Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission for June 22nd, 2026 to order. Will Secretary please call roll?

Commissioner Escamilla? Commissioner Leo? Commissioner Oliva?

Here.

Commissioner Pham?

Here.

Commissioner Wu?

Here.

Vice Chair Benninger?

Present.

Chair Ramos? Chair, Vice Chair, quorum has been reached at 5.32 p.m.

Thank you. Thank you. Can we ask everyone to stand for Pledge of Allegiance? And Commissioner Oliver would you like to lead us, please? Very good. Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to remind my fellow commissioners to turn off your microphones and turn them on when speaking, turn off when not speaking. And please place the microphone about four inches away from you. For the members of the general public joining us this evening, there are two Spanish language interpreters available. If you would like to listen to the meeting or provide comment in Spanish, please see the staff in the lobby to pick up headsets if you need one.

Para los miembros del público que nos acompañan esta noche, hay dos intrépretes de idioma español disponibles. Si desea escuchar la reunión o proporcionar comentarios en español, por favor comuníquese con el personal en el vestíbulo para recoger audífonos.

Members of the public may attend the planning commission meeting either in person or virtually on via zoom. I will now invite the commissioners secretary to describe how the public can access and participate in this meeting.

This meeting is being live streamed via our portal at www.santa-anna.primegov.com slash public slash portal and on YouTube at www.youtube.com city of Santa Anna videos. If you would like to provide public comment, you may do so in the following ways. Join the meeting via Zoom. Enter the meeting ID number 84390837797. When the item you wish to comment on is being discussed, please select the hand icon to indicate that you would like to speak. Once called upon, remember to unmute yourself and state your name for the record. You can also join the meeting by calling 669-900-6833. Enter meeting ID number 84-3908-37797. When the item that you would like to comment on is being discussed, press 9 to let us know you would like to speak. You will be called upon by the last three digits of your phone number. After you are called upon, you may press six to unmute yourself. For those who are attending this meeting in person and would like to provide public comment, please fill out a request to speak form and turn it in into the recording secretary. All speakers will have three minutes to speak. I will alert you when your time is up.

Moving on to public comments on non agenda or non public hearing items. Secretary, does does anyone wish to speak?

If you are attending this meeting in person and would like to comment on non agenda or non public hearing items, please fill out a request to speak form and turn it in into the secretary. If you are participating via zoom and would like to comment on non agenda or non public hearing items, please select the hand icon to let us know you would like to comment. If you are calling in and would like to comment on non agenda or non public hearing items, please dial nine and then six to unmute yourself. I will wait a few seconds. Vice Chair, we do not have any speakers.

Thank you. Okay, I'd like to note that Commissioner Escamillo has joined us at 5.35. Welcome for your last meeting. Moving on to consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve item A, minutes from June 8th, 2026, and item B, excused absence? I move. I second. Okay. Commissioner Wu supports and Commissioner Pham seconds. Take a roll call, please, Secretary.

Commissioner Escamillo?

Yes.

Commissioner Leo? Commissioner Oliva? Aye. Commissioner Pham?

Aye.

Commissioner Wu?

Aye.

Vice Chair Benninger?

Aye.

Chair Ramos? Motion approved by majority vote with Chair Ramos and Commissioner Leo absent.

That concludes the consent calendar items. Moving on to public hearing. I will now review the procedures for a public hearing so that everyone knows what to expect. A, staff will provide a presentation, answer questions from the Commission. The public hearing will be opened. The applicant will be given an opportunity to speak, limited to 15 minutes. Members of the public will be given an opportunity to comment, limited to three minutes. The applicant will be given an opportunity to respond to comments made by public, limited to five minutes. The public hearing will be closed. Discussion will return to the Commission with formal action taken to approve, deny or continue the review of the application. Please consider the following suggestions. When you organize your comments, please state your name, address, state whether you support or oppose or are neutral to the proposal, and your statement should include all pertinent facts within your knowledge. Please note decisions on these matters are final unless appealed within 10 days by interested individuals or parties. Recommendations on these matters will be forwarded to the City Council at a later date Final determination. Item 1, this is the time and place for vesting tentative track map number 2026-5, density bonus agreement number 2026-04 for the property located at 2100 West Alton Avenue, located within Pacific Development number four zone district. Before we begin, do any commissioners have anything they'd like to disclose regarding this item? Okay. In that case, Nancy Tran will provide a brief presentation.

