Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Yeah. Good evening. Welcome to the special meeting of the Planning Commission on Tuesday, November 4. This meeting is called to order.

Sorry. Before we we start there, I just wanna make sure that we get our Zoom recording process in in order. Is it we all set up on that, Christina? The little Zoom voice recording in progress.

Recording in progress. Thank you so much. Christina, can you please call the roll?

Commissioner Alvarez.

Present.

Commissioner Havman.

Here.

Commissioner, and I'm please print forgive me if I butchered this. Salvamini? That is correct. Here. Present. Commissioner Soudi? Here. Commissioner Summers? Here. Vice chair Rodby? Here. And chair Mercado is absent.

Thank you. So does any of the commissioners have any changes to the agenda, or can we approve it as is? Nope. Okay. Next, we'll move to the meeting procedures. The city of San Rafael remains committed for all to participate in our public meetings. I want to welcome all that are making the time this evening to participate. Christina, can you tell us how public comment will work this evenings?

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

Select the live transcript button on Zoom to enable this feature. If you experience technical difficulties, please email me at Christinawithak.Estadio@CityofSanRafael.org. In order to provide oral testimony, speakers must be present. Displayed on the podium is a timer to help you stay within the allotted time frame. You're invited, though not required, to introduce yourself and say what part of San Rafael you reside in or if from outside San Rafael. If you would like to request a modification under the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide public comments virtually, please submit your request to the planning manager's office seventy two hours in advance of a meeting at, margaret.kavanaugh-lynch@cityofsanrafel.org for consideration.

Thank you, Christina. We have no items on the consent calendar, so we'll move to the action item. The action item for this evening is to review the city of San Rafael's potential acquisition of the property for an interim shelter for unhoused residents and a permanent affordable housing development for conformity with the city of San Rafael's general plan per California government code six five four zero two. Can we have the staff report, please?

So good me good evening, vice chair Rodney and planning commissioners. My name is Micah Hinkle. I'm the community and economic development director. Before we dive into this, item, I wanted to, basically extend out a congratulations to, new planning commissioner Jack Salamini. This is his first meeting. And also for, commissioner, Rondo Alvarez, this is the second meeting. So as we're filling our seats with the planning commission, it's really exciting for me. Also, I'd like to introduce, our chief, assistant city attorney, Andrea Viviswara. She'll be joining us, along with upcoming, technical related projects. The city attorney's office will be supporting the community economic development and the planning commission.

So, Andrea will see here, a few times, depending on the project typology. The last person I wanna introduce is assistant director of community economic devour development, Greg Miner, which is will be tonight's lead present presenter and go through this item. So with that, I'll turn it over to Greg. So thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm I'm Greg Miner with Community Economic Development Department, as Micah just mentioned. I was gonna walk through a PowerPoint that summarizes the staff report. So I think Christina's pulling that up now, and, hopefully, it'll appear on the screen.

Cool. Can this oh, standby.

See if it works to

There we go. Yep. There we go. Perfect. Okay.

If you don't mind going to the next slide. Alright. So this is an overview of the the presentation just to kinda provide a road map. We're gonna talk about the purpose of tonight's meeting, the project site, the proposed acquisition of the property, and an analysis of how the acquisition conforms with the general plan and the zoning code, and then outline next steps. So if you don't mind going to the next slide.

So tonight's meeting is a little different than what I imagine the typical planning commission would be in that this is not a project from a developer to seek an approval from the planning commission, and you're not being asked to approve or deny or or apply any conditions to a project. The reason we're here is that the city of San Rafael is considering purchasing a property, and there's a state law, specifically the government code section that's identified here on the slide that requires a city if there's a general plan to present the proposed acquisition to the planning agency of that jurisdiction, which in this case is you all, the planning commission, to ensure that the proposed acquisition conforms with the city's general plan. So tonight, you're being asked to consider whether or not the proposed acquisition conforms with the general plan, and you're not being asked to approve or deny the proposed acquisition. That question is being presented to our city council in this room, Monday, November 17. So I think you can go ahead and go to the next slide.

Okay. So here's a satellite view of the the property of 350 Meridale Road and 3833 Redwood Highway. Just for convenient, there's two addresses, two parcel numbers, but just kind of for convenience, I'll just refer to it as 350 Meridale. The property consists of about 2.5 acres. Its general plan designation is commercial mixed use.

It's currently zoned as a planned development district, which also allows for high density residential uses. Its last use was an adult school from 1990 to 2020. It's been vacant since then. There's three single story buildings. You can see the, like, white rectangles at the lower side of the screen and then the large parking lot.

