafael dot org at least seventy two hours in advance for consideration.

Great. Thank you. Alright. Next, oral communications from the public. These are for nonagenda items. If you're here for those items, come on down. Please note these remarks are for items that will be heard or anything on the agenda will be heard at the time of the item. Care for the item on the agenda, I assume? Yep. Great. Okey doke. Next is consent calendar. There's no items on the consent calendar, so we will move to action items. The action item for this evening is a major environmental and design review permit and conditional use permit to expand the existing mini storage facility located at 990 Anderson Drive. And we'll have a staff report, please.

Thank you, commissioners. The proposed project, as noted, is located at 990 Anderson. Two minutes. Good. There we go.

The project site's located in Southeast San Rafael and is located on a project site of 145,000 square feet. The zoning district is light industrial office, and the general plan designation is community commercial mixed use. The existing site, as as mentioned, 3.27 acres, it's located on the Southwest Side of Anderson Drive near the intersection with Jacoby, and the primary frontage is on Anderson, and it's adjacent to Highway 101 as well as Interstate 580. The existing site is developed with four buildings. Building A is the two largest ones where the primary one story structures currently that are where the primary addition is gonna be for the project.

There is a a small second story that's used for office space. Buildings B And C are one story as well. The existing mini storage use and the buildings were approved by the planning commission in 1975, And the current access is through automatic gates with keypads at the entrances. Here's an existing site plan. Some photos of the site looking from Anderson.

The proposed project includes the construction of a full second story over Building A. The second story would bridge the space between the two buildings and would add a total of 68,000 square feet of new self storage space for a total of an additional 525 new units. Overall, after the the building is constructed, this facility would be a 140,000 square feet and have 1,400 self storage units. The maximum height will be 33 feet eight inches. And one of the key issues here that to discuss is the floor area ratio.

The proposed floor area ratio would be point nine eight, which is greater than what is permitted by the general plan. Here's a rendering of the project and the proposed site plan showing that second story bridging building a. We have elevations from the north on Anderson,

south,

east, and West. The major environmental design review is required because the project includes an addition to a nonresidential structure greater than 40%, and a conditional use permit is required to accommodate the increase in FAR up to one point o. The little example of how we calculate floor area ratio, it's one of the metrics of objective metrics that we use in in the planning world, and it's a ratio of the building area to the land area. In the example here, we have a two story building with a 2,500 square feet of habitable space on a 5,000 square foot lot, which gives us a FAR of 0.5. As noted earlier, the oh, I think that was the wrong general plan.

General general industrial, which is permits the storage and warehouse facility with an overall maximum FAR of point three three, and the design would be compatible with the existing building on the site and surrounding buildings. And the policy that is triggering the need for the use permit is policy l u 2.11, which permits this addition up to a FAR of one point o, and the criteria include if the facility is needed by the community, the design is compatible with surrounding uses, the project's designed so it can't be converted to other more intensive uses, and that the location is appropriate for this type of use. In general, the project is and as conditioned, the project's consistent with the general plan, and the second story addition doesn't exceed the height limits. The light fixtures would be downward facing, and conditions of approval would ensure compliance with the all standards, in the zoning code. The project went through a sequel process.

There's an attachment to the staff report, and the city procured a class 32 report prepared by an independent third party, which found that the project does qualify for the class 32 exemption. And just a few highlights for the conditions of approval, ensure compliance with the building code, fire code, and Department of Public Works. I had a question, earlier in the week from a commissioner about the special flood hazard area, and that will be analyzed during the building permit process when we have the architectural details at that that level of specificity. And staff's recommendation to the planning commission is to convene the hearing and take testimony, adopt the res and staff recommends adopting the resolution, for the major environmental design review and use permit subject to findings and conditions of approval. Available for questions.

Thank you. Alright. Bring it back. Commissioners, any questions to staff? Open it up.

I just thought of this when I was here. If the project requires any modification for flood zone and the height needs to be increased, is there a way to allow for that through staff without having to come back here?

Sure.

Quick question on the landscaping deficiency. Why is that? Is that because when it were originally built, there wasn't a 10% requirement? Or

do you know? Let me oh, Margaret Cavanaughlin, planning manager. Let me take the questions in order. Alright. Can No. No. No. Totally fine. I, so if this project has to do some kind of construction modification in its building plans due to the flood zone, there is something in the municipal code that allows for substantial compliance with the approved plans. So that does give the director a significant amount of discretion in terms of what that could mean.

Obviously, if it appears if most if if the project is substantially the same, but they had to move it six inches, that would be a building permit, you know, straight through. If there was, oh, it turns out some federal agency issues a new flood map, and we need to do something very different that may put the decision in peril if it if the commission does choose to approve it, things that are not substantially compliant would need to likely come back to the body of decision. But it's we have a fair amount of leeway to make this as reasonable as possible without losing the approval of the commission's intent.