Good evening, Vice Chair and Commissioners. The item before you is these SWC Alton and Raitt residential development with applications for vesting tentative track map number 202605 and density bonus agreement number 2026-04 for properties located at 2100 Russ Alton Avenue in Ward 4. The applicant proposes a 36-unit, three-storey, single-family detached residential subdivision, including six affordable ownership units, three of which for very low income and three for moderate income. And also requests approval of a density bonus agreement for four concessions and four waivers from development standards. Staff recommends that the Commission adopt both resolutions approving Bested of Tentative Track Map No. 2026-05, County Map No. 194423, and Concessions and Waivers or Reductions in Development Standards as memorialized in Density Bonus Agreement No. 2026-04 as conditioned. The project site has a general plan designation of Low Density Residential, or LR7, and is Zone Specific Development Number 4, or SD4. The 2.48-acre site is currently vacant and was previously improved with YMCA facilities, including a parking lot, pool, and field. Surrounding uses include single family residential and railroad uses to the north, a church to the east, and school uses to the south and west. The site was originally part of the approximately 90-acre Armstrong Ranch area, which was used for agricultural purposes until urban development began in the early 2000s. In 1977, the city adopted Ordinance No. NS-1362 to rezone the broader area from residential single-family residence, planned residential development to SD4. In 2002 and 2017, the city further amended SD4 with Ordinance Numbers NS2516 and 2928 to revise permitted uses, development standards, density and parking requirements, allowing the Armstrong Ranch area to be developed with uses including what is now Seggersham High School, Chrysler Saviour Church, residential neighbourhoods and the former YMCA. Most recently, the applicant filed DP number 2025-21 in July 2025, followed by the current vesting tentative track map and density bonus applications in May 2026 before the commission today. City Council Chambers, The applicant proposes a three story 36 unit for sale single family detached Community the project includes six affordable units for very low and moderate income households. City Council Chambers, 41,189 square feet of common and private open space with a central park that includes a trellis barbecue and seating. Unit sizes ranges from 1,859 to 2,189 square feet, and 89 total parking spaces, including a two-car garage for each residence, plus 17 guest spaces. The vesting tentative map, track map, would allow individual parcel ownership, and the density bonus agreement would authorize bonus units, concessions, and waivers under government code section 65915. The density bonus agreement formalizes the project's 16% or six unit affordable housing commitment for very low and moderate income households and supports the applicant's request for four concessions and unlimited waivers under state law. This table summarizes the project's density bonus calculation. Based on the 2.48 acre site and the LR7 density of seven dwelling units per acre, the site has a base density of 18 units when rounded up per state law. Because the project provides three very low income units and three moderate income units, the applicant qualifies for 100% density bonus or 18 additional units resulting in 36 units allowed and 36 units proposed. This slide shows the overall residential and affordable unit summaries. The project includes 22 three-bedroom units representing 61% of the development and 14 four-bedroom units representing 39%. Of the six affordable units, four are three-bedroom units and two are four-bedroom. This slide shows the site layout and distribution of affordable unit types annotated with yellow boxes. The project includes three very low income units and three moderate income units and complies with the city's affordable housing opportunity and creation ordinance requirements. Plan one units are three bedroom homes of 1,859 square feet and plan two units are the four bedroom homes of 2,189 square feet with affordable units allocated across both plan types. Your site photos showing the existing conditions from the southeast corner of Alton Avenue and rate street as well as along Alton Avenue facing south. This is the vesting tentative track map for the post subdivision showing the lock configuration circulation and parcel out for the 36 detached homes that would facilitate individual ownership of each residential unit. In this slide shows the two floor plans proposed three bedroom two and a half bath model in a four bedroom three and a half model. The plan also shows how the unit entrances are oriented at the first floor, including the variation for units along Alton Avenue. The side is a three bedroom contemporary castman plan fronting Alton Avenue, the elevation show the west, east, north and south facades and illustrate the building's matching articulation window placement and architectural treatment. This is another three bedroom fronting ultimate but propose with the Spanish modern architecture. This is the four bedroom in the Spanish modern style. And this is the four bedroom but in the contemporary craftsman style. This running illustrates the project as viewed from Alton Avenue showing the proposed homes relationship to the street, landscape