That's the the property. It was last entitled in 2020 for 45 townhomes. However, the the property owner has not moved forward with construction. If you don't mind going to next slide. So these are just some pictures taken from Marydale Road of the the structures on the site. You can go ahead and go to the next slide. Alright. So this picture here kinda zooms out. The red rectangle, if you can see it, is the property, and then the larger picture kinda provides a larger setting. So to the north of the property, there's a commercial use.

It's a storage facility, and just north of that is the Civic Center Smart Station. To the East, you have the 101 Freeway, and east of that, you have the Marin County Civic Center itself. To the South, you have commercial uses as well as high density residential, multifamily use. And then to the west, across Marydale Road, you have low density residential. I forgot to mention, and it's probably easier to see on the earlier slide, but there's just two entrances to the site, either on Marydale or Redwood Road.

In terms of the acquisition, the city of Summerfell is considering acquiring the property thanks to a potential grant from the County Of Marin for the development of affordable housing on-site. Because it takes time to develop an affordable housing project to identify an affordable housing developer, secure financing, and title the property, The project the the acquisition is anticipated to move forward in two phases. So during that first phase of the project, there will be an interim shelter for un unsheltered individuals. The intention is to start that early on in 2026 and to have that in place for a two year period with the option of extending that for two additional years if the city and county can identify funding. But in no case will it move beyond 06/30/2029.

The number of individuals proposed as part of the interim shelter is 65, and the intention is to encourage folks who are part of the city's sanctioned encampment to be the first participants in the program, and once they're on-site, to receive services from county staff and to transition them into permanent housing. There you might recall from the satellite view, there's a large parking lot. The idea is to have the tiny homes on the parking lot and to utilize the the the existing buildings for meetings and and and bathroom facilities. There won't be any cook any cooking on-site. All the food will be kind of prepared off-site, and and the eating will will be done on-site, but the actual cooking itself will be done off-site.

Similarly, showering will be done through, like will not be done through showering facilities on-site, but rather, like, a mobile showering facility that will come to the site. In terms of the affordable housing development, the intention is to entitle at least 80 affordable housing units by 06/30/2028. This is part of the grant agreement terms that the city is negotiating with the county of San Rafael in order to receive the funding to purchase the property. And the grant agreement itself will be considered on Monday, November 17, by the San Rafael City Council as well as the following day, Tuesday, November 18, by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. I think you can go ahead and go to next slide.

So the next couple slides are essentially the analysis for whether this proposed acquisition conforms with the general plan. I

think

I mentioned early on that the under the general plan, the site is falls under the community commercial mixed use designation, which allows significantly allows for residential. So the proposal is to develop residential uses at a site that is where residential is allowed. The and and as I mentioned before, there's basically two forms of residential. The first phase being an interim shelter and the second being the long term affordable housing development. The actual, like, development of that will be will have the affordable housing development will have to go through the the standard development entitlement processes and comply with any density restrictions that the city of San Rafael or the state of California has.

I think go ahead. Go to next slide. So in addition to being consistent with just the general land use designation, situating housing here at this location near the smart, station and the Civic Center advances, several general plan policies with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sit by situating housing near transit. We've highlighted a couple of those policies here. There's also, as you probably noticed, an attachment to the report with a table that outlines a variety of different, general plan policies that this proposed acquisition would advance.

This slide just highlights a couple in particular. Similarly, by providing housing specifically to unsheltered individuals and affordable housing, this acquisition would have advanced several land use and other general plan policies and notably advance a number of housing element policies in terms of providing affordable housing in across this across the city, providing a range of housing providing housing at a range of affordability levels and things along the those lines. I think you can go ahead and go to next slide. In terms of the zoning, as I mentioned earlier, as part of that townhome, entitlement in 2020, the property was zoned under a planned development. That planned development also allows for any land uses that are allowed in a high density residential zoning district, which includes multifamily housing.

I think if you go to the next slide, it essentially lays that out. So the idea of developing affordable housing on-site or multifamily housing is consistent with this, what's allowed in an HR zone. And in addition, an emergency shelter is also allowed in under an HR zone with a use permit. There was a reference in the staff report to a state law that preempts local law and in that, low barrier navigation centers as they're defined under, a state law are actually allowed by right in zones, that allow for mixed uses and and high density residential as well. So kind of wrapping up here.

