Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Recording in progress.

Alright. Good evening. Welcome, everybody, to the regular meeting of the planning commission Tuesday, November

what's today?

Eighteenth. This meeting's called to order. Thank you everybody for being here this evening. Margaret, if

we could please take a roll call.

Yes, sir. Commissioner Salva Salvamini?

Here.

Commissioner Alvarez?

Here.

Commissioner Haven?

Here.

Commissioner Rodney?

Here.

Commissioner Sade? Here. Commissioner Summers? Here. Chair Mercado?

Present.

All present, sir.

Thank you.

K. So now we're gonna go to the order of the agenda. Are there any commissioners that would like to request a change to the order of the agenda? I assume not. K. Next, we'll move to the meeting procedures. City of San Rafael remains committed for all to participate in our public meetings. I wanna welcome everyone that is making the time this evening to participate. Margaret, if you can please tell us how public will work this evening.

Thank you, chair Mercado. 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 83651049034Pound. We are offering closed captioning for this evening's meeting on Zoom. Select live transcript button on Zoom to enable this feature.

If you experience any tech technical difficulties, please email me at margaret dot Kavanaugh hyphen Lynch or planning manager at city of San Rafael dot org. I can see emails in real time. In order to provide oral testimony, speakers must be present this evening. Displayed on the podium will be 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 my office, however, at least 72 before the meeting is held.

Great. Thank you. K. So next, we're

gonna go to oral communications from the public, and these this is on the agenda is oral communications for the public remarks on nonagenda items. So not

the two big items we will be talking about later. If you have something to discuss or present to the planning commission that is not on the agenda, you're welcome to come now to the podium.

This is great. I didn't expect to be able to go off agenda. So and I'm not sure this is actually a topic that any of you can directly influence, so I'll keep it very brief. Traffic in our city has become challenging both in density, but more importantly, in behavior. Specifically, stop signs seem to be viewed as yield signs occasionally and sometimes as if they don't exist at all.

We've had two pedestrians killed in the last month already. Where I live in Gershell Park, we have a steady stream of people coming off of Wolf Grade, hanging a turn on Antoinette down sea, out of Octavia, and get working their way out to Anderson to get down to Home Depot. And none of these trucks stop at the stop signs. So if it's within your purview, I'd like you to do something about it. If it's not, my apologies. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Seeing there's no one else for any public comment not on the agenda, we will move on. So next, normally, we do our consent calendar.

There are no items on the consent calendar this evening. So we'll move on to our action items for this evening, and it's a public hearing to consider a major environmental and design review permit for the demolition of an existing 11,000 square foot commercial building, surface parking and other site improvements, and the construction of a new 13 story multifamily residential building with 188 units, inclusive of 19 units affordable to very low income households. Tenants' amenities, frontage improvements located at 1248 5th Avenue, and we'll start off with a staff report, please.

Thank you. Just give me a moment to get our presentation set up. Thank you, planning commission, members of the public for being here this evening to participate in this planning commission hearing. Our first item this evening is the project. Just to clarify right away, I know the addressing is a little bit confusing, that we are calling this the 12 35th Avenue project.

The official city address is 1248, and we'll we'll go into that a little bit more in detail in the presentation. The agenda for this item is to go over the purpose of the hearing, provide a little background, go over the project description, the process that the city went through to evaluate the environmental impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act, an analysis of the proposed project, and and then move on to recommend staff's recommendation and, planning commission deliberation. The purpose of the hearing is to review the entitlements, receive staff and applicant presentations, ask questions of staff and the applicant teams. Most importantly, this evening, receive public comments, review the proposed project, and consider making a decision on the requested entitlements. To set the stage, this application was originally submitted as an a senate bill three thirty pre application that was submitted on 08/12/2024.

SB three thirty is one of our state processes that allows an applicant to submit a development application, and it locks in development fees at the time the preliminary application is submitted. The formal application was submitted on 12/03/2024 and was deemed complete for processing on 05/08/2025. The city prepared a comprehensive analysis under the Housing Accountability Act, and that was provided to the applicant on 07/03/2025. So just to give a a brief overview with all of the the state housing laws that our projects fall under, we have certain parameters that guide our review this evening. Under the Housing Accountability Act, which is a state law, enacted to promote infill development, it limits the review of the Planning Commission and the city of San Rafael to objective design standards.

What that means is we're looking to the setbacks meet the standards. Is it 10 feet? Is it 30 feet high? Do they have the required number of parking spaces? Not does this comply with our neighborhood?

And that the limitations are that it the local government cannot deny, reduce the density of a project, make infeasible a housing development project provided that it meets those objective standards. We also have another layer that makes these projects a little bit more complicated to review, which is state density bonus law. This is a law enacted in 1979 to encourage construction of housing units, and it allows the density to be increased above the maximum allowed by the city's general plan. And there are different, concessions and incentives. An incentive is a a reduction in standards that affects the economics of a project, and a waiver is a a reduction in a development standard.

And the number of concessions that you get depends on the level of affordability of the housing units, and there are an unlimited number of waivers or reductions to the development standard. So it's a little bit confusing to, review these projects and just wanted to set the stage a little bit with how the planning commission will be reviewing the project tonight. As I noted earlier, the project name is the 12 35th Avenue project. The existing address in the city of San Rafael is 1248 5th Avenue. The project site is approximately point six five acres.

It is designated, by our general plan as downtown mixed use. It has a split zoning. So the northern part of the property is what our downtown precise plan calls t four n forty fifty, and the southern part is t five n forty sixty. It's currently developed with an existing 11,000 square foot vacant commercial building that was built in 2001. One of the issues this evening that we will no doubt be discussing are the the presence and continued use of existing easements on the project site.

Here is a an overview of the easements that are part of the the subject property. We have a sewer easement recorded in 1951, a second sewer easement recorded in 1955, an area of roof overhang, ingress, egress, parking, drainage, utilities, and, incidental uses, and another for ingress egress parking drainage utilities and an nonbuilding area. The city of San Rafael has reviewed the easements and determined that the project is the city is not getting involved in the easement issues. This is going to be an issue between the neighbors and the developer, but we do are aware that it is an issue of concern. We have some photos of the project site.

So the requested entitlements being discussed this evening is a major environmental and design review permit as well as the density bonus provisions, the request for a concession, and, several waivers. Overall, the project includes the demolition of the existing building and site improvements and the construction of a 13 story building with 188 residential units. The requested concession is for deviations in the provision of of amenities for the affordable housing unit units, excuse me, and a number of requested waivers, including height, setbacks, parking setbacks, maximum driveway width, stepbacks, civic space, bicycle parking, and frontage standards. Here is an overview of the proposed site plan. We have C Street to the left and Mission to the North and 5th Street to the South.

The proposed project includes the construction of a 188 units. And as I mentioned, this is a density bonus project. And the way that we get to that 188 units is the the developer and architect work together to develop a base project that complies with the objective standards of the downtown precise plan, and that was determined to be a 125 base units. Based on the level of affordability that's proposed, there are 63 allowable density bonus units. The 188 units are broken up into a 131 bedroom units.

13 of those would be below market rate deed restricted affordable units. We have fifty eight two bedroom units. Six of those would be deed restricted for affordable housing. And we have a, density bonus waiver for the height and a total proposed parking of a 128 spaces and 79 bicycle spaces. Here's a view of the project along 5th Avenue looking east.

Here's looking along C Street looking north. 5th Avenue looking west, along 5th And C Street. An overview of the Ground Floor, we do have some amenities, including a lobby, leasing and management offices, the parking entrance, trash room, mail room, and associated, utilities and, fire suppression areas. 2nd Floor has a vehicle and bicycle parking with the entrance on C Street.

3rd

Floor, the tenant amenities on this floor include a fitness area, study area. 4th Floor is all residential units. We have twenty and three below market rate units, including patios, a courtyard, trash, and mechanical areas. The 5th To 9th Floors have 20 residential units with three below market rates on each floor, 20 on the on the 10th Floor, and, again, 20 on the 11th and 12th, and eight units on that 13th Floor with a pool and a pool deck. Just to get into the weeds a little bit about how we calculate the allowable density, the project is proposing 15% of the units be deed restricted for very low income units, which allows the the project under state density bonus law a 50% increase in density.

As I noted earlier, the base project was a 125 units. 50% of that 125 is 63 density bonus units for a total allowable under state density bonus law of a 188 units. The average size of the base project is a hun 844 square feet, and the average size of the units for the proposed project is also 844 square feet. And we have the base project plans. Overall, the project is designed with neutral stucco, dark gray aluminum windows, metal panels, and wood siding.

I'll let the architect speak more to the architecture. Here's the east elevation on the side, the north, west, south, and the proposed exterior building materials. There is a detailed landscape plan, which includes the removal of 14 existing trees, including six street trees and eight within the building footprint, a thousand square feet of new landscaping, and we have four new trees on Mission, one on 5th Street, and various planters and streetscape, and street furnishings and bike racks. At the podium level, we have 2,000 square feet of new landscaping, including 10 new trees, planters, and some furnishings. The roof level has 800 square feet of landscaping, 11 trees, planters, lounge furnishings, and recreational amenities.

Now onto the the fun part. The California Environmental Quality Act is a state law that was passed in 1970, which requires that state and local agencies follow a process to evaluate the potential impacts of proposed projects, and it is a key part of our decision making process in all of our development projects. CEQA has a a multiple tier process. The first question we ask as a planner and city staff is is the project a project under CEQA. And as this is a discretionary entitlement with the environmental design review that requires the city to do additional review under CEQA.

The city has engaged mGroup, a consulting firm, to prepare an independent third party analysis of the proposed project. They reviewed the applicant's technical studies. They provided their own technical studies and prepared what is called the class 32 exemption report. The class 32 exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act is the infill development exemption and asks five key questions that the report addresses. The first is consistency with the general plan and applicable policies, zoning designation, and regulations.

Is the project within city limits on a project site no more than five acres and substantially surrounded by urban uses? Does the site have any value as habitat for endangered, rare, or threatened species? And would the project result in significant traffic, noise, air quality, or water quality impacts? I'll get into it a little bit more, but in the the lens of CEQA, traffic does not mean congestion. We are looking at vehicle miles traveled and can with the site can be adequately served by all utilities and public services.

We also look at the exceptions to the exemptions, which look at if there are any special characteristics to the site. Is it a historically valuable site? Is it a superfund site? Questions like that. The report has been included in the agenda packet this evening and has been distributed to the public for review.

And, the decision this evening, as mentioned earlier, is the consideration of an environmental and design review permit. These are the findings the planning commission must make in order to approve the project. There is a very lengthy packet of conditions of approval, and I would also like to introduce into the record a packet prepared by staff and distributed to the planning commission this evening with numerous conditions of approval changes to this project and the next project. There are copies up here for members of the public who would like to see them. And I would also like to note, I have an additional modification for in the packet condition of approval 22 for paleontological resources.

Staff recommends that be be removed as part of the action this evening. The purpose of the conditions of approval is to, come up with a project that works not just on paper, but in reality when it's being constructed. There are extensive requirements for a construction management plan that looks at, the equipment coming onto the site, deliveries where the employees are gonna park, security, you how, know, how pedestrians are gonna be accessing the area. There are also requirements for preconstruction surveys for birds and bats, requirements for compliance with our standard noise conditions of approval, and, building permit standard processes like finalizing our affordable housing agreement, water efficient landscape, lighting, and additional conditions of approval of of that nature. Staff's recommendation this evening is to adopt the resolution approving the major environmental and design review subject to the modified conditions of approval distributed this evening.

The alternatives for consideration by the commission are to approve the application with various modifications deemed necessary by the commission, to continue the hearing to allow the applicant to address any of the commission's comments or concerns. And finally, if the the commission could move towards denying the project, in that case, the direction would be to direct staff to return with a revised resolution of denial, and we would be looking to the commission to provide us direction on how to make those findings of denial with the the, what I mentioned in the beginning, remembering that this is a housing project, and we're limited to, denying a project if it does not meet the objective standards discussed this evening. And that concludes staff's presentation and available for questions.

Thank you. Did every everybody get the conditions? I think we're running low, so grab them if you want them. Right there. Thank you. Questions for staff from any of the planning commissioners? I'll put it up. I have

a few, please. Regarding the balconies on this building, is there an outdoor living requirement from the state or any requirement you know of that is

In the downtown precise plan, we have a requirement for civic space, which this project, I believe, is adds a waiver for, but there is no requirement for balconies per se.

Or for outdoor space for each unit, there's that's not a requirement.

Correct. Okay. Right. They do have a rooftop amenity, and they have and civic space was is in our I guess that is in the precise plan that governs this section, but it's it's one of the many development standards that can be waived. But there is no requirement for private open space balconies in the downtown precise plan.

And then has public works chimed in on the the encroachments into the right of way on this building, way it's designed, specifically all the balconies that are sticking over the property line.

Joanna, do you wanna comment on that? We have our our assistant director on on Zoom.