treatment and pedestrian environment and overall neighbourhood character anticipated at build out. This in the next three sides are elevations of interior facing homes. This is the Spanish modern three bedroom with the side, rear and front elevations as they would appear along the private yard and the drive private drive areas in the project. This is the three-bedroom but in the contemporary craftsman style, the four-bedroom Spanish modern, and the four-bedroom contemporary craftsman. This shows the project's conceptual landscape plan, including the layout of the planting areas, trees, and lighting throughout the site. The landscape palette includes 43 new shade trees ranging from 24 to 36 inch box sizes in the HOA common area, front yards along Alton and the private easement road. Over 100 columnar trees will be planted within the common areas, and the majority of these trees will align against the property line block walls to provide enhanced privacy and noise attenuation from adjacent school uses. With respect to the vesting tenant of track map staff finds that the project is compatible with the scale and massing and character of the surrounding residential and institutional area. is consistent with the lr seven general plan designation st for zone and applicable objective standards as modified by state density bonus law. Although the project deviates from certain standards those deviations are offset by enhanced architectural design buried materials landscaping and site planning. The vesting tenant of track map is consistent with the subdivision map act and chapter 34 of the municipal code and that it provides additional home ownership opportunities consistent with housing element goals. In addition, the project would place an underutilized parcel into a more productive residential use. It would assist in providing additional ownership and affordable housing opportunities. It would not cause substantial environmental damage, create serious public health or safety concerns, or interfere with required easements for access or utilities. Conditions of approval, including a property maintenance agreement and a parking management plan in the recorded CC&Rs are intended to address potential operational impacts. For the density bonus agreement, the project is subject to government code section 65915 and related state density bonus provisions that encourage affordable housing. Because the project includes six affordable ownership units, the applicant is entitled to request concessions and waivers and local discretion to deny those requests as limited under state law. The affordable units will be sold to very low income households earning 30 to 50% of area median income AMI and moderate income households earning 80 to 120% of AMI with a 55-year affordability term. The applicant is requesting deviations from several SD4 development standards to accommodate the project's design. This slide summarizes the requested four concessions and four waivers, which relate to floor area ratio, wall and fence height, open space, vehicular and pedestrian circulation, minimum parcel area, front, side, and rear yard setbacks. City Council Chambers, The project exceeds the city's affordable housing goal for ownership category under the affordable housing opportunity and creation ordinance. City Council Chambers, It provides three very low income and three moderate income for sale units on site dispersed throughout the development. City Council Chambers, For those affordable units are three bedroom and two or four bedroom homes in the applicants inclusionary housing plan has been reviewed and approved by the city's housing division. The applicant complied with the city's on sunshine ordinance by holding community meetings on September 9 and December 1 2025. Neighbors raised concerns regarding parking and traffic impacts vehicular and pedestrian access, project density and architecture affordability and the environmental review and entitlement process. In response, the applicant revised the project to add parking require garage parking through the HOA modify internal circulation with signage and markings and added a new sidewalk connection from Alton Avenue into the site. Staff finds the project consistent with several general plan goals and policies related to compatible infill housing, neighbourhood design quality, housing diversity, and complete communities. Overall, the project supports additional housing and development that would otherwise remain an underutilized parcel, while also reinforcing neighbourhood reliability and design quality. Under CEQA, staff finds that the project is exempt from further environmental review pursuant to Section 15332, the Class 32 infill exemption because it meets the required threshold criteria and would not result in significant environmental impacts. Staff also finds no significant effects related to traffic, noise, air quality, water quality, biological resources, hazardous conditions, scenic highways, unusual circumstances, or cumulative impacts. Based on this, a notice of exemption for environmental review number 2025-67 will be filed, and there's no fiscal impact of this project. Staff recommends that the commission adopt resolutions approving vesting tentative track map number 2026-05 as condition and density building agreement number 2026-04 as condition. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. Also available are staff from Public Works and Housing.