And I'll just note that the maximum height for the zoning district is 36 feet.

So to the landscape plans, I do think that and you might Christina, you might have more on that. Do you have thoughts about that, or do you want me to start? Okay. So while while Christina, our principal planner, is looking into the staff report more, I do think the landscape requirement has it may have modified a little over the years. I don't think we've gone back to prior codes to see what the exact requirement was unless miss Estadillo finds it.

But generally speaking, we ask applicants to look at it when a landscaping addition is triggered, but we're trying to strike the balance between letting them make reasonable use of the property. And in this case, with all the vehicular traffic, the architecture itself is improving. The overall locate or the aesthetic of the site is improving. So while we are always looking for more landscaping. We're always looking for more plants. We try to balance it with what the goal of the project is. So it's as we try to do in this project.

And my my understanding is that the project is solely a second story, so the amount of landscaping on the ground isn't being affected.

Other questions? Did you get your answer? Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Likewise? Okay. Alright. We'll open the public hearing. And if there's an applicant presentation, come on down.

If there's not, that's fine too. We can maybe

Yes. Yeah.

Thanks. Why don't you come on down, and we'll see if there's any questions ready from the planning commission?

Recording stopped.

Either one? I got one.

Recording in progress.

We need a time out, or are we good? We're good. Alright. We'll assume we're good. Thank you for coming down. Alright. Just in case there are questions, we can be on the mic, for folks that are listening.

My name is Evan Lovand, on behalf of the applicant. Happy to answer any questions for you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Sure. Okay. So commissioners, any questions? We've got somebody here? No? I hope you make your get your steps for the day. I guess that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.

And to your, miss Rodby, your your question earlier, there is the the site basically is is fully covered already. If we could add additional landscaping at the level there is landscaping both in front of the property and, in fact, on Jacobi. If there was additional room to add landscaping, we would. But it's really the the street level. The Ground Floor essentially is entirely developed already. Anyway, thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. I actually drove by it, and it looks very I mean, it's all neat and clean. I just it's my district, and I just Anderson Drive is, as you know, a backdoor exit and entrance into San Rafael. There's a lot of people that use it. So I just think coming from an industrial background that it's important to have our commercial industrial zones look as good as they can.

We've actually done some made some landscaping changes over the course of the last couple of years, adding some just new landscaping, some elements along Anderson. So, anyway, hope you like the way it looks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. I'll formally open it for the public as well. In case there is any public comments, we can say we did. I assume not. So we'll close the public comment, and we'll bring it back. We'll let commissioners deliberate if they'd like, provide any comments. Anybody wanna kick it off, have any input? We will not put our new commissioner on the first spot so you can kinda see how we chat. Sure. Whatever you want.

I'd like to motion to, follow the recommendations in the staff report, the three bullet points, for approval.

Through the chair. Just to make sure our the staff understands, the, commissioner Sade is making a motion to approve the project as recorded in the draft resolution attached in the packet. Is that correct?

Oh, correct. I was, I gotta accept it. It's been several months

since we brought you here, so it's on us.

Significant conditions of approval. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for for, correcting that. I second,

Sharajvi.

Great. So we have a motion and a second to approve the resolution as provided in the packet attached to tonight's agenda. Any comment before? Otherwise, we will move to vote. I think we'll take a roll call.

Let's do it. Commissioner Alvarez? My vote says I approve it. Commissioner Haifman? Yes. Commissioner Rabi? Yes. Commissioner Sade? Yes. Commissioner Summers?

Yes.

Chair Mercado? Yes. Project is approved unanimously.

Great. Thanks for coming down. Appreciate it. Alright. So we'll close that item out, and, we will move to director's report if you're ready.

Good evening, everyone. The I just want to say that there are a number of major projects that will be coming to the planning commission, I believe, this fall. I want to say that. And I I hope you all had a very good summer, and we've missed you. And we were also gonna be working on a number of advanced planning projects.

So I will be here with my colleagues, and we'll be talking about zoning code modifications and some general plan modifications. We have some really cool things to do with our safety element to align with some fire local hazard mitigation plans. So we have a full plate coming. I know it seems like it's been really quiet. It's because we're working really quietly behind the scenes, but I promise it's gonna be an interesting fall and winter. So thank you so much for your patience. It's really nice to see you all. Welcome to the new commissioner. Thank you. And thank you all for your patience over the summer.

Yeah. I don't think we're yeah. That's fine. Appreciate you doing what you do. Alright. So that's director's report. Now bring out to the commissioners. Any commissioner communications, juicy gossip, updates, cheese meh? What do we got? Nothing to report? Nothing new? Okay. Then I will adjourn the meeting. Thanks.