Sure. Thanks for the question. I'm Joanna. As Christina mentioned, we have reviewed the balconies and in our muni code, a temporary a minor temporary enforcement permit is required for any work that happens in the right of way. And but there is an exception for, whenever if the balconies extend no more than four feet, then no no license agreements are needed. However, there might still be a temporary, sorry, A minor continuing encroachment permit that will be required.

Okay. Has the city granted those before for, like, private balconies? I have I don't I know that this is a hot issue on past projects that have come through the town where public works drew a pretty hard line in the sand about having no encroachments like this into their right of way, even a decorative awning. And, actually, this applicant had presented a very nice one on his B Street project, and we we, as a design review board at the time, actually liked it and encouraged public works to allow it. But I haven't seen one come through where it was privatized like this with with people's, you know, living space essentially in the right of way. So I'm just curious if the city's allowed that in the past because I don't I can't recall it.

I I'm not sure. I don't have as extensive of a history with Serafel. However, I think balconies are treated a little bit differently than living livable spaces. So, I mean, if it was a livable space, that would not be covered, by any encroachment permits.

Well, they're functioning balconies. Their people are gonna have their chairs, and they're going to be living on them. So not sleeping on them unless it's too hot. I mean, I don't know. But they are part of the enjoyment of the living space. So I just wanted to know if there was a mechanism because I haven't seen it before, and I've seen it I like I said, I've seen it expressly discouraged in the past. So I didn't know if our code allowed you know, in a planning world, that would be a variance because it's not even on I don't even know if you could apply for a variance to construct something not on your property. So I guess we'll get into that more later.

So Yeah. I can I can jump

in a little bit? So I I believe this is similar to the the balconies and how we handled the nine thirty Erwin projections, and they were addressed through encroachment permit, through the minor encroachment permit that Joanna mentioned.

Okay. So we had precedent. So I wasn't part of that one. Okay. Thank you.

Good questions. Anyone else? No staff questions? Okay. Alright. So we will now open this for the public hearing.

I believe we have an applicant presentation.

Yes. And we will first start with the applicant to come on in.

Thank you council members. Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Tom Monahan. I'm speaking on behalf of the applicant. And we're very proud to bring the project before you tonight.

We appreciate your time. We've been working with staff for more than a year now to bring this project to you. And we wanna thank Christina and Micah and Margaret and Crystal, all have worked very hard on the project. The you know, as we know, the city has got a quota for building housing, which it comes from from RINA, the regional housing allocation needs. So the city's quota for for this particular cycle is 3,200 homes, And that needs to be constructed by 2031, which is coming up on, you know, less than six years from now.

So we've been in a housing crisis for quite some time. This is certainly an attempt to start to address that housing crisis. It's an urban location. It's an infill site. It's a redevelopment of an existing property. And so it's, you know, it's more concentrated in terms of its design. It's obviously more vertical than a normal project that might be somewhere out in a greenfield type of thing. The project includes a 188, what we call mixed income apartments, which include different levels of affordability. Obviously, you've heard about the 19 affordable units that are included. We think that's a very important part of the mix of the income.

So this is really considered workforce housing. They are all one and two bedroom units. And so the we've designed this to address the very low income segment of the folks that qualify for that. So very low income is qualified for for folks that have 50% of the average median income. So they call that AMI.

And so a lot of folks that fit into that category are teachers, public safety workers, health care workers, people that we wanna have in the community. And there's very little housing opportunities for those folks. So we see this as being a very good opportunity for that. You know, we've been asked what what would the rents be? So if those if that project existed right now, a one bedroom apartment would rent for about $17.75 per month and a two bedroom apartment would rent for about 2,000 a month.

And that's, you know, really half, maybe more than half of what the market rate units would be. So that's a very significant discount for the people that qualify for that, for those units. Obviously, they're very badly needed. There's been very little construction of new projects, not only just in San Rafael, but Marin County and the Bay Area at large. So this is a badly needed project.

You know, some people call it a housing crisis and, you know, I won't get too far into that. But, you know, there is an affordability crisis as we know. And so more supply really helps people, you know, live in San Rafael. One of the other things that we think the project will do is really help invigorate the downtown sector, especially the merchants and restaurants that that, you know, operate on 4th Street and in the downtown, which has really suffered, you know, over the last ten, fifteen years, especially during COVID. So these projects like this tend to really help invigorate the downtown core.

It also, you know, is it fits with the city of San Rafael's downtown planning policies, which have been going on for quite some long time. And so you've got a housing element as part of the general plan for downtown and the housing policies that flow from that encourage, you know, higher density housing in the downtown area. So this fits within the criteria that's been long since planned in San Rafael. We didn't create that zoning. That zoning has been in existence, and we're merely fulfilling some of the prior planning that's already been done over the last many, many years.

You know, someone said, well, why is this 13 stories? And why is it not smaller? And that's a good question. I live in San Rafael. My family lives here. We've been here for forty years. It's our you know, we consider this our hometown. We very much care about the town. We've built many other projects. And we want to see the town revitalized. We want to see it thrive. And part of that is housing. And when you deal with housing, you have very limited opportunities to find places where you can put housing. And the sites are very small. They're not they're not quite very large.

This is a little bigger than a half an acre. And so when you run the economics on a project like this, you have to consider high land costs. You have to consider construction costs, interest rates, various things that really make it difficult for a project, a privately funded project to actually pencil and make financial sense. And so when you do that with a limited site, you end up having to go up vertically. This project doesn't go as tall as it could.

Actually, the state allows for double the density. So if we have a 125 units as a base, you could go to 250 units. It's not to say that we chose to do that. We said that that would you know, we we certainly understand that 13 stories is tall. But if you took the full state density bonus, you could go as high as 20 stories, which would be obviously bigger. So we're, you know, we're trying to make financial sense of this project. And that's part of the reason why it's as tall as it is. You know, I wanted to wrap up and and I I want to acknowledge some of the folks that are in the audience here from Boyd Court. They're our neighbors. They're certainly impacted by the project.

We understand they're not happy. We share a 40 foot access and parking easement. The easement is on our property. The Boyd Court neighbors have transitioned over that. We've designed the building in order to respect that and continue to provide that parking and the access. I'm sure you'll hear more about that. And we've met with the Boyd Court folks. Nobody likes to have a project, you know, nearby to them. So we certainly understand their sensitivity, but we're trying to do our best to accommodate some of their needs. You know, it reminds me, we built the AC Hotel about four or five years ago.

It's been open for a couple of years. That project was very somewhat controversial when we brought it before the planning commission and a lot of neighbors didn't like it because it was considered big. You know, now that it's there and it's fit into the neighborhood, I think people look at it differently and feel like it it belongs there and it's a nice amenity for the town. So, know, change is always hard for people to accept and we understand that. But we encourage you to, you know, consider the project.

We hope you approve it this evening. We're certainly here for questions. I was going to introduce our architect, Isaiah Stackhouse to walk you through the project and then we'll reserve time for questions at the end of our presentation if that's okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Tom, and thank you, Christina, for your presentation. Try to keep this very brief. Christina did a great job of walking through the project already, but just try to describe a bit of our design process and design intent. So, yeah, I'm Isaiah Stackhouse of Trachtenberg Architects. It's really nice to be here with you tonight.

We specialize in infill housing in the Bay Area here. Okay. So it's a fantastic location within the downtown, a block to restaurants across from the new hotel. Again, it provides a 188 units, 19 BMRs. Here is a a ground level plan, very integral to our design process.

There's about a two story drop from Mission here, down to the front of the building. And so, we've got a lobby, here and the parking entrance to parking that becomes subgrade at the back here off of Mission. And then on Level 2, as a grade climbs up, we've got a a driveway to Level 2 here. And then moving up the building at Level 3, there's a parking level that comes in directly off a grade on Mission. And there are additional amenity rooms here at the corner.

The the plans at at the Level 4 podium there is a mix of laser pointer just thanks for your patience. Battery just died in that one. Our plans are a mix of, one and two bedroom units. Following the precise plan guidelines, we've created some setbacks here, that travel up vertically in the building to really highlight the the corners and create very strong corner elements. Coming up to the Top Floor to create a very strong top to the building, we've set all of the units back from the lower facades on on all sides and also set back the entire front of the building with a a lounge and community room here and coming out to open space and a potential pool.

Here's a view along 5th looking east. And, again, following the precise plan guidelines, we've stepped the building back across the whole top to create a very strong top to the building. We'll see in the other renderings a very strong base here. And then here, you can see in the plan at the corners, we've created these recesses to really punctuate the corners, create some vertical elements, and and, again, very strong corners. Here's a view along C Street looking north.

We're creating a highly articulated building with a base here. Here's the double high lobby, a community room up at Level 3, very strong cornice line here to create a base, and then a very strong top here. And you can see it very well here. These the vertical recesses that punctuate and create strong corners is a building with a lot of shadow play, projecting balconies, inset facades, setback top. Here is a view looking west, the new hotel in the foreground, and a a detailed shot here with a close-up with a comp complimentary palette of earthy materials.

We're proposing EcoStucco, which is a local company here in San Rafael. And, really, we're trying to create a a high quality building that's very well crafted and detailed that will really design designed to stand the test of time. So per the staff report, this is a project that's consistent with Housing Accountability Act with state density bonus law. It's consistent with the general plan policies. It's consistent with the city zoning and development standards and with the city's goals and objectives for creating new housing.

It will improve economic vitality, create more housing and housing choices. It'll improve housing affordability to work to promote promote a thriving downtown. And finally, it's recommended by staff for your approval tonight. And with that, concludes our presentation, but we are here for any questions you might have, and we have all the plans available as well.

Great. Thank you. Thank you both.

A couple of questions. Shoot. Just as they might affect some design, are are you aware at this stage of design how many disabled units you're providing or how many you're required to provide?

Yeah. Every unit in the project will be fully accessible.

Well, I mean but some have to be designated for, accessible, I believe, or am I not?

No. Not correct. No. So, in a project like this with an elevator, every project sorry. Every unit in the building will will fully meet chapter 11 a Okay. You know, in its entirety. Okay.

Fair enough. Thank you. Yep.

Yeah. I'd be happy to speak as well to the, the the balconies, since you brought that question up. Sure. But that that is, you know, that is commonplace, and it's built into the California building code as well in chapter 32. And I would say probably 85% of the buildings we work on do have balconies and or bay windows that that, you know, that that do have minor encroachment permits. So that's a a pretty typical thing throughout the Bay Area and in in San Rafael as well.

Thank you. Shoot.

I had a question.

So, obviously, the easement's a big issue with the neighbors. Can you go over the site plan? I can see there's a lot of parking spots to the north that are actually on this lot, on on the proposed lot that will be eliminated. I'm guessing that's part of the part of the problem. But if you could take some time to explain to all of us where you think those pain where those pain points have been communicated to you and what you guys have done to to help address those?

Yeah. So on on a technical level, the easement comes in here. There's a portion that is white there that's not shaded, which is actually a no build easement. So the the building has has kept off the no build easement. There is no building on the easement whatsoever.

There there is currently, you know, a driveway here and parking here. And, and then with the neighboring building, there is a a ramp underneath the building that comes up to Mission. And so cars currently there's an easement that comes up this way under the tunnel. And so, effectively, we're creating a similar condition here, but we are creating a a full 40 foot wide tunnel, so to speak. But it provides the equivalent sort of access as that as that more narrow tunnel there.

And so so there is access, the the the driveway there, and all of that will be free and clear. No no gates. So there's free and clear access. There there are also a number of parking spots in here. Tom might be able to speak better to the, yeah, eight eight parking spots there that will be generally available.

So it's just really moving moving the access from the north side of the site to the south side of the site for those neighbors And, obviously, the

The the the I would rephrase it as continuing the access. Yeah. And and so so so there is access now, and that will be continued with that 40 foot wide driveway and easement and and parking available as as well there, the eight eight spaces of replacement parking.

Thank you.

Other questions? Yeah. Please.

So can you tell us a little bit more about the design? So I see the color palette, but I would like to know because this is gonna be a huge volume. And I would like to understand the elements that you considers under designs and as well if there is gonna be some sustainable elements.

Yeah. So, you know, in in in terms of the design, you know, we're we're trying to create a building. I I think our goals really are to create something that's elegant and refined and harmonious and something that will become part of the fabric, really. We're not trying to create a a look at me building that we're gonna paint red. You know?

It, so it it adheres very strictly to the design guidelines, really emphasizing corners, sort of a traditional base middle top, sort of a a timeless rhythm to the to the the windows and bays, and, you know, a a design that we hope sort of thrives in its elegance and maybe even understatement. That that said, you know, there there are, I think, some, you know, strong moments at at at the at the, you know, top here and and a lot of articulation and shadow play. And then, you know, coming down to the ground level, you know, a very strong pedestrian streetscape and very grand, kinda triple high base and glazing with some very warm touch wood elements when when you're when you're close to the building. That that's sort of a broad overview. We do think it'll it will be a very green building.

We'll get more into that during the design development phases, but but, you know, it'll be it'll be a very green building as well. Thank you. Yep.

I I wonder if you could elaborate on that, the notion that it's gonna be a very green building in terms of EV chargers. Is natural gas gonna be flowing through the building? What what are, you know you you mentioned that you you do this throughout the Bay Area. Must be lots of pressures to to make the buildings green. What sorts of greenness do you envision?