Thank you. Does the Commission have any comments or questions for staff? Commissioner Wu.

Planner Nancy Tran, can you review the four concessions again, that page? It went by kind of fast.

It's floor area, ratio, walls and height, fence height, open space, vehicular and pedestrian circulation.

So the space between units was lower and condensed, so they're closer together?

Between units, it's the side yard setback. That's a waiver.

Yeah, so the concession is they went vertical to achieve the 1,800 or so feet of living space, right?

Yes, for the FAR, yes.

Okay, so that's why it looks like the Dutch housing is kind of thin and skinny. Can you go to the picture of the units along Alton? So is the rent accurate between the units? So basically the waiver to achieve the density bonus makes it so the units are closer together.

No, not necessarily. The FIR is for them because each lot is very small. The smallest one is about 1,400 square feet. They're building on most of that 1,400 square feet to exceed the 0.5. Right.

And I think in the past we were encouraging having more, at least Commissioner Leo was ADVOCATING FOR MORE HOMEOWNERSHIP VERSUS JUST RENTAL. AND THIS IS A HOMEOWNERSHIP UNIT WHICH INCLUDE HOMEOWNERSHIP FOR LOW INCOME AND MODERATE INCOME.

NEW SPEAKER AND MARKER, YES.

NEW SPEAKER AND THERE ARE ALSO ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE DISCUSSED IN THE PAST WAS ALSO THAT WE NEED MORE THAN JUST TWO BEDROOM. SO THERE ARE THREE AND FOUR BEDROOM UNITS HERE, RIGHT? NEW SPEAKER YES. Yeah, I'm just confirming what was in the presentation. Okay. Now, also one of the concession was that, based on the public hearing, they were concerned about traffic circulation. And I noted that it says that you accommodated them by coming up with a plan. What does that plan exactly compose of?

Are you talking about the concession?

Yeah.

So one of the requirements is for them to have separate circulation for pedestrians and for vehicles. And in this case, they only provide actual separation and sidewalks for a part of it. So the houses along Alton Street all have a sidewalk and then you can go up to each of those homes. But for the interior units, It only goes so far. There's a sidewalk here and sidewalk here. The concession that they're requesting is for pedestrians to use part of the vehicular drive in order to walk to those units.

So the residents at the public hearing was concerned about traffic outside of the development and impact. And I thought what I read was that after the meeting, The HOA will consider a plan so that it will not distribute parking in the neighborhood, right? And that other measures might be developed in terms of mitigating when the school is dropping off kids or something.

The conditions of approval include a parking management plan.

Could you speak a little louder, please?

The conditions of approval includes a parking management plan, which will require, the HOA will require the parking, the garage spaces used only for parking to avoid uses, parking in nearby neighborhoods.

So the neighborhood association, their homeowner association, I'm sorry, will be monitoring, making rules and following up with them.

That's correct.

Okay. And will the swimming pool from the YMCA still stay around?

No, it will be redeveloped.

And what will be in this place?

Homes.

Home, okay. The other thing I'm curious, if you go to the history of the approval by the Planning Commission City Council, This is a generalization, you know. We start off with zoning the area for a lot more housing and then over the year we keep updating it and we get less and less down further. And is that because of economics or? after they start getting their plan in place and after meeting with staff that reviews their plans and go over with a fine-tooth comb and dot the i's and cross the t, we now have a plan that's quite different from what was originally conceived.

Yes, because they're using state density bonus law.

Okay. Thank you. I'm going to have something later, but that's my start.

Thank you, Commissioner. We went just for clarification when you were mentioning concerns that were named at a public hearing meeting you met at the sunshine ordinance meetings. Okay, thank you.

And also a trash pickup. Thank you for my the Alton housing. Well, they put their trash in the street, only in their private drive.

What in their private drive?

Oh, they have a private area for the entire complex.

Each home will have individual bins, and they'll be placing it within their private drive.

Okay, so there's no exterior.

No.

Okay, now, those lanes, is it big enough for a trash truck to go by?

It is 26 feet. Based on Public Works' review, it is in review by Republic Services.

Including making that turn? Yes. Okay, thank you.

i forgot it brings up a name where are your fire hydrants for the um that i would defer to uh the applicant okay thank you thank you commissioner wu commissioner fam yeah um i think i want to focus on the concession of pedestrian and vehicular separation um My assumption is that because we typically see small lot subdivisions like this that do incorporate pedestrian pathway either in between the units kind of where these backyards are being shown. So it looks like there's adequate room, right? There's adequate room on the perimeter of the lot because it looks like there's six to seven feet on the perimeter fence. And then there's quite a bit of room in between the island of units or in the middle. So my general question is, are we not asking for a pedestrian pathway due to the fact that these parcels need to be as large as they can be so that the units are adequately set back? If we were to reduce the parcel, then the units will be set back even more, making the units smaller. What is the logic of approving this concession?