Again, the focus tonight is on whether or not the proposed acquisition conforms with the general plan. The next step for the acquisition would be the city council's consideration on that Monday meeting, to enter into a grant agreement with the county and move forward with a purchase and sale agreement to acquire the property. And then the following day, there's a board of supervisors meeting to authorize the county's grant to the city. So for members of the public that are interested in this project or planning commission members, those are two milestones to be aware of. So, ultimately, our recommendation is to adopt the resolution that was enclosed in the in the staff report that incorporated the analysis in the staff report and and findings along those lines.

Happy to answer any questions that may arise, and thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Greg. Do commissioners have any question?

I do. I have one just question about the density. In reading, the max density is 21.8 to 43.6. And with the numbers, I'm not it wasn't clear on the 80 and plus the 45. So if you could clarify that, that would be helpful.

I'm actually that's a great question. I'm gonna pass the baton on to my my colleague, Christina, who's more knowledgeable about density requirements than I am.

Absolutely. No. It's a great question and a complicated one and important for the community at large to understand how our general plan calculates density. We moved in the last general plan cycle to net density. And so when we're looking at the potential for developing the site, you look at the size of a site, and you take away the undevelopable areas, which include easements, creeks, things like that.

So for this site, there's a number of easements. They could change over time. You know, a lot of these easements go back many, many, many years, but a conservative estimate of developable land is 1.7 acres for the site. And based on the maximum densities, sort of the that base would be about 77 units. And then under state density bonus law, there are a number of ways to get additional units on the site.

You. Are there any other questions? Does any member of the public wish to speak on this item? Thank you. Go ahead. Good

evening. Members, commissioners, chair, My name is Sergio Brojas, and I'm a full rep with the NorCal Carpenter's Union here in Moran County. I know the development may be a while, but I'd like to start the conversation about labor standards as well as responsible contractors. Labor standards are the foundational protections that ensure our workers are treated fairly with dignity and respect. These standards guarantee fair wages, health benefits, apprenticeship opportunities, and local hiring practices.

More than just legal requirements, these protections are what stand between our community's prosperity and exploitation. We prioritize strong labor standards like prevailing wages, skilled and trained workforce requirements, and local hiring goals and health coverage for all, we are not just building housing or commercial space. We're building careers, investing in the future of our community, and creating pathways for our neighbors to enter and thrive in the middle class. Labor standards are more than just a line item on a contract. They're a long term investment into the economic health of our city.

They provide a framework that ensures that those who work in San Rafael are not only treated fairly, but also have the opportunity to grow professionally and contribute to the local economy as well. That's why we strongly urge the planning commission to ensure that all development projects in San Rafael include strong labor standards like implementing prequel language that essentially levels out the playing field. This is not just about the quality of a building. It's about the quality of life for the people who build it and the residents who live and work here for years to come. At the end of the day, the true value of any project starts with the people who construct it. Our community deserves nothing less than high quality, well built projects that are the product of hard work, fair pay, and a commitment to the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Christina, was there anybody online?

No one's raising their hand.

Seeing no further request to comment, I'll close the public hearing and take back the item for deliberations. Is there any questions or comments from the commission? Okay. Thank you. If there's no more discussion, can I please have a motion and a second?

I'll motion to adopt the resolution. I'm not gonna I'm gonna I don't have it pulled up. Okay. Adopt a resolution of conformity to the acquisition of 350 Marydale and 3833 Redwood Highway with the city of San Rafael's adopted general plan.

This is commissioner Haifman. I'll second the motion.

Christina, can you please call

the roof? Absolutely. Commissioner Alvarez.

I said I second the the motion.

I think we already have a second. So we're yeses and noes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Commissioner Hafman.

Yes.

Commissioner Salvini. Yes. Commissioner Saudi. Yes. Commissioner Summers.

Yes.

And vice chair Rodney.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll move to the director's report, Chris. I don't think we have a director's report this evening. Or do you have any comments to make?

No. I I do have some comments to make, and this is just, you know, gratitude to the planning commission as we're going through, kinda unprecedented development review, particularly your levels of com complex projects. So, one thing I do wanna kinda call out, we, have you've seen some of the, presentation we had on our development pipeline. We do anticipate some larger scale projects being moved forward basically through November and December. So I just, you know, keep your eyes out for, those packets as they come through. Next scheduled, planning commission, meeting actually has two large scale projects on it. So, we're excited to bring those forward. So

Are there a special meeting, the second one?

The second one is a special meeting. Yes. So that was just to adjust, I think, for the holiday schedules.

Oh, yeah. And that's the larger buildings that we're gonna see next? Yeah. Okay. Great. So

Thank you. Does any member of the planning commission have any communications they wish to disclose? No. Okay. No? Okay. Thank you. So so that's it. I adjourn the meeting. Thank you.

Just take a note. That's seven twenty month.