Yeah.

I wish I had a slide with a

good

list. But, yeah, it it it I think we're gonna have an yeah. No gas. All electric building, you know, drought tolerant, low low water use. Mean, even by its very location, it it really limits driving and traffic use.

And and we'll we'll flush out more of the finer points during the DD. I might be able to make make a longer list and come back as well. Thank you. Yep.

Please. Nice.

Yeah. I was wondering, the parking, is it unbundled so that people will have to pay extra for the parking? Is that how you look at regulating that?

It's typically unbundled. Tom, would you yeah. Yeah. It'll be unbundled.

So, theoretically, we're all gonna ride bikes and not drive. But if everybody wanted a car in their units, you're 60 short. Where have you looked at where that flow would go?

Yeah. I mean, we do have optional park lift as well that may be installed to to bump up those numbers. How much

would that increase the parking availability using that system?

I believe it's an extra 40 spaces.

40?

Yeah.

And we didn't talk about the bicycle parking, but that's kinda controversial in terms of could you explain that more, how the bikes are gonna go in between the cars and the parking garage?

Yeah. It's it's something we've done before where each parking spot has space for a bike in front of it on the wall in front

of it. And that's safe. So you're Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

If I could sorry. If I could just add on to the parking concern. So, technically, we have 248 units with the two bedrooms. So if there's shared units with more than people living there, we're looking at more than just a 131 units. We're looking at essentially another, you know, 50. There's fifty eight two bedrooms. Am I correct?

It's still one unit, but but there are

more The potential There

are more than a 188 bedrooms.

Yeah.

For sure. But the but but the the you know, in terms of the requirement, you know, the the spaces are are voluntary, and, you know, the project sponsor is trying to find the right the right balance. So, you know, we could install more lifts, you know, to get up to one to one. The the the actual requirement for for a location so so close to transit is is, you know, zero now, so it's sort of all voluntary. You know?

More and more, we're seeing cities push for less parking. There are quite a few places now where you actually have to apply for a variance to provide if you wanna provide one to one parking like this, you would need a variance and permission. So there's a, you know, a strong push from, you know, communities in the state to kind of reduce parking and encourage, you know, encourage more, you know, pedestrian bike use. And then, you know, this this day and age, there's, you know, so many modes with, you know, with Uber and and Lyft and Carshare. You know?

Just talking with my my my son earlier today, and he has some friends who have sworn that they will never get their driver's license. And maybe they won't have to, you know, with with the way things will change. But, really, it's it's about finding a balance. And, know, so the we we really have tried to optimize the parking and provide as much as we can in a way that is still feasible for the project. Part of what makes that possible is the unique topography here.

You know, having access from three different streets that have slopes and that that that tie into three different levels, I think in a way we got very lucky here in that we're able to efficiently park a small site without internal ramps. You know, if if if, for instance, this were a flat site, you know, a a interior ramp, you know, would would take up about that much area, and and it would have been very difficult to get much parking. And this might have been proposed with, you know, a quarter spot per unit. But we've really done everything we can to to you know, we've been pushed very hard by the project sponsor to sort of capture any every last parking spot we could get in here and to really maximize it and find that balance. Because, ultimately, you know, the the the building's main purpose is to, you know, provide housing for a 188 families and, you know, it's and and and to provide as much parking as we can.

But but, you know, does the city of San Rafael have you know, doesn't you know, are are there a couple dozen families who, you know, or or individuals who who don't have cars or don't need cars and can travel by Uber and Lyft? And I think that they'll be very happy here, and we're happy that we can, you know, provide housing for them.

Great. Thank you. I would just ask really quick if there's somebody that has, like, an alarm going on maybe or something. I can't tell if it's inside or out. Is is it outside? Because if we could close the door. It's inside? Okay. If you just have that noise, it's a little disrupting to the applicant, so maybe turn it down. Or if we can help you, please let staff know. Sorry to interrupt. It's alright. Well, let's just give the applicant a chance to finish up. Are there any other questions?

I do have another question. Please. Do you know the height variance from 5th Avenue to 4th Street? The the level, the height difference? Just between the streets themselves, street level in that in that area?

Know offhand. You know, on this block, it's 20 feet, but it it's not as steep that next block. Mhmm.

My concern is from 4th Street, which is our main downtown hub. This building is now 131, but you add 20 feet to it. Now it's a 151 feet above 4th Street. So just a concern of I know that mister Monahan expressed that it falls within the allowance, but it's a concern of the that extra height from 4th Street. It's just an observance. Yeah. K.

Great. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Appreciate the applicant. So the hearing is open. We're gonna now allow for public comments. And before people come down, let me just explain the way it'll go. It'll be two minutes. Everyone is welcome. We just ask you respect any comment that's made. If you would like to, do we have the form for people to put their information in there? Do we do that anymore? No? Okay. So you can say, you know, your name where you live if you like to, and there should be a timer that pops up, and then we'll appreciate your public comment. Come on down.

Good evening, council. My name is Darius Devidi. I'm here on behalf of the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce where I serve as a board member. The chamber represents 5128 Marin County employers with more than 40,428 employees across over 25 industry sectors. I'm here today to express our strong support for the proposed mixed use housing development at 12 35th Avenue and 908th Street.

The creation of housing continues to be a top priority for the chamber. Within the Marin highest cost of living, employees regularly identify housing availability as their primary challenge when trying to recruit, retain employees. We must meaningfully expand our local housing supply. The Downtown Precise Plan adopted in 2021 after years of collaboration reflects a community vision focused on housing diversity, transportation choices, walkability and climate resilience. A central theme of the plan is transforming downtown into a thriving, people oriented environment, and new housing is the key to achieving that.

These two proposals are important steps towards forward. Together, they will deliver three eighteen new rental units, including 30 below market rate homes, while replacing buildings that are well past their prime. New residents will strengthen local businesses by increasing foot traffic, dining, shopping and everyday activities in downtown core. Projects like this are essential to the long term economic health of San Rafael. For all of these reasons, the chamber urges you to please approve the both 12 35th Avenue and 908th Street proposal. Thank you very much for your consideration.

I wanna thank my dear friend, Darush. My name is Zachary Zimmerman, and I'm here, on the as a homeowner in, Boyd Court Condominiums on 115 B Street. I just wanna bring a little history to this organization. Thirty two years ago, city of San Rafael on July 6 established the low market rate agreements for the building of the Boyd Court Condominiums. Their council members, Brenner, Cohen, Theyer, and mayor Boro all approved this project, and 25 units were built.

Presently today, 25% of the Boyd Court condominiums are below market rent. So that that's well above what this building is doing. It's interesting to note that the presentations in front of you today completely did not demonstrate the interaction of the new building and how it would adversely affect the Boyd Court condominiums, which are below mark 25%, as I said, below market rate. The design of the building will adversely affect the safety and security of this residence, both during the building phase and after completion. Our building has two emergency exits.

One is on the Southeast Corner Of B Street. The other is on the Southwest corner egresses onto our garage entrance easement. The emergency egress will be obstructed for both the ingress and the egress during the building phase and afterwards. There was a misrepresentation by the architect here. The there are eight parking spots for Boyd Court condominiums on that easement.

They belong to Boyd Court, and they should not be included in parking for the building. The security of our building will be adversely affected with the increased number of people in the building, guests, and unhoused individuals. At the very least, the developer should be required to install both video monitoring in our garages and acceptable electrical access gates. The buildings present design essentially obstructs the views and sunlight of all our units on the west and southwest portions of our building. The design of this building should make certain that our views and sunlight are protected and the very least look into new open space within the building.

All service access this is your time is up. If you

could please wrap up, please. Okay.

Thank you. All service access of this building is through our easement. The service access for waste management should be on C Street. So we as home as owners do not have to hear and see the garbage trucks. They the mister Monahan's group May I up, please? Okay. The bottom line is Sir. No. The city council created below market rate building in 1993. It's your responsibility to protect that entity of the below market rate condo association. Who else is gonna protect those individuals? Thank you. You created it. Now protect it. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Lillian Track, and I'm a San Rafael resident for over twenty five years, and I live in the Canal area. And I wanted to come here to tell you I strongly support this project with it's a very handsome project, and I wanna commend the team for producing such a great project. I support the height of the project because it's needed to support the number of residential units, and we desperately need housing in the city of San Rafael. I know I live in the canal.

What I don't support is the reduced number of parking spaces. Now I support the idea that people in the future may need fewer cars. But, again, living in the canal, I recognize that most people do drive, and our San Rafael transit really doesn't support not driving. So, I would support a taller building in order to get the parking to be one to one, meaning one parking space per residential unit. And I also hope that the Planning Commission will require that the street level trees are maintained in terms of count that there is here because we really wanna encourage, a reduction in the heat island effect, and reducing the number of street trees would just make it hotter on the streets.

And I'd also like to encourage the planning commission to have the team use California native plants so that we can support our local fauna. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My comments pertain to both projects. You guys don't have to listen to me twice. My name is George Huff, and my wife and I have lived here in San Rafael for, over fifty years, half a century. We've raised four daughters here, and we live over near the West End on Fair Hills and routinely come down 5th And Mission Street to get in and out of town.

My oldest daughter, a couple years ago, bought a place over in Gershell Park, and she loves it because she loves being walking distance from downtown. I say all that because my family and I, we love San Rafael. And and as as people that have been here, we fully support this project. And and the reasons why is because San Rafael has been struggling over the last twenty years. It's just it's just the downtown area has not been you wouldn't use the word vibrant and exciting to describe San Rafael's, downtown area.

However, recently, with some of the new some of the new things that have come to town, some new restaurants, and a few housing, you could start to see you can start to see it come alive. You know, we love, like, the some of the classic places like Ile Davide and Mayflower. They've been around forever. Great places. But some of the newer places like the AC Marriott hotels are really nice. The Pond Farm, which I love, down in West End is great, and

so

is, like, Sabor. And these restaurants and places that have come, they're surviving, but with more we need more people. We need more people of more ages coming downtown for this area to thrive. So statistics are boring and stuff, but sometimes they offer some perspective. I know I have sixteen seconds, so I'll go fast.

San Rafael, over the last twenty years of the last dataset available has only grown less than one half of 1% per year. So we are really living in a city of almost no growth in a county of almost no growth. And and so with all this, I don't think we're facing the potential of too much growth, explosive growth, and all that'll have. I think that these projects bring smart growth to a downtown. It can really make San Rafael a fun place to live. So I would just say, let's get some new folks living downtown. Let's continue breathing new life into San Rafael, and I would urge approving both the projects tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Bruce Carlson. I've been a resident of San Rafael in Marin for thirty years. I've raised my kids here. I drive by through San Rafael daily. And, I mean, to keep it a lot of good points were made tonight relative to our need for housing, and we desperately need it, not just here, but throughout the whole state. So I want your for both projects, you have my support. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Susan Bradford. I'm a working voting renter, resident here for forty seven years. I've had my businesses here and served the community for forty five years. First of all, I want to just ask if I can find out what the current data is on existing apartment vacancies in San Rafael's because I believe there is a myth being put forward by senator Scott Wiener about a housing crisis.

There are many reports and experts who will contest this with facts and that California is the number one state where more people are moving out of than any other state in the union. I'm appalled that this monstrosity would even be considered as a proposal. I say no to ugly, dark, high rises that create wind tunnels, that pack people in, that create impossible parking problems. If I wanted to live among high rises, I'd go live in San Francisco. What is acceptable to me is no more than five stories, 50% affordable for people earning less than $30,000 or less.

Below market value is not equal to affordable. Making parking available for every single bedroom unit that is being built in a unit in this whole complex, to put in playgrounds because if you're gonna have families there, you're gonna have children there, build using all environmentally certified materials and methods. Let's think in the big picture. More about people, more about Mother Earth, and less about greed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is David Moeller, and I'm representing the Marin Electrification Council. We're a countywide community based organization focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions here in Marin County, and several of our members live here in Sandra Hill. My comments will apply to both projects as well. We strongly support, development of additional affordable housing in Marin, but we want to make sure that in adding housing, we avoid unnecessarily increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

And we submitted written comments. I hope you take a look at it, but I wanna touch on a few highlights. First of all, we find it curious that in the staff report, there's no mention of the project's consistency with San Rafael's climate change action plan. We just think that's curious that a environmental review doesn't include a check with San Rafael's climate action plan. Secondly, and this is our most important item, and, fortunately, we're on apparently, in good good place on this is the proposed development needs to be all electric.

And when I walked in here, I heard the developer commit to all electric, no gas, and that's terrific. Anytime new development is dual fuel with gas infrastructure as well as electric, it means more greenhouse gas emissions, not great, less. So that's great. Next point I'd like to touch on is about EV chargers. The drawings do show some EV chargers in both buildings, very minimal amount.

And there's no statement as far as I can tell about the rest of the parking spaces being EV ready or EV capable. So that's a pretty key thing here because fun fact. In 2024, 40% of new car registrations in Marin County were EVs. 40% in '24. This is the direction things are going.