It could make the houses smaller, but it would also make the rear yards for each of them smaller.

This is subjective, but these are three story homes with the main living spaces in the second floor. So they're not a traditional single family home. One story that I would assume would benefit from a backyard or a larger front yard. But I think it would benefit from a pedestrian pathway that is a life and safety issue. I'm sure the code doesn't require single family homes to provide sidewalk access. So that's my general concern is that we're giving, you know, these slots are allowing for quite a bit of quote unquote open space. But I'm not quite sure if they're realistically utilize and the trade-off is there's no prediction pathway. That's a general concern of mine. Secondly, I think it would have been beneficial to see how The lot, since the entrance of the lot is quite deep into the parcel, and it looks like it shares the entry drive with the church. I'm not sure if the church has provided any comment regarding this, but it would have been nice to see how the frontage of these homes relate to the church because it's not, you know, It's not right off of Alton. It's a shared. So then the architecture of the church is unique as it is. And so, you know, I think in general, I read that we are conceding a three foot wall for an eight foot wall. But it does seem to be kind of isolating itself. And obviously, if the church doesn't have an issue with that, then that's fine. But it does seem a bit odd to have an eight foot wall. facing the main drive of the adjacent parcel. That's the general comments.

Thank you, Commissioner Pham.

Vice Chair Benninger.

Commissioner Escamilla.

Thank you for that. Oh, my gosh. I guess just to back up, I just want to clarify, I guess one question on the Moderate bonus. Was that our local bonus or was that an additional bonus from the state? I just want to, in my head, know which one we're referring to.

They're using the state density bonus.

Okay. It's for both of them, both the very low and the moderate? Yes. Okay. And then a little bit on the design. Was there a particular reason why we have so much in the way of kind of overhang? So just like from a design perspective, we have a little bit of that overhang on the garage side and I think a little bit on the side. City Council Chambers, My general understanding of housing construction is anytime we introduce some corners or some additional edges and ledges we're going to just kind of up the construction costs and for me, like from a design perspective it's still. City Council Chambers, I think we get like minimal benefit plus like increasing costs i'm not sure if that was basically just to maintain the roadway with or not even the roadway, but the access road with I guess.

I'm not sure I'm following your question.

So just a lot of these like towards the rear, we have a little bit kind of an overhang. So that, you know, so if we go back to the architectural drawings. Yeah. So on all of these, we kind of have this little podium kind of situation where, again, from like, just when I'm looking at design for a house or any kind of building, it almost kind of seems to float on a skinnier podium or foundation. So I'm not sure if that was basically to create minimum widths for access on the side, so separation between the buildings, and then on the rear where the garage is, like if that's just overhanging the roadway in order to give the roadway its minimum required width. I'm just wondering what that was resulting from.

I think that is a design that they had chosen, but the overhanging is completely within the property.

No questions about that. Again, I'm just wondering, like, and maybe this might be for the applicant. Is the applicant in the audience right now? Okay. So it might be a question for the applicant instead. The second question I had is, do we have like a general philosophy as to how we treat frontages? Because I actually like the way that on Alton, the forward kind of face of the house is facing the public right of way. And because of the nature of this particular private road, you know, with everyone kind of accessing the church, it almost functions like like almost like a quasi public road, especially we're not putting a gate up there. So I'm wondering why we treated Everything on Alton differently than we did kind of be seeing the the private roadway and that might just be. For some other reason, but again i'm just trying to trying to figure that out, because i'm. If we were designing this i'd rather have that kind of uniform all the way from Alton and through the private road, where we have kind of that same interface, which I think we did a really good job of with triada so like the triada. townhouses, though they are attached, look really nice from the public right of way. And I'm wondering if that was kind of thought about when we were reviewing this project, or if there was a decision to basically have the back of the house face the private road and face the church rather than the front like the way it does in other locations.

Ms. Originally, when they had submitted their plans, all of the homes had faced within the private drive, and it was staff's request for them to alter the ones along Alton to face Alton. When we also requested them to make the ones along the private drive also face outward, they had responded that there are some issues with grade there.

Mr. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so I think I'm okay with that, and I'm sure I'll have other questions as they pop up.

Thank you, Commissioners come here, Commissioner Oliver.