Eventually, all the residents of this building who do have cars will have EVs. Bicycle parking, I'd like to touch on. The proposals, at least as we read them, have about half the bicycle parking that would be required under Sanderfel's precise plan. We think this is headed in the wrong direction. We just have been talking about the minimal number of parking spaces there and the fact that people will be walking and riding bikes, and yet only half the bike spaces are proposed.

It covered bike parking. And the curious thing about this, and thank you for a few extra seconds here, the curious thing is the rationale for not having more bike parking is given that bicycle parking would occupy floor area that is otherwise allocated to dwelling units. And, therefore, this justifies a waiver under state density bonus law. And that doesn't make any sense to me. It already has more parking spaces than are required. Why not take a few of the vehicle parking spaces, convert them into parking spaces for bicycles, and we're all set.

Thank

you. Last thing, ebike charging. A lot of those bikes are gonna be ebikes. That's what people are replacing their cars with. And especially with the bikes on

the Asia Rapadel. Thank you.

In front of the cars. Perfect place for ebike charging as well as EV charging.

Thank you very

you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak with you and for Tom and his architect to hear. One of the things that I haven't seen in any of the projects is the property across the street, and I'm representing the Elks. We've been a part of the community since nineteen o eight, giving back giving back in scholarships, giving back in drug awareness, giving back to the veterans. The perspective has not been taken from the position of the elks in the property at 1312 Mission Street. I'm concerned about what the architect said about having an easement going into Mission Street, which could actually block our entrance to our lodge.

I'm concerned on the entrance on C Street about having that being another entrance on there and blocking ours. So I I am concerned with this. I'm also very concerned that the way that we're able to give back to the community is by putting on events at the Elks, and with that money that we generate from that is what we give back to the community. And I'm concerned that on Saturdays, construction will take place and it will be absolutely obnoxious in order. We're having a wedding.

They're pounding down. I don't think that would be good for the economic survival of our organization. And final, the height of the project is, I think, a little bit too high. It's gonna shadow Boyd Park. It's gonna shadow the Elk property. I think that if it's lower to eight stories like the AC Hotel, I think it would be absolutely commiserate to the to the area. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Hi there. My name is Susan Adler, and I am a resident of San Rafael for thirty two years, homeowner and business owner in downtown on Laurel Place. I'd first like to echo everything that the previous speaker said about the Elks Club. This has not been taken into consideration, and it should be taken into consideration as that is the only point of access to our club. But I'll continue with my own heartfelt plea.

I love San Rafael and its historic charm. I have watched the changing landscape as our city strives to thrive. As a downtown resident, I am concerned about the proposed high rise building, the height, the size and the density. Additionally, I am worried about the increased traffic because there will be more cars, noise and pollution. Additionally, I think there is a complete lack of regard for nearby historic buildings like the Fallkirk, the Boyd Gatehouse, the Louise Boyd Mansion that houses the Elks Club.

I ask the Planning Commission to please deny this project in its current form as it is badly out of scale. And I would kindly ask the developer and the architect to return to us with a more thoughtful, appropriately sized design. I hope that a plan that is suitable in size, aesthetically pleasing and incorporates historical elements is what we need. We need to bring people to downtown San Rafael for San Rafael to thrive. And we cannot deny the state density bonus laws.

They must be met. However, this shouldn't come at the expense of all downtown residents. Let's bring people back downtown. I believe we can balance practicality, aesthetics and a more appropriately sized building. This is my heartfelt plea to you, Planning Commission. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Sue Burrell, and I live in Gerstle Park. I very much like the idea of having more housing downtown and close to the transit system, And both of these buildings provide that. But as I said in my written comments, the buildings are out of scale and out of sync with city policies that call for context sensitive design. In particular, the 5th Street building at 13 stories will overshadow even the AC Hotel, which at present is the tallest building in the area.

While

our future downtown will surely have more tall buildings, this is just too much too soon. It will also burden the already difficult infrastructure of downtown. Even if some residents don't have cars, their visitors and helpers will have cars, and that is gonna burden the downtown parking quite a bit. But, also, our planning policies call for thoughtful transitions that allow downtown to retain its sense of history and authenticity. This ultramodern building does not fit in a neighborhood shared with the Boyd House, the Falkirk House, the Mission, the Carnegie Library, the Elks Club we've heard about, the Brefel Theater, and the historic buildings of 4th Street.

A context sensitive design would use warmer colors and incorporate curves and flourishes that reflect the surrounding historic neighborhood. It would have greater use of vegetation to reduce the sterile appearance of the building and would have setbacks so that the building doesn't come right up to the sidewalk. The long term fate of our downtown rests in your hands. I urge you to vote against these projects in their current form.

Hello. My name is Amy Lykover. My husband Joe and I live in Gerstle Park. I also love housing downtown. I'm just not wearing a sticker. I love housing downtown. I love downtown, and I show that by catering to businesses downtown and being a part of the civic life. I want you to know that while I sat on the housing element stakeholders committee, I'm very familiar with housing policy in the state and the city, and I support it, but not at the expense of the city. Monahan is everywhere in San Rafael. They know our town.

We've seen them at many, many planning commission meetings and council meetings. They they know how to create beautiful, sensitive buildings that work with our city, and I urge them to do that. We don't need a 13 story building. 13 stories is too high. It really doesn't work in the context of our historic neighborhoods. The Carnegie, you know, just this beautiful building that has just been refurbished, all along mission, all along, and our civic buildings too are going to be completely overshadowed by this. There are many, many places to build in the city of Centerville. You know that. You've seen our housing element. There there there are lots everywhere.

We don't have to do it all in one place. Monahan doesn't have to do it all in one place. And 13 stories is too high. The pedestrian experience, when you have a building that's that high, right up against the sidewalk, is really minimized. We want to think about all the people that they want to bring to us packed into this building in this historic area up against our beautiful hillside and consider that it's not a beautiful place anymore when you have everything so dense and people are trying to walk around so many people.

I also am very interested in the comments that were made tonight, the bit about the Elks Club and the Egress and also Boyd Court. I think you need to listen to them, and I think you need to send this back to the drawing board, bring it down to scale and make it work for our town. We are not we don't have

to

be beholden to developers. They are profit driven, even though they intend well. And I do not think that the number of affordable housing units in this structure really justifies the height. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, chair, commissioners, and community members. My name is Sergio Braz. I'm here today on behalf of Carboners u Union Local thirty five here in San Rafael who build and maintain the Marin County communities. I wanna be clear. We are not against development.

We support housing. We support jobs. We support responsible growth, but we cannot support two projects built on the backs of workers who are being underpaid, uninsured, and denied real real career pathways. The developer behind this proposal has been known to use irresponsible contractors, contractors who do not pay area standard wages, who fail to provide health care, and who offer no apprenticeship or training opportunities. Working construction is tough on the body, and the employer health provided employer provided health care should be a nonnegotiable.

No apprenticeship opportunities means no investment in the next generation of skilled tradespeople. No apprentices learning how to safely and properly build the various structures our residents will live in for decades. Substandard wages for workers who take a beating building these various structures. This commission has the responsibility to consider not just what gets built, but how it gets built. Projects that cut corners on labor often cut corners on safety and quality.

When low road contractors rush work, ignore training, and push workers beyond safe limits, the risk don't end when con construction is finished. They follow this project forever. From wage theft to work negligence to a misclassification of workers, anything goes. This is how projects become pricings. You have an opportunity today to send a message that San Rafael and that in San Rafael, developers cannot profit while undermining the workers who make these very projects possible. Let's ensure that this project moving forward reflects the values of this community, integrity, opportunity, and quality. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there. My name is Naya Vermeulen. I live in a converted garage with my partner here in Sinai Venetia. I grew up here, and I went to high school out here. And all of my friends have left Marin. And I'm

one of

the only ones here still. And so, you know, in this converted garage, you know, ultimately, I'd love to live in a much larger property. But due to the housing crisis and the prices of housing out here, makes it very tough to live out here. So I'm in full support of this project just so I can be able to upscale and live in a much larger property. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Sharon Foster. I'm a resident, for almost thirty years in San Rafael. I've seen quite a lot of change and a lot of it not positive during the time that I've been here. And that building is not going to make a change. It is not cute.

It is not fun. It is not attractive. It is not does not fit in with the fabric of the town. We are a town in a community and in spirit and in size. We are a city maybe in terms of, political, incorporation. But we are not San Francisco. We don't wanna be. We are not Oakland. We don't wanna be. And we don't wanna look like that, that building that I saw.

There the the color, the design, there was nothing about it that seemed appropriate. It's it it is a white elephant. And then we have to think about the fact that it's not alone. There are huge buildings going up on Irwin Street. So we we're taking the density for the county.

And I can't imagine any other community in Marin County and probably a number of other counties in Sonoma County even considering, a building like that. It it just doesn't belong here. Do we need housing? Yes. But we don't have to be desperate and ugly, and, it does have to fit into where we live.

And we wanna be proud of the addition. The AC Hotel, for example, was designed in a way where I think it does, blend in with the community, and, it's an attractive addition. And, that size, it's just completely inappropriate. And, apparently, there might be other things. I mean, the right. A a builder's job is to get the best bang for his buck, but that's not what we're we as the, people that live here and work here and love the town. That's not that's not what we want. We could be smarter and do better than that.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Roger Smith, and I love San Rafael. I'm the one of the fourth generation in my family to either work or have it or live in San Rafael, and it's over a hundred and thirty years worth. I currently serve on the board of the chamber of commerce, and I'm a member of the chamber's governmental affairs committee. In addition, and probably more a lot more importantly, for the past thirty five years, I've served on over eight San Rafael citizen advisory committees, including the downtown advisory committee in the mid nineties and two general plan steering committees.

I've devoted countless hours to promoting civic life in San Rafael. I am strongly in favor of the two downtown projects that are before you this evening. In all the planning work I have participated in, forty years' worth, it has been a constant that what Downtown Sandefel needs to stay vital is new residents and modern buildings to house them. Higher density has always been part of that vision. Not only will these two projects bring more folks into town, they are also replacing old and obsolete buildings that no longer serve the community in any meaningful way. The new buildings will be more attractive, safer, and far greener than the structures they replace. I urge the commission to move these two projects forward for the good of downtown that exists and for

the new residents of the future. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jay Jay Cross, and my family and I live in nearby San Anselmo. And I've worked in Downtown San Rafael for the past fifteen years. I'm very much in support of both proposed developments, Downtown San Rafael and Marin County are both in severe short supply of high quality multifamily housing. As you know, despite the high demand, only a handful for new multifamily developments of scale have been built in the county in the entire county during the past twenty five years.

The largest in the county built during the past five years was the 41 unit 2nd And B Street apartments that was completed by the applicant Monaghan development. This development proved there is strong demand for high quality multifamily housing in San Rafael's downtown. Today, this building appeals to and is home to a wide a broad spectrum of households by income. These two proposed development sites are walkable to restaurants, cafes, retail, theater, jobs, and commuter rail. They will fit perfectly within Sammerfell's downtown precise plan and will bring the city closer to meeting its challenging state mandated RINA targets.

I am among the many looking forward to, subject to your approval, seeing these exciting developments get built and soon contributing to a growing vibrant downtown San Rafael. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm, Ted McNeil. I've lived in Dursle Park, for thirty nine years now. One thing that I don't get, we know there's not enough parking. Where are these people gonna park? That's across both of those projects. How many how many parking slots are are going to be in this 13 story building? How many? 188 apartments. It's it's a fact. There's gonna be close to 300 cars that that those residents have have to be.

That's the way it is. So where are they all gonna park? Gonna tie up all all the metered spaces? Gonna fill up the city parking lots because they won't spend the money? It doesn't make sense to me. Thank you.

Hi. I'm Judy Pietro Martiri, and I live in San Rafael. I own a house in San Rafael Hill. I work at Archie Williams High School, so I do that commute every day down Lincoln and come back during rush hour, and I don't think people have addressed how crowded and blocked that all the streets get during rush hour. It takes me usually about forty minutes to get home if it's during rush hour times.

And Mission isn't just for residential traffic anymore because you have 2nd Street, 4th Street, 5th Street blocked. Today, I left early, and it was already gridlocked right in front of this place right here. Right here where we are right now was blocked. So all along Boyd Park, Mission, it was blocked. There there Lincoln, it was all the way down to Lincoln and that light.

And you that light turns many times before anybody can go left, and it all starts here. So I can't even imagine what it's gonna be like with 400 more people in an apartment building. And they're all gonna have cars whether you deny it or not. They're gonna have cars. It's it's our public transportation isn't good enough right now.

And teachers aren't gonna be Ubering to Archie Williams. I'm sorry. That's not gonna happen. And I just you gotta be aware of that because every day I drive home, they're going up Robert Dollar through the hillside to get to Lincoln 101 North because it's so blocked going to the freeway on Mission. So now there's major traffic going through I don't think you're aware I guess you're not aware, but it's happening, and it's only gonna get worse. And I just want you to

be aware of that. Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Good evening, commission. Thank you for the time. I'm a resident in San Rafael. My name is Noah Reichman, and I'm raising two children here as well. And I wanna say that this is you know, we are the biggest city in Marin County. Right? And we should act like the biggest city. And I'm not joking, but there should be 10 more buildings just like this downtown. And maybe that's, you know, not feasible, but we need more young professionals downtown to support these businesses. And you walk downtown in the core, there's closed doors.