Thank you, my colleagues have already brought up concerns about pedestrian safety and waste management, so I won't bring those up again. I did have a question regarding the traffic study only because that area does get really busy in the mornings and I think currently they're using like a chain link. to block school drop-offs from that driveway, even though it's not in use. So I'm wondering what the traffic study looked like during morning school drop-off and afternoon school drop-off. And then, I mean, I know school isn't in session right now, but when there are afterschool activities, I know that the neighborhood adjacent They had to put up like a warning sign for homebuyers that there's like bright stadium light, so how how is that how is like the school functions going to affect the home ownership property so questions on that.

For the school activities, the walls on the perimeter walls on the west and the southern side are a lot higher than the ones along Alton and the private drive. They're also proposing a lot of columnar trees that are fern trees that will grow pretty high to provide them privacy and noise attenuation. And in terms of the traffic analysis, I would defer that to Public Works traffic engineer.

Councillor Osanic.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, Thank you with that can we have a public work staff join us. PB, Lupita D Montoya, To speak a bit on the traffic study that was conducted what it showed and.

Good evening, Commissioners. Mike Rizabal, Senior Transportation Analyst with Traffic Engineering. The applicant had a third party consultant do a traffic study for this location. They started with a scoping agreement, which I requested. That kind of lays out what their assumptions are for a traffic study. I come back and tell them what's needed so that once they do the actual traffic study, there's minimal back and forth. This project is generating about 25 vehicles in the a.m. peak hour during school operations, pick up and drop off. In the p.m., it's about 33. They looked at the queuing at rate and Alton. Queuing was fine. I had them modify some of the geometry coming into the private drive to be able to kind of separate pedestrians and and vehicles. But overall, traffic study was comprehensive. We didn't find any impacts and we ended up approving it. But if you have specific questions that I could help answer, happy to do so.

So you use objective measures, scientific measures, right? Yes. And it was just not subjective.

It was not subjective. These are numerical values. So for example, the intersection of Raid and Alton operating at level service B in the existing condition. It's right on the edge of B and C. The addition of this project actually makes it go to C. So it's just a little bit into that realm. But obviously we have up until level service E before we have an issue.

So some of the condition pre-existed before the development of... That's correct.

Thank you. Commissioner Oliva, did you have any specific questions that you'd like to ask?

No, but if there's any way to look at the traffic study, that would be great.

Yeah, I look forward to that.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, I see Commissioners might have questions and I also have a few so you shared that. City Council Chambers, Based off that traffic city you all see that there would be no impact, please elaborate on what that means, I know that there were significant concerns from residents in the nearby area about traffic impacts.

Yeah, traffic impacts obviously with the residential areas to the north. You know, during school at Segerstrom, pick up a lot of folks parked in those neighborhoods, so they'd have to put up signs. I think the concern is when you're putting this many units, there's a perception of an amount of traffic. But the traffic that was generated, and it's per industry standards, national guidance, it's only 25 vehicles over the course of a two-hour morning. So picture 25 vehicles coming out of this development over the course of two hours. That's an average of 12 cars, 12 and a half cars per hour coming through an intersection. PM, it's a little bit more, 33. So picture 15 cars coming into the project site from outside places. So from a traffic analysis standpoint, using traffic engineering guidelines, that does not cause an impact at these intersections that they're looking at. So we don't only look at local service. We also look at queuing. So is there an opportunity for vehicles coming into the residential neighborhood where the queuing kind of backs down to Alton and it causes some sort of blockage with through traffic? We look at that too. And both of those criteria were not met. So we come to a finding that there's no significant impacts.

Thank you. And then you also mentioned that this was... B and that it was close to C. Exactly what does that mean? I'm not aware of what those classifications mean.

Yeah, so if you could picture level of service is how we measure how an intersection is performing from a traffic operational standpoint. Just like grades, level of service A means it's free flowing. Nobody has any kind of delays at the intersection. You aren't sitting there for two, three minutes. B, you could start to feel it a little bit, but it's not noticeable. C is pretty standard. You go up to a regular intersection that's not busy. You wait a couple minutes. D, you're really starting to see the delay a little bit more. And then what we call an impact is level service E and F. That's where you're like missing a green light. Like the green light turns, there's so much traffic that you can't even get through. That's level service E and F. And when you're starting to see that, that's what we call an impact.

Thank you. And then I have one final question for you before I give it to Commissioner Escamilla. But can you give an example of any other intersection in the city that would be a service level B and then another intersection in the city that would be a service level E or F so we can understand the difference in what you all are projecting will or won't happen here?

Here let's go close to this site so rate and rate and Warner that operates at a level service be right now a level service year F is going to be first and main. So first street during the am or PM peak period it's going to be a year F so you'll see both the delay of sitting at an intersection, as well as the cues extending beyond into into upstream and downstream intersections.

Thank you. So what I'm hearing is that if this development were to be approved, the traffic at the intersection of Ray and Alton would be similar to the current traffic at Ray and Warner?

Correct. Yeah. When we're talking about adding 22 vehicles to an intersection, that's really nominal. The way we do it is we collect traffic counts to see what's out there today, right now. And then we project what this development is going to add on top of that. And then we do our mathematical calculations of what that would do to an intersection. And based on the results, there is no impact. We're still in C. Thank you.

I'll give it to Commissioner Skamea for questions for you. And then Vice Chair Benninger will have questions for you as well.

Yeah, no. And, you know, as the other commissioners brought up the worry around pedestrian and vehicular kind of mixing together. Mayor Mrakas, I just wanted to point that to something I think that you probably require them was it looks like there's at least some kind of like rumble strip or some kind of. Mayor Mrakas, paving immediately to kind of D market that hey this is like kind of a slower zone area so i'm not sure if we have any specific standards when it comes to that because it's a fairly low cost intervention when it comes to. Mayor Mrakas, Ensuring that people realize that this is also for pedestrians and not just vehicles yeah i'm not sure if you can speak to that.

I can. We actually went back and forth with the design team on paint and posts versus something like a rumble strip. We landed on paint with a strip with signage. When you reinforce the shaded area with traffic signage, it tends to be a little bit more visible for those walking.

Okay. And then so is it fair to say that the kind of four little T I guess, turnarounds. Was that a result of just access to the garage, or was that kind of really the result of trying to get in the waste management or fire or any other kind of utility trucks in there? I just want to know kind of what that...

The latter.

Okay, the utility, yeah. So from my account, we're either... Those four areas, theoretically, if we had more willing partners in some of these utility companies, we would probably either be able to add some green space, add some square footage, and then maybe not require them. So, like, I'm just seeing those four T's as dead spaces that we could have better utilized.

Yeah, yeah, we have to have that requirement. OCFA is our partner in our Development Review Committee meetings, and they typically...

Okay, and I just say, because, again, in this particular pattern, it's a circle, so you literally can just keep going and exit, right, without having to back up? Yeah. Yeah, okay, that's...

We're allowing, just to note, out of the project entrance, we're allowing fire trucks and trash trucks to make a left out just because of the amount of room that they need to negotiate a roundabout. But all regular passenger vehicles have to make a right out of there.

Okay, thank you. And I think I actually have a question for CDA and Mike, but appreciate it. Okay, Chair.

Thank you. We'll go to Commissioner, Vice Chair Benninger, and then I'll ask my round of questions, and we'll come back to Commissioner Smith.

I'm kind of curious. This is going to be 36 units, two garage parkings each. So that really puts you at 72 vehicles. Why do you come up with this number of 24?

That's the amount of traffic that's coming out during that peak hour. So not everybody leaves between 7 and 9. Some people have mid-afternoon shifts, lunch shifts, right? So it generates the amount of folks that typically come out during those specific peak hour windows.

I see. My opinion would be much higher than that because obviously it's going to take two incomes for this housing that's there on it. Sure. Mayor Mrakas, Was there any consideration of extending the rate to get it into MacArthur that would give an alternate route for them to go. Mayor Mrakas, No okay we had a city can discuss that all because we brought that up a number of times. Mayor Mrakas, Just trend was that considered in your planning. talking about a punch through south of all to to assume a car there and I realized a lot of us is a little tender because we were never asked in our neighborhood whether Rachel go through was just decided for us. And that's been a real sticky point.

I'm sorry. What was the question?

Question is, when in your planning and discussion, was there any discussion of putting rate through? So we reached MacArthur.

No, it was not.

And in our general plan mobility element, it's not something that's envisioned for the long term. I see.

I see. Okay, because obviously, I mean, I'll stay. I don't agree with just 24. I think there are going to be many more of that coming in, especially in the morning time. Also, pedestrians. We do have a lot of kids that walk from my subdivision, subdivision the other side of the rate, as well as coming down Alton.