There's boarded up shops. I I mean, what are we doing? So we have to take initiative here. You look at Petaluma. They've added 650 units to Petaluma in the last five years of multifamily units to Petaluma. So how are they doing it? I know that's something that we all need to to look at. Again, I I like this building. I think it's a good looking building, and I hope you guys can consider it for approval. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Vivian Voelz, and I am an architect. And I'm all I consult to other architects. I'm also a homeowner in West End. So while I absolutely hear the com and feel the comments about the traffic through San Rafael, what I feel like the important thing that we we need to be growing into these buildings.

I think that if they feel too big now, it's because we don't have enough housing downtown. We don't have enough other big buildings downtown. I'd love to see us grow into these buildings. I'd like to see us build homes in places where people don't need cars and then grow the transit to make it work. And let investors build projects that make sense because if we don't let build investors build projects that make sense, then they just won't build here. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. My name is Larry. I live at Boyd Court. And I don't know if any of you have been to Honolulu thirty years ago or been there two or three years ago. Used to be beautiful thirty years ago. Now there's not even any beach left. And that's what I'm afraid is gonna happen here in San Rafael. He says, well, we could build it 20 stories high. Why not? My god.

There's not gonna be anything left except a big anthill. I've I've had two vehicles in my family, one a work truck and one a vehicle for the family. And and for years, there's a lot of people that are gonna be working that have two vehicles. If there's not enough parking spaces, what are they gonna do? And even if there is enough parking spaces, this place is gonna be like a just horrible to get out to one zero one and coming back in the evening.

It's just not workable. Not only that, but how long are we gonna keep increasing the sizes of these buildings, to make money for developers? There's got to be some other way. It has to be a limit. She wants to build skyscrapers downtown.

Oh my god. That doesn't belong in San Rafael. I just don't see it. Not only that, during the building of this construction, I understand, they're going to be shutting off our access from, the street on 5th to get to our apartment parking lot underground. So the people are gonna have a hell of a time getting out of our parking lots under the under our Boyd Court.

They're gonna have to make a hairpin u-turn and then go through that little tunnel, to get out on the street off on Mission. In the meantime, there could be cars coming in from Mission that have to turn around. It's just gonna be a real serious bottleneck and a and a hazard. So, you know, that's you know? And and to shut off our access, which is a legal, right of way, what do we what do we have right of ways for? You know? What do we have easements for? They're not respected. Not only that, they're gonna build a

Times up if you

can over help it.

So, you know Thank you for the comment. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm well aware that we need affordable housing. My condominium building next door to this project was built to provide 25 affordable units. Senate bill three thirty has busted the floodgates wide open for developers to come in with a measly 10% affordable housing. If you're this kind of a developer, you will provide the minimum affordable housing, and that allows you to disregard zoning restrictions, including heights, setback, etcetera.

And that is what this developer wants you to approve. The tallest building in Downtown Centreville is a Bank of America building. It's eight stories. This building will dwarf the Bank of America building. And it is so on a scale with all the properties around on C Street, Mission, and 5th that exits parking lots in two store buildings.

Those of us who live near store requested that the garbage be picked up on C Street, but the developer told us that it couldn't be done because the street is too steep. Well, at the our building on B 3, we get a park our garbage picked up, and it is very steep. So I don't know. So I'm gonna request that the planning commission request that the garbage be picked up on C Street because we are right now at Board Court living with the noise from the garbage being picked up for the AC Hotel at 05:00 in the morning. It wakes us up.

It's extremely loud. And if this project goes forward the way it's designed, it would be even worse for those of us that live next door. I also wanna say that those of you who like this project don't have to live next door to it. So there.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Cameron. I, live in Centerfall with my wife and two kids. We we love Centerfall. It's a great community. We love the character of it. And, obviously, housing is a tough question. I mean, the scale of housing in some of these developments can be challenging to overcome. But, you know, my concerns are I work in real estate in San Francisco, and I'm concerned that we don't have enough affordable housing for, you know, my kids when they get older. If they can't afford to live here, they're gonna move somewhere else, and the lack of affordable housing is a challenge.

And my biggest concern is also, you know, San Rafael has a mandate to build 3,200 new units by 2031. That's essentially five years away. And my concern is that if we don't get that done, then we lose state funding. And my biggest concern is builders' remedy. Then you have developers that come in from LA or Chicago or New York and they can just plant a tower in Gerstle Park.

You know, mister Monahan has been developing in the city obviously for some time. I think he's sensitive to the characteristics that we like to see. It seems like, you know, even though this is a large building, the some of the outside characteristics match the buildings downtown. I'm in favor of this building, and I'm in favor of trying to let local developers build housing here before we get penalized and have somebody from out of state come in and build some monstrosity in, like, Bristol Park or somewhere we don't wanna see it. So I'm in a I'm in favor. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My comment is for both projects coming before you tonight. My name is Karen Strolia, and I'm a resident here in San Rafael. I'm also the president and CEO of the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce, and we represent over 5,000 employers and more than 40,000 employees across 25 industry sectors. I'm here tonight to express the chamber's strong support and endorsement for the 12 35th Avenue and 900 A Street mixed use housing proposals.

Creating housing is not just a policy priority for us. It's an economic imperative. Our members consistently tell me that the lack of attainable housing is the number one challenge in recruiting and retaining employees. When workers can live closer to where they work, they tend to stay longer. And when employees stay longer, businesses save tremendously by reducing turnover, lowering training costs, and maintaining continuity that keeps operations stable.

These projects create the opportunity for more people who work in San Rafael to also live and play and spend in San Rafael, strengthening our social and economic fabric of our community. These developments also advance the Downtown Precise Plan's vision of a vibrant, walkable, people oriented core. Together, these projects will bring, you've heard, 318 new rental homes, including 30 below market rate units, replacing buildings long past their useful lifespan. New residents mean more customers than our shops, in our diners, and in our restaurants, and more activity throughout the day. That added foot traffic is essential to the economic vitality of our downtown corridor and naturally enhances the conditions that support community engagement, public safety, and long term business success.

For these reasons, the chamber urges you all to approve both proposals. These projects are exactly the kind of forward looking investments that will help San Rafael and the people who depend on it thrive long in the future. And on a personal note, I applaud Tom Monahan and the work and commitment that he has provided for our community. He is extremely passionate about providing solutions for the challenges we face, and I thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Sydney Fairbairn. I'm one of the trustees at the Elks Lodge and the California attorney. The building is not located in a purely commercial district. It backs up to the residential district, going up the hill past Robert Dollar Drive with all of those homes there. Those homes are some of the oldest homes in the city of San Rafael, and they're historically important. The parcels north of the building are only residential and vintage. The 13 story height, while less than the maximum 20 stories allowed, towers over the homes to the north. San Rafael did a good job making sure the Aegis Building had mission style elements. Please ask for a more traditional look for this building.

On page 21 of the amended conditions, point one twenty seven, the trips are estimated at only 30 AM trips and 33 trips. These calculations seem incredibly low. The small size units will attract young people who will probably go out to work every day, some in alternative transportation, but very many of them using their own vehicles. And in fact, Zanderfell has always been very close to the city, and a lot of people commute to the city every day. So I ask that those figures be reexamined. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Valerie Taylor. I've lived at, excuse me, San Rafael for, oh, more forty years more or less. I used to be a transportation planner, and I am very much I am in favor of this building. But as we try to segue people out of their cars into walking, because this is what we want.

Right? We want to not have to house the cars, but house the people and have the people be able to walk and bike. When I look at the sidewalks in this city, and especially in the back along 5th, there are no sidewalks. We need 12 foot wide sidewalks throughout. Any time a new development goes in, we need to put in a good sized sidewalk so that people can walk safely and three to four abreast if they want to.

Also bicycle paths. There are no bicycle paths up here. We have a wonderful North South bikeway that's just gone in. You can get all the way from Markspur Landing to, don't know, practically Cloverdale, and yet we have no safe way of getting from where we are now, this location right here, to that bike path. So I urge you to think a little larger and think about the flow of people.

If they're going to be walking, if they're going to be biking, they need facilities in order to do that. And one last thing regarding parking, which is the hill on which projects go to die, unfortunately. The city owns garages, which are basically empty from 7PM to 7AM. Cut a deal. It's two blocks that way. I mean, what about a, you know, some sort of deal for the people who live here? So thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening again. Matthew Leeds. I live in Gerstle Park. And continuing the theme of traffic and safety, I was struck by thinking, what if we had to evacuate? In particular, your car is on the 2nd Or 3rd Floor in a mechanical lift.

And not only is it an hour, an hour and a half to get out of downtown, you gotta wait another half hour if there's electrical power to get your car back. So I'm concerned about whether or not there have been any studies on how long it would take to evacuate the downtown as you add 11 more high rises. I'm also curious as to whether or the fire department has signed off on being able to service a fire in a 13 story building, much less the 17 story that's being proposed closer to the freeway. So, and who will pay for that new equipment if they don't have what they need already, and who will pay for that training? So these are serious public safety questions that I think need to be addressed.

I I hope you'll take them under consideration. And lastly, although the the drawings went by really quick for this building, it it looked to me like the below market rate apartments were stacked right up against the mechanical on every single floor. That that seems a little egregious to me. Thank you for your considerations.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Stefan Mollic. I'll try to keep this short. I realize I'm the last person. Longtime Park resident. Comment applies to both projects. Everybody here in front of me knows there's a housing crisis crisis. You heard stories from your friends and other residents, people lamenting the worsening situation. You know that people struggle to find a reasonably priced apartment nearby. And when one of these unicorns pop up, the competition's so tough, it's probably harder than getting into Stanford.

Nobody is going to swoop in and save us from outrageous rents and housing scarcity. There's not a line of developers waiting around the corner outside with the Goldilocks solution that's going to make everybody happy. Meetings like this are where we have an opportunity to actually address the housing scarcity. Meetings like this are where the rubber actually hits the road as far as housing scarcity. The only solution rests with local planning commissions and this solution is in your hands.

Progress is sometimes painful, but the alternative, stagnation, workers priced out of the area is much worse. Sao is a vibrant, multicultural, beautiful city. It's not a small Hamlet. We want to continue attracting major corporations to San Rafael. We want a vibrant downtown and culture. And to keep that alive, we desperately need to add housing and allow the people that actually work in San Rafael to live in San Rafael. Thank you.

Thank you.

Patrick Roth, homeowner, West End. I I I was actually watching this on Zoom. I'm like, I gotta get I gotta get down here. This is this is a big event. Yeah. So and I was parking, and I was just looking down the street. It's right there. 5th Street, right there. And I was trying to imagine a 13 story building there. It's it's insane. That's that's all I gotta say. It's completely insane if we build a 13 story building right down the street there. It is on a hillside. Someone brought that up from 4th Street there. It would just tower over the town.

And even in San Francisco, they don't build massive buildings up on, you know, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Pacific Heights. They do have some buildings there, but a lot of those buildings were considered, you know, looking back, probably a mistake. That's why they're building down in Mission Bay and, Soma and whatnot. I believe we should probably maybe move the 13 stories down to 3rd Street. That seems like a more appropriate place for a 13 story building.

And, also, maybe if you could work out a deal with the Goldstein, folks who have kinda just, neglected, I guess, the properties that are on 4th Street there. I feel like that just having buildings sit there empty and using it as a chip to rebuild the parking structure there seems pretty awful. That's that's all I got.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any other public comment before we close this portion of the hearing? Yeah, please. No. We're not going end.

Howdy. Hi. Good evening. My name is Riley Heard. I'm part of the project team, so I just wanted to respond to a few of the things we heard tonight. And I'm a San Rafael resident. I've lived here my whole life. My office is at 5th And A Street. I'm obviously here advocating for this project. I specialize in state housing laws.

But my friends always ask me, why is there not very many cool things going on downtown in San Rafael? And the answer is there aren't enough residents. So this application is a direct response to the city zoning this site and saying, this is where the density goes. So the city said, put it here, and then the Monahan application said, okay, and came forward and responded to the Downtown Precise plan. Now they're only using half the density bonus.

Your inclusionary requirement is 10% low. This project has 15% very low. There's no parking required, but they are balancing, you know, rental needs and the fact that people will have some cars even though they don't have any parking. There's 79 bike parking spaces. But what's critical is we we are in a new paradigm of planning laws.

It is a top down approach, whether people like it or not, and no matter what your opinion may be. So between the Housing Accountability Act and the state density bonus law, these projects become nearly impossible to modify, deny, or reduce. If they meet the objective standards or they get a waiver, they must be approved. And sometimes that gets lost in the traditional, you know, trips to the podium and opinions that are be given being given. I almost think it's unfair that it's not more widely known that the localities have been constrained in that way by the state government.

So it's important to keep that in mind and that this is a responsive application to what the city said goes here. So I'll just conclude by saying, I'm one of the lucky ones. I got to make it back to Marin, but I have a a lot of friends who haven't. They're spread out throughout the country. And it is a fact that the production of any new housing, market rate, middle, low, has a trickle down effect to provide price relief throughout communities. And if you wanna study that, Austin, Texas. They've built out, rents are down, affordability is up. So I'd strongly encourage you to approve this project tonight. Thank you. Thank

you. Yes, please.

Excuse me. Good evening. Susan Coleman, resident of Terralinda, frequent visitor to Downtown San Rafael. I just had dinner tonight at the kitchen table. So it was wonderful. And, yes, whoever commented on traffic, traffic is absolutely absurd. I don't know what's happening here. But when I was going down there at 05:30, traffic was backed up beyond Boyd Museum, beyond to get to Lincoln. Don't know what's happening there. So here's my question for you guys. No one's talking about salaries. You guys wanna be able to people to rent these market rate, 90% of them mostly, market rate rentals. These are not cheap. These are expensive. I'm a realtor.

These are expensive. That means you gotta have local jobs. If you expect these people to walk to work so my question is, where are the jobs coming from that are gonna support this kind of rental housing? And, yes, I'll add, I think they're out of scale. Just because you can, mister Monahan, doesn't mean you should. And I just don't think that's really a proud legacy for our community that has a distinct character. So thank you very much for listening to comments, and I am aware that we're under state mandate to build, and I know the restrictions you're under. But anything we can do to lighten that load from the ground level where we walk around and live every day is gonna be really helpful. These are not legacy buildings. They just aren't. Thanks.

Thank you.

Excuse me. Chair Mercado?

Yeah, ma'am. Did you come up earlier already?

Did. I wanted to add one more second.

Sorry. You had your two minutes already. We can't have any more public comment. No.

Turn him away.

No. No. There was just everyone had their two minutes. So

Did did it twice.

Thank you, ma'am. You've already had your two minutes. You can submit comments elsewhere directly to staff if you'd like.

If I may, chair, just to clarify, the the gentleman who spoke twice, he, spoke on a different item on the agenda and then spoke again on this item.

Oh, thank you. Yes. Thank you for that.

Good evening. My name is Andy Shu Makat. I live in Boy Court next to the project. I my understanding is during the construction, they will block our driveway to 5th Avenue and leave us to in and out through the tunnel under our building to Mission. I ride scooter.

Even I ride scooter, I'm scared, and I don't know how I can get in during the traffic time through the tunnel to our building. And twothree of our resident use garage in and out. So it's it affect us, our life quality, and also our time and also safety. I don't know if anyone want to hire a driving coach to teach us how we can in and out a small tunnel with our SUV. We have resident with a truck.

How can we get in and out like that? In addition to those dust, noise, we have been through the AC Hotel. Now we have to go through that. But earlier in the beginning of the project presentation, I read I heard the Eastman Building issue is between resident or neighbors and developer developers. But who can guarantee the residents' safety for this project? Thank

you. Thank you.

Front of people, so I didn't wanna come up. But I felt like I should say something because I've been a resident here for sixty years. I live on San Rafael Hill. As somebody mentioned earlier, the traffic going on the hill has increased significantly. There's lots of blind corners on the hill.

There's some made lots of areas where you can't even have two cars pass each other. And this building, being so tall and and it it just like I said, I've been here forever, and I can't even believe they would consider putting in something, and especially something that doesn't provide proper parking because everybody's gonna have a car. Everybody's going to pull in and out of there, but the congestion in San Rafael trying to cross town is unbelievable. Like, between the train coming in and that new building they put at Mission in Lincoln, we haven't even seen the impact of that one because that's not even at full capacity, and people haven't been coming and dropping off people. And who knows what that's gonna happen?

But the it it just doesn't fit the lifestyle here. I mean, maybe that building can go somewhere else, like in Terralinda out there, rezone another area that's off of Redwood Highway or something seems to be a good spot to me. Anyway, I just hope that doesn't get approved. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you everybody for all your comments. We're gonna close that portion of the hearing now, and we'll take a breath and bring it back to the planning commission. So this is where we now get to deliberate. You know, real structure here. If anybody is anxious to start with their comments or thoughts, I'll open it up. Otherwise, I will put you on the spot to make you talk.

Can we ask the developer to go over the easement situation with Boyd Court? Sounds like there's some unhappy people, and I'd like to know what's going on, please.

Yes. I'm happy to explain that a little bit more if you'd like. I don't know if we can find that slide that shows the site plan and the easement.

Yeah. Can we just really, really quick. If we open it up to the applicant, do we open it another public hearing again? My concern is I I would I would not wanna rob the public being able to comment on that.

No. You have not. You've closed the public hearing, and you can ask follow-up questions.

Okay. Thank you. So then what I would ask is if the commissioners have specific questions that we ask that and the applicant respond to the questions and try to kinda keep it in the lane of responding to the questions. Appreciate it. Thank you.

And, again, I'd like, like to know a little bit more about the easement situation, please.

Maybe there's, well, we can work on this one. Let me use this pointer here if it's working. It's not. K. Broken pointer.

Sorry. So this is, 5th Avenue along here. This is the 40 foot oh, this one is not happy. Maybe I'll just that's working now. Okay. Okay. This is a 40 foot wide easement. It's very much the way it is now. There's parking along this side here. This is a through access. This was the no build area that's referred to in the easement itself. It says, do not build here. The Boyd Court Residence, this is a portion of the building. The building goes further over.

And

So this is the Boyd Court Building goes over all the way here to B Street. And the and so the Boyd Court residents have an easement through that through through that area. Sorry, through this area, they're allowed to drive through here. And it's our property. They get a right to drive through there.

There is also what has been referred to as a tunnel, which is an existing this is their garage here. And then there is this tunnel that can drive up to Mission. And so you can drive north toward Mission and then turn left to right on Mission. So during construction, there's no building during this in this area. And during construction, it is going to be difficult, but there is an alleyway to get through this tunnel area.

We're going to provide a traffic management plan that's going to make sure that during construction that area is disrupted as little as possible. It's a temporary situation. And we understand it's an inconvenience. We're going to do everything we can to accommodate that. We need to submit a traffic management plan, which will address that to the city and to Department of Public Works. And we think that we'll be able to accommodate their access needs.

Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Alright. Bringing it back. Deliberation.

Through the chair, I heard a number of, questions from the community. I'd be happy to answer those if this would be the appropriate time.

Sure. Unless any of the commissioners have anything more pressing they wanna start with. Yeah. Going through some of the issues or questions that were raised here, that'd be great.

Okay. Thank you.

The first comment I wanted to address are concerns about parking and what's required by the downtown precise plan as well as the, requirements of AB 2,097. The project is proposing a 128 parking spaces. That does not include the seven parking spaces that are dedicated for Boyd Court. Those are separate and not included in the the parking count. Under the downtown precise plan, a 156 parking spaces would be required.

However, as noted previously, the project site is within a half a mile of a high quality transit stop. So under AB twenty ninety seven, no parking is required by project. So the 128 parking spaces are being voluntarily provided. I also heard comments about the climate action plan and questions why that was not part of the evaluation. We did consider as part of the the report and evaluation of the project, the climate action plan.

One of the challenges that we ran into is that that plan does not include objective standards. And as we noted at the beginning of the presentation for housing development projects, we can only evaluate the project compared to objective standards. Additionally, the majority of the the policies in that document are providing direction to the city to take certain action, not providing, guidance for developers. I would note that the project is gonna be required to comply with CalGreen during the building permit process, and part of the evaluation through the sequel process is that the location of the project is inherently climate friendly, being within a half mile of the, SMART Station, the Golden Gate Transit Center, and a number of high quality transit stops. I also heard concerns about the, fire department and wanted to verify that the fire department, the fire marshal has reviewed the project and conditionally approved it.

Those conditions will be verified through the building permit process. Typically, the level of detail in the building permit is much higher than the detail that's reviewed during the planning process, and so all the the nuts and bolts of the fire code will be worked out at that time. I also wanted to provide a little bit more information about the the traffic evaluation. I obviously, and congestion is a a very important topic. Through the lens of the California Environmental Quality Act, what staff is required to do is to look at vehicle miles traveled, and we also have our city citywide standards.

So we have a a multistep process when we're looking at traffic, and it starts with the applicant, providing a scope of work from their traffic consultant. That scope of work is then reviewed by our department of public works staff to ensure that everyone's on the same page about what that report should should have. The report's then prepared by the applicant. It is peer reviewed by the Department of Public Works. And once everyone is in agreement on that, that that satisfies the the traffic report for the planning process.

That report was then peer reviewed by our consultant m group and their team for the CEQA process. So we've had three sets of traffic engineers look at that and, just wanted to confirm the numbers. So this project is anticipated to generate where did it go? So the the net trips, so there's an existing office building, so there is some credit for that is anticipated to be, 30 peak trips and thirty three PM peak trips. So I just wanted to confirm on the record what the, the technical experts have found for traffic generation.

And the last comment was about the access to Boyd Court. So one of the requirements for all of our large development projects is for an incredibly comprehensive construction management plan. For comparison, I think the construction management plan for 930 Irwin is about a 150 pages. And so it goes through all of the nuts and bolts to make sure that every aspect of construction is done in a manner that's safe and maintains access for for pedestrians, for bicyclists, neighbors.

Thank you. I would follow-up on the traffic analysis. I know there were some concerns raised about emergency access. Is that part of the study that's done and analyzed?

Not as part of CEQUA. CEQUA is looking at is the project introducing physical changes in the environment that would create a new hazard, but the overall ingress, egress, and safety is evaluated by the fire department during our regular review process. Okay. Thank you. Yes, please.

One question regarding the our the city of San Rafael sewage service. We are adding 246 bathrooms. And just curious as to our infrastructure and if the city has this. I I didn't see anything about signing off on that.

That will be evaluated in more detail during the building permit process. We have preliminary approval from the San Rafael Sanitary District and conditions of approval. But, again, the level of detail required for that evaluation is a much higher level of detail than we have at this time.

Through the chair also for clarification, San Rafael actually doesn't have their own sanitation services actually on a separate district. So that's, San Rafael Sanitation District operates, basically, the sanitation system. The applicant did actually, connect with the sanitation district, they did provide a will serve letter that actually can outlines their connection requirements, which are also included as conditions approval if you found those.

Other follow-up questions?

No? It seems like

you do.

I just had

Yeah. To the developer again. Did you talk with the Elks people across the street? Have you ever established a relationship with them?

We have not really had a big conversation with them. We're certainly happy to to do that.

Seem they were concerned, on the construction of blocking their entrance.

Yeah. I think those traffic concerns will be handled in the comprehensive construction management traffic plan.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. Alright. Well, with this exciting planning commission group that's jumping in to provide some deliberations yes, please. Let's just kinda chew over here.

I I can start if for guidance if you want. My my understanding for commissioner's how it goes is the resolution is set forth on the agenda, identifies, what is it, five items of that are the findings that we have to make. And should we not approve the project, then we would have to have guide provide guidance to staff for how those findings cannot be made to then allow staff to go back? And is it, like, override these? K.

If I may. Yes. So staff has proposed a recommendation, to the planning commission. And if the planning commission, were wanting to modify the project to reduce the density or alternatively deny the project, the planning commission would need to make findings that are consistent with the Housing Accountability Act. The Housing Accountability Act requires that you can only do the reduction in density or alternatively deny the project if you can make findings that there is a specific adverse impact on the public health or safety and that there is no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid that specific adverse impact other than the disapproval or, alternatively, the lower density.

This is a challenging burden to me.

Okay. Great. So that greatly limits our ability to modify what staff has recommended based off of the project is resented. Okay. And the only changes that we received tonight were the conditions of approval that if we approve the resolution, we would then need in our motion to identify the conditions change.

Correct. Staff's recommendation is to adopt the resolution approving the project subject to the modified conditions of approval provided, including the modification to the pale to remove the paleontological resource condition of approval.

Okay.

It's muffled.

And if we get there, we'll get

there later if we get there. Okay.

Sorry, commissioner. If you wanted to start, please.

Yeah. I'll go ahead and start. I know this is a really tough project for a lot of people. I think it's a lot it's a tough situation for California and for our city. I will say that no project is perfect.

This is not this is not a perfect project. It never will be perfect for all of us. Really, the structure of the economics of housing has really been changed over the last twenty years. I mean, if you look at the ratio of income to cost of housing, it has just exploded. And the only way that we're gonna be able to address this is by building more housing.

And I realized you know, I think a big thing about traffic came up. If not everyone is trying to drive 30 miles and drive to 101 to get on the freeway so they can drive 30 miles to get home from work, we're not gonna have all those cars backing up through downtown. We're gonna have people that live here that can work and and spend money and live here. We have an aging population. We're gonna be able to have an economy that thrives and lives on for the next generation.

And I know this is not part of the review, but I do wanna say I support the project, and I I wanna really communicate why. They're not all parts of the project that it worked out. I trust that, you know, the city staff has done an amazing job to date, and I wanna thank you guys and thank the applicant. And I I trust you that it will be continued. The process will continue to be done in a thorough way with the construction management plan addressing a lot of the issues that I think are outstanding. And, yeah, I think we need this housing desperately. I'd love to see my kids live here too. So that's it.

Thank you.

Krishna or Kadman, do you wanna go? Or Sure. Okay. I'll go.

I don't like that this project is happening. But you know what? We have I don't like and nimbied and bananaded our way to this point, where mister Heard nicely articulated, the state gives us very little latitude to do anything about it. I wish it wasn't 13 stories tall. It is going to be 13 stories tall.

I'm sympathetic to Boyd Court. I'm sympathetic to the elk elk's club. But on the other hand, as a twenty five year San Rafael resident, I have watched 4th Street shrink. It is not what it was twenty five years ago, and and that's a shame. We need more housing, period, full stop.

We need more housing walkable to Downtown Centerville. I believe that this and the other project and other projects that are coming before us are going to add to the vibrancy of Downtown Centerville. It'll bring in more restaurants that we will all enjoy. It will bring in more businesses that will employ more of the people who live in the projects that are coming. So I start off by saying I don't like it, and I I I still don't, but I support it.

It's it's where we're going. It's what's happening. And I believe that when I put my economist hat on, I believe two things. One, that it will help to increase the vibrancy of downtown Centerville. And two, that things ultimately are never as bad as they look like they're going to be. Right? People modify their behavior in ways that mitigates the effects. Right? So if you just look at this and this is gonna be, oh, so many more people and so many more cars, and that's gonna make some make things so much worse, it probably will make things somewhat worse, but not nearly as bad as as might be feared. So, again, I'll just stop with I support this project,

and thank you. Sure. Appreciate that. Thank you. Kishara, Alvarez, please.

K. So thank you. In my opinion, I think I don't like the design, the project, and I would like to include more the context and historical elements. But I'm not great that we need more housing, Murray, and especially in San Rafael. So I have been living in the Canal area for years, and I understand this issue of housing.

And and I think this downtown in San Rafael needs more people to keep downtown life. So I think this is an can be an opportunity for that, as I've mentioned. So, the design and the project, I would wish it would be a little different, but as as my my com this other commission mentioned, there is probably is not perfect, and this is not perfect. But we need to go through the first step and housing is something important, and then we can work in other things that probably can come

up. Thank you. We'll go this way.

Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. Well, this is my second meeting ever, and, boy, did you guys throw me a loop. No. I am a fifty year resident of San Rafael. I've lived here since I was a kid. Worked here. My family had a business here. Live in Terralinda. I too would be concerned about the height of the building.

I I just think it we shot over the 60 foot limit, and we didn't just go over it a little bit. I think we went really high. I understand that our position as commissioners is to decide what the state and what the what our parameters are and not necessarily what we always feel. I do think San Rafael 4th Street area does need some revitalization. I do think this will help.

I do worry about the parking. I as a salesperson who's out all day long in my car, I travel all over the North Bay, Napa, Marin, and I see a lot of people on the road, and I just know that people have cars. But I think to move forward in the city of Centre Fell, I think we do need to more people will help that revitalize the 4th Street area. I I I do believe that I think it could use a boost in foot traffic and some excitement. So I support the project. I'm not really happy about the size of the building, though. Thank you.

That's that's pretty good for your second meeting. Yeah. Great. Like Jack, I'm been here my whole life. I've fifty eight years. I've been in the West End my entire life. I went to Sun Valley, Davidson, Sara Pajai with this guy. I've raised my kids there. Sara Sun Valley Davidson, Sara Pajai. When this I've been on I was on the design review board for eighteen years.

When this downtown precise plan came through us five years ago, I was vehemently against tall buildings on the West End. I thought these sorts of structures and housing is needed. But when I started seeing the proposed zoning changes at that time on the West End, I spoke up. I said these projects belong closer to the transit, closer to the Eastern side of 4th Street, maybe even the middle of 4th Street where, you know, I would encourage the town to figure out what's going on with that building in the center. And that's a ripe spot for a mixed use housing project with commercial downstairs.

So I've always been against even the forty, fifty feet they were gonna, that we've rezoned for, but I mean, gotta live with it because that's what we passed. And I think that's what Simina said is we gotta live with change sometime and members of the public. It's been kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow to see this part of town get so vertical. But here we are. And Riley Heard said it pretty much as clear as the bell. I was like, we don't really have a whole heck of a lot of choice on these things. We need to be part of this great experiment and live with it and see what happens because we can't you know, they meet they're meeting all the standards. So I don't like I like the base of the building. I like the top of the building. I think you guys did a great job.

Kinda everything in between, not so much. So, you know, so we we should be shorter, but it's gonna be 13 stories. The balconies, I'm kinda wrestling with them. I know it's kinda night. I I'm worried about people having a bunch of junk out there, and it's starting to look like Hong Kong or something. So I'm hoping there's gonna be vehement rules there that make sure that these balconies look clean. If there's a chance or an opportunity as you do your working drawings to pull some of them in like you did on some of those areas of the buildings, take a look at that. You know? See you know, I think the architect might have some thoughts on that. And to the public, you know, where are our kids gonna live?

I have a 25, a 22, and a 20 year one year old. I'm starting to wonder if they're gonna stay at home for their whole life. So we need places for them to live and work around here. I don't disagree with that at all. So our identity is changing as a town. We are the somebody one of the comments I wrote down is we are the largest town in Marin. You know? And we kind of better start behaving like it, so, here we are. So those are my comments. Thank you.

Hi, Sherry. So I have, some sympathy for everybody that brought up the traffic. I got stuck today too down on 4th And 5th. Took me almost an hour to get home, and I live in Spinnaker Point for twenty five years. We do need housing, and this project allows the density and the size of the apartments to offer more housing than would normally be available.

So and our hands are tied. We we have to approve that based on the state density bonus laws. I just ask, and I think that this is already happening, is that we take into consideration the near neighbors white court, and I wasn't aware that the elks were concerned with the elks. Thank you.

Thank you. Great. Thanks, everybody. Yeah. I'll wrap it up before we see if we can take a motion here.

I think the public comment was great, and I think what's challenging for commission bodies like us is the shift from legislature in Sacramento is we all have input on this, but there's not much we can do. And that's a really frustrating dynamic to set up here. So I think we all empathize, and the best we can do is ask the developer, be a good neighbor, deal with the neighbors and the access issues, talk with the elks, deal with all the other neighbors as I'm sure you will. We can't ask you or force you to do it, but just what I heard tonight was you're part of the community, and that's what people respect about. So I hope that project continues in that direction.

And those as we are seeing these projects, I hate the doomsday response, which is you got to accept it because if you don't, it's gonna yeah. That is probably gonna happen. But we can at least acknowledge and embrace that we don't like what is being presented, but we have to accept it. So that tension is, I think, what we felt tonight. I just wanna validate that and acknowledge that. Being with that said, I think we probably wanna take a minute if we're ready for a motion to make sure that the way we present the motion is correct for staff with any of

the

modifications, if that's the direction we're going. So I'll put it back to the commission if anyone would like to make a motion.

Can we move what staff said?

Christina, would you perhaps summarize, what you said earlier for the commission so we have a clear record?

Is it can I just so what I had said earlier was to recommend adoption of the resolution recommending approval of the environmental and design review permit subject to the modified conditions of approval presented by staff this evening?

So moved.

So so moved? Well, I

can't say that.

No. I can't. Can can

one of us articulate that back?

I can I can give it a go? Thank you. Usually messes in hell, but I think I've got it this time. I'd like to provide a motion to adopt a resolution approving an environmental and design review permit, subject to the mod the modified conditions of approval that staff has presented tonight.

This is commissioner Hegman. I will second the motion.

Great. So a motion and a second. We'll do a roll call.

Commissioner Salvamini? Yes. Commissioner Summers?

Yes.

Commissioner Radby? Yes. Commissioner Haven?

Yes.

Commissioner Sade? Yes. Commissioner Alvarez? Yes. Chair Mercado?

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

K. Thank you. So we'll close that item out.

We, have a five minutes, three minute We need five minute? Two minutes. Okay.

Then we are gonna take a five minute break, and then we'll move on to the next item. Okay. We're gonna bring this back.

Are we we're out

we're good? K. K. I'm gonna reopen the planning commission for tonight and move on to our next action item. K.

Second action item on tonight's agenda is a public hearing to consider a major environmental design review permit for the demolition of an existing 44 square 40 4,400 square foot commercial building and surface parking area and the construction of a new eight story mixed use building with 4,000 square foot ground level commercial space, 131 residential units inclusive of 11 units affordable to low income households, tenant amenity amenities, frontage improvements at 10 33rd Street. We'll take a staff report, please.

Thank

you. Alright. A lot of a lot of

the the process is similar, so I will speed up a little bit in the interest of the evening. This project, the timeline was very similar. The pre op was submitted 08/12/2024. The formal came in, 02/06/2025 and was deemed complete May 23. Same underlying provisions with the affordable housing and accountability act, state density bonus law.

The proposed project, also we have also this fun naming convention. So the project name is 900 A Street. It is located at 10 33rd Street. Same general plan designation, downtown mixed use. One of the easier components with this project is that we have one zoning district.

So it is T 5 N 5070. The existing building is a 4,400 square foot, commercial building that was built in 1963. Some pictures of the project site. Similar, we have a major environmental design review with a state density bonus. The proposed project would construct an eight story mixed use building with 131 residential units and 4,000 square feet of commercial space.

We have a similar concession for deviation and the compatibility of amenities for the affordable units and waivers for height, step backs, parking setbacks, civic space, bicycle parking, and frontage standards. Here's the site plan. The base project for the project at 900 E Street is a 110 units with 21 density bonus units. The mix of the 131 units would be seventy seven one bedroom units with six of those being, deed restricted for low income housing. We have fifty four two bedroom units total with five of those being deed restricted.

The height of this proposed project would be 83 feet 83 and a half feet, and, proposed parking would be a 107 vehicle spaces and a 109 bicycle parking spaces. Some views. This is along 3rd Street. Looking north along a Street. This fourth and a Street looking south.

3rd Street Northwest. The basement floor plan. 1st And Ground Floor, which has the lobby, leasing and management offices, vehicle and bicycle parking, mailroom, trash room, and the Ground Floor commercial. 2nd Floor has 18 residential units and some amenity space in that courtyard. Fifth third, fifth, sixth, and seventh.

Here's the 4th Floor.

Eighth.

So the density bonus, for this project is based on 10% of the low income units where the previous project was very low. That allows a 20% density bonus. As I mentioned, the base project was a 110 units. So with that 20% density bonus, that's 22 density bonus units for a total of a 132. The average size of the base project units in this case is 1,057, and the proposed project average unit size is 1,057 as well.

So a little bit bigger. Base project plans. Again, I will let the architect describe the architecture. He'll do a much better job than than I can. We'll go over some elevations fairly quickly.

West on a Street, south elevation on 3rd Street. And the landscape plan, a total of eight tree 18 trees will be removed at the street level, including eight street trees and 10 trees within the building footprint, about a thousand square feet of new landscaping, including six new trees on A Street and six on 3rd Street. At the podium, we have about 2,000 square feet of new landscaping and 12 new trees, lounge furnishings, and some recreational amenities. The roof level is about 20 square feet of of planting area. There was a very similar sequel process for the this project, and we also relied on m group to do our independent sequel review.

The same categorical exemption applies to this proposed project. It's a staff's recommending approval of a class 32 exemption as part of the entitlements being presented this evening. As noted before, the the report found that the project is consistent with the general plan and all applicable policies, zoning designations, and regulations. And one note for the class 32 exemption is that the density bonus and waivers do not render a project ineligible for this class 32 exemption. Similar, the project is located on a project site less than five acres and is substantially surrounded by urban uses.

There's been determined to be no habitat for endangered, rare, or threatened species, and the project would result in no significant impacts to traffic as in vehicle miles traveled, noise, air quality, or water quality impacts, and the site would be adequately served by all required utilities and public services. Similarly, the exceptions to the exemption were analyzed and included in the report, and we have the same findings for design review. The conditions of approval for this proposed project are incredibly lengthy and comprehensive and require the applicant to develop a very detailed construction management plan to, ensure that construction is done in a way that is respectful to the neighbors and ensures public public health and safety. Staff's recommendation is that the Planning Commission adopt the resolution approving the major environmental and design review subject to the modified conditions of approval that staff presented earlier today and similar alternatives to approve the application with modifications if the Planning Commission so, finds the need to do so. Continue the application to allow the applicant to address any issues or to provide staff direction to return with a resolution recommending denial.

And that concludes staff's presentation, and I'm available for questions.

Thank

you. Any questions from commissioners to staff? No questions? Okay. None from me. So, yes, if the applicant wants to come down.

Thank you once again, commissioners. I'll keep it very brief because the hour is late. We're excited for this project. We think you might like this one a little better because it's smaller. And the conditions of approval, I just wanna point out, we did send a letter, know, because they were evolving today. And so we did send a letter. We have concerns of a few of those. That's in the record. We don't need to go into those. The below market rate units on this project, I think, as staff has described, are there are six one bedrooms and five two bedrooms.

These are low income, so they're a little bit little bit different, but they're still affordable or more affordable, more workforce housing. And just for the heck of it, thought I'd look at what the range would be. So a one bedroom in that range is 2,100 to 2,800 a month. That's the kind of affordability. So it's a little bit more than the other project. Two bedrooms are 2,300 to 3,000 roughly a month. That's the range that they fit within. So without further ado, I'm gonna introduce you to the wonderful Isaiah Stackhouse. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks again, Tom, and thanks, Christina. I'll keep this brief. Christina covered the plans pretty well. I'll go through the plans just briefly to talk about our design process and intent and and function. So, again, it's a really great location in the heart of downtown.

This site is surrounded by restaurants and services, 131 units, including 11 BMR. It helped meet the arena numbers and create more housing and improve housing affordability. So on the ground level here, just to orient, third and a, we're proposing a large corner retail. We're hoping this could be a vibrant restaurant. And then we've got the lobby and leasing, vehicle access off of a Street, and then a a ramp down to this project is a full basement level of parking down below.

Coming up to the Level 2 here podium, we're proposing a large podium garden amenity room here, a lounge that opens up onto the podium garden. And the lower couple levels of this building, we're given a bit of a unique program here, a little bit different than the last one. These units are all comprised of at these lower levels, deeper units that have full small home offices in them, so to encourage people to work where they live, to work from home. Then coming up to the Level 8, basically, Levels 4 through 8 are all set back from those lower levels. So they're they're pulled back four feet from the lower facade.

We'll see that in the elevations and how it really gives the building a unique character. And, again, we have also here to to in in in to to to follow the precise plan design guidelines. We've we've pulled back areas here to really punctuate and highlight these corners. And up at the Top Floor, there's a amenity room that opens out onto an outdoor deck. So here's the view third and a looking east along third.

So, you know, again, following the the precise plan objective standard guidelines, Here, we're we're creating what we think is an incredibly strong base to the building. So up above Level 3 here, there's a setback. The entire upper portion of the building is setback. And then there are these vertical slots with a warm accent material, very strong cornice lines here, and the building steps back. You can see the roof deck here.

Here's a view fourth and a looking south along a. We're proposing again EcoStucco, which is a local company in San Rafael. We've used it on a number of projects. It has a a real sort of warmth and patina to the to the stucco, kind of a a European look and feel to it. Again, we're we're trying to create very carefully, you know, detailed and crafted buildings that we really think will stand the test of time.

Here's a view a street looking north, the corner retail in the foreground. Again, very strong base, middle, top, a very strong rhythm of windows, the shadow planting balconies. Here's a view looking along 3rd West. You can see the the roof deck and open space where the building steps down. And finally, a detailed shot at the corner where we're envisioning a restaurant here at this level.

Here's the three story base, strong corners line, and setback above. So, again, this project is consistent with the It's consistent with density bonus law. It's consistent with the general plan policies and the zoning and development standards, and it's consistent with the goals and objectives to create new housing, which we think will improve economic vitality, create more housing, improve housing affordability, and promote thriving downtown. And we would note staff recommends approval of the application as presented. So that concludes our presentation, but, again, here with questions, and we do have the full drawing set if needed.

Thank you. Thank you.

Questions?

Yeah. So this echoes previously what Stuart had asked. The ADA question about some of the bathrooms. The bathrooms show bathtubs in all the units. Is that just for drawing purposes, or will there I mean, in ADA, you couldn't put a bathtub in

an ADA? ADA, in a lot of ways, kinda prefers bathtubs. So you can meet ADA through through two ways. One is through showers, and the other is through bathtubs. But there are, you know, handrails and and seats that go along with the tubs.

So so there there are ways within bathrooms to meet ADA. But this project as well as an elevator building, as a new building, you know, it will be not only will every unit fully meet chapter 11 a, but it's head and shoulders above probably a lot of the existing housing stock throughout town, which wasn't built to ADA standards and the same, you know, green building standards, energy code. You know, a modern building like this is miles ahead of probably, you know, most of the old housing stock.

Other questions? No one else? I had a quick question on the parking. Is the the bike and and parking similar to the other building, or is this is this a little different in terms of the

In in terms of the quantities?

No. In terms of the kinda interplay between the way the bikes and and the cars will be Oh, on the side.

This project Bear with me for a second. Yeah. So this project does as well have, have bikes at the front of the, of parking spaces, for the most part. In in terms of the numbers, it has a 109 bikes and a 107 parking spaces, but the plans do note areas where we can add Park Lift, that could add an additional 40 spaces. Okay.

Thank you.

K. If no other questions for the applicant, thank you. I'll open this up for the public. If anyone here from the public would like to speak, come on down and provide your comment. Okay. I'll close the public comment then. Thanks for those who provided feedback on the last item. They're still we did hear them and consider them. So I will bring it back to the commission if we have any deliberation questions, points of clarity for staff.

No? No. No. Fine.

Then yeah.

I'll start. Second meeting. This project seems like it's it fits into space there. I had one I did have a question about the amenity rooms, and there's kit looks like kitchens in the amenity rooms that seems like oddly placed stoves in the amenity rooms?

Yeah. So often in the lounges, we will provide a kitchen, and really can serve multiple functions. Sometimes, you, like, we we've had projects where, where the the building manager, on every other Tuesday night will will throw a gathering, for the whole building, and we'll, we'll have a a chef cook stuff there. Sometimes they can be since there are multiple lounges here, sometimes as the building is functioning and operating, you might be able to if if you wanna have a a bunch of friends over, you might be able to reserve one of them for a couple of hours and and throw a dinner party there. So it it it really just it's a place for, you know, community to to grow and gather within the building.

And having the the cooking functions there, you know, it's just a it's a catalyst for that that kind of community growth. Okay.

Great. So going forward, I I I like the way this project looks, and I support it. Thank you.

Yeah. I I when I first looked at this one, I liked this one a lot. I you know, at first, you read eight story building, but somehow you played some great architectural tricks on this one that to just really disguise its height just in some of the architectural detailing, maybe those double height windows. You I know, kinda had wished you did that a little more on the other building. I'm I was wondering. I when I saw you at the same office, I'm like, okay. You obviously had two different people in the office competing for their these different projects. Maybe. I don't know. But whoever would design this one, they win.

Because I I think it's articulated way better. I like in its location also. I mean, this is this is a a nice spot. I I like the way the ground level reads. It it kind of feels like it graduates to that higher level. So I don't you know, I just wanted to commend you on this one in terms of doing a tall building and doing it well. Thank you.

Yeah. I also agree with Stuart. I like the project. I like the way it looks, and I think, that area will benefit from an upgrade in the amenities around that area. So I support the project. Thank

Yeah.

I like this one. I think it is you know, fell falls well within the spirit of the the downtown precise plan. I like its I think it's very attractive. I like its location, and I like the people that it's gonna bring to downtown.

I'll just ditto what my my sister said. I support the project. I like the location as well. I think that the streets that connect the area towards Albert Park and the downtown, this is gonna really help make them feel good, so I'm in support of it.

I really like these projects. I think the architect did a great job. I like the layers of how mixed the different areas and how does the project looks in general. So I support this project and the vocationals and how the accessibility looks like. So I think it's really good. So I I support it.

Thank you.

Yeah. This one's going quick. I wish I could provide something juicy to say, but well done. I think it meets the resolution findings, and it's on point. So I have really no other feedback to say. I will then bring it back to the commission. If we would like to make a motion, we can do so. If we need staff to clarify slowly what that motion will be

What? We talk too fast.

We can do that

again, and I will look at somebody who wants to take notes.

So the recommendation would be to adopt the resolution approving the project subject to findings and conditions of approval as modified tonight by staff.

Thank you.

Our resolutions on design review are so much easier. We actually would ask staff to offer us a consensus, and then we would approve it based on the consent item done. So okay. I move that we adopt the resolution and design review permit for the demolition of the existing commercial building and the construction of the new units at 10 33rd Street with the commissions as with the conditions as amended by staff. That's

it.

I'll second. Great. Thank you. Alright.

We have a motion and a second that staff gets. Great. So we'll take a roll call.

Commissioner Salamini? Yes. Commissioner Summers?

Yes.

Commissioner Rodney? Yes. Commissioner Hoodman? Yes. Commissioner Sade? Yes. Commissioner Alvarez? Yes. Chair Mercado? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

K. Great. So we are done with our action items. Thank you, applicants. We will move on to director's report.

Good evening. Micah Henkel, community economic development director. I'll attempt to be brief. It's been a long evening. So one thing I really wanna call out is some gratitude for city staff that have been working on these projects. They're over a year in process and time, but then I also have to reflect on these type of projects, how long they used to take from this community. So for me, it's almost lightning speed for some of these complex projects with layered issues. What I will say, though, really one of the staff people I wanna actually identify is really Crystal Rizzi. She's actually one of our planning consultants from M Group who actually supported both projects, both the sequel review and also the technical analysis. So, hats off to Crystal for this particular projects.

Also too, I we had our traffic engineer here tonight also, hiding in the crowd in case there were some technical questions you if you had on traffic, but he was available along with our Department of Public Works assistant director, Joanna Kwok, who's on online. In terms of general updates, I'd like to turn it over to Greg Miner. Before I do that, I have an update related to Northgate. If that we recall, that's a project that was approved by council last year. That project actually is in for demolition permits for the Sears building.

The developer, we're finalizing some of the detailed requirements on that demolition permit. The developer anticipates probably starting demolition of the Sears Building sometime in January. There's been project website updates that are posted on the city's website along with the developer's website, but I know that's a critical project the city's been watching as it progresses through time. So with that, I'll turn it over to Greg Minor.

Alright. Good evening. Greg Minor again with the community economic development department. I just have, like, a thirty to forty minute presentation. I'm just yeah. Just gonna quick updates on a couple projects starting with 350 Merridale or 3833 Redwood Highway Road, which you all reviewed last meeting. About twenty three hours is exactly ago in this very room, the city council approved the acquisition of that property. Again, that's for an interim shelter for unhoused individuals for a two to four year period and then a permanent affordable housing development of at least 80 units. And then I believe the board of supervisors approved we're still in Tuesday, I believe. Okay.

Today, they they approved the the the granting of funds to the city for that acquisition. So that will now be moving forward with finalizing the the acquisition. And then in the first half or first quarter perhaps of 2026, the interim shelter will be moving forward. And then, our department will be moving forward with the selection process to identify affordable housing developer to help with the permanent, development. So that's one update.

Kinda moving backwards in time. Last Friday or I think it was last Friday, the city closed on the acquisition of six twenty Canal Street. So that was another city acquisition. It didn't go before this planning commission, but it's relevant in terms of the canal, the neighborhood connectivity, and all that. That was a acquisition for the purpose of establishing a park at the 620 Canal Street and potentially being one side of a bicycle pedestrian crossing between the canal and the Montecito neighborhood.

It's it was a kind of it's a major milestone in multiple decades of community advocacy for better connectivity and and open space opportunities for the Canal neighborhood. So it's kind of a very exciting milestone, but it's also the beginning of a long journey in terms of planning planning and fundraising for the park as well as the bridge. Fortunately, the the city received a grant to do a feasibility analysis of the bridge itself, and our colleagues in public works will be initiating that. Next year, it's probably gonna be a two year project. I don't know if there'll maybe be opportunities to connect with the planning commission just for updates on that project, but that's a exciting project.

That's exciting milestone, but, again, the beginning of the next phase, which is gonna probably have multiple phases. There'll also probably be opportunities for interim uses of the site given the the time it may

take to secure a bridge that's going over?

Depending on the results of the engineering analysis, the idea is a bicycle pedestrian crossing. Yes. And that that

particular project's been identified in our general plan for a decade plus, and then the city did receive a grant for feasibility analysis. The Department of Public Works should

review be able to review the design.

I think it's yeah. No. I think it as I said, there will be multiple opportunities, and I do think that comes along. I think that public input is It would be really cool. Agreed. Also, too, I'm remiss for not actually thanking the staff who are attending here, our city attorney along with our planning staff who have been really outstanding to work with and, as I said, from very complex projects. So with that, that completes the director's report.

So Thank you. Okay.

Yeah. I wanna echo staff. Thank you. Great job. I felt like we made it to ten. So I'll bring you back. Planning commissioners, do you have any updates you wanna provide?

Sorry. I do notice there's one individual still in the room. Do you have any public comment on the director's report?

Thank you.

Okay. Just checking.

Thank you for that. Yes. And you still have about forty five minutes. So

Well, technically, there was one more update. Just 930 Irwin, another project that, you all approved, and I believe Christina was the the planner. The demolition permit was issued a few weeks ago, and demolition began a couple weeks ago. You might have if you drive by, you might have noticed there's no more building. Yeah. That or at least one of the buildings is is no longer there, so that's moving forward. And I think the building permits being processed at this time. Thanks.

Okay. So no gossip updates from the commissioner. Thank you. Thanks, staff. Great job tonight. I will adjourn the meeting.