Mayor Mrakas, Any provisions in here for improving the crosswalks yeah so we're we have an ongoing project right now it's our vision zero update we added corridors and schools, particularly in this Ward so we'll be looking at this our intersection to potentially provide. Mayor Mrakas, A higher visibility crosswalk currently it's just a. a regular yellow striped crosswalk, which denotes you're within a school zone, but we may do like a high visibility continental zebra there as part of that effort. That's a separate effort, not as part of this project.

Mayor Mrakas, Well, you want a poor intersection in this area to try Edinger and Bristol, especially with modern day, it comes and goes. Mayor Mrakas, That one's level service E. Mayor Mrakas, That's all questions I have right now with traffic.

Thank you, Vice Chair Benninger. I don't have any additional questions on traffic.

Thank you.

I have a few questions for staff or our planner, Nancy Tran. We'll come back. My first question is on the trees that are part of the landscape plan. Are these trees a part of the approved attack list?

I didn't go into detail on that. But I will be reviewing it when they do submit for their landscape plan construction time construction documents time.

Okay, thank you. And those trees on that approved list by the Environmental Transportation Advisory Committee are trees that City Council Chambers, Members of that Commission had selected to be used throughout the city for different reasons, such as providing shade and just being better trees to use. City Council Chambers, And my second question is so in the presentation, there was a point that. This commission is preempted from denying the density bonus agreement for state law. Can you please expand on exactly what that means and what the planning commission can do and what the planning commission can ask and request of this project?

Sure. Because the project meets the State Density Bonus Law, it requires the city to approve the density bonus and all the concessions and waivers that they request, unless the commission can make findings that it causes significant public health impacts or safety issues.

And does staff have any concerns that there are any findings that could be found that this project could be detrimental to public health and safety? No. Okay, thank you. And then I also will have some questions for CDA. If CDA would like to join us at the podium.

Chair, commissioners, thank you.

Thank you. Well, first thing, I'm sure it was a partnership between CA and planning, but I appreciated seeing the affordable housing breakdown in the presentation. So thank you for showing us how many units are being provided at what affordability rates I saw very low and moderate, and then also what type of unit they will be. So I saw both three and four bedrooms. So my question is, how, how did you all land on the affordability levels of very low and moderate and that specific breakdown of them, which I believe was three and three.

know working in concert with warmington homes um we felt that uh very low would be something that would uh be very unique for affordable for sale uh getting you for a one-person household sixty five thousand dollar income upwards to a hundred and twenty two thousand uh for an eight person household so that'd be a much bigger one and then for the moderate uh it's a hundred and thirty four thousand should have worn my glasses to 222 000 so that moderate level would be more achievable uh for most of our households in southern in santa ana thank you and then how is the breakdown decided of what i believe was four three bedroom units and two four bedroom units Just wanting to they were just looking at how to divide it up amongst the different unit types that they had, and what type of families they were expecting to want to purchase these units. So that doesn't mean with a four bedroom, they have to have a five person household, you could, you know, you could buy a four bedroom and be two people who maybe you work from home. So there's no limitation on how many people are going to be in those three and four bedroom units. So

OSBT, Karen Hollweg, Okay Oh, I have a question on that now as well, but I asked my question I thought of before that so did CD at any point encourage the developer to also do three and three at three and three split so three of those units be three bedrooms and. OSBT, Karen Hollweg, Three before bedrooms i'm just wondering why or how you all ended on the four and two and knowing that when it is well that's my first part of the question.

My note said that the developer, this is what the developer was proposing and we're okay with that.

Okay, thank you. I'll have additional questions on that for the applicant for the developer. My other question is, so I know when it's a affordable unit that is for rent, there are specific, like occupation, or there's a occupancy standards. And when it's a larger unit, there's typically a maximum of people. But is there a minimum in these cases? Or is there a minimum when it's for homeownership?

No, there's not a minimum on occupancy.

Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions for now. I'm going to go over to Commissioner Escamilla, who also shared he had questions for CDA, and then we'll do another round of any one that might have questions for CDA.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, so Mike, sorry, Mr. Garcia, just wanted, I guess, to understand if we do have a backup plan if folks can't qualify for that very low category. The only concern there is I believe we had a similar for sale option with some condominiums along first street that maybe weren't sold for a while and it's really not that the income wasn't there but then they couldn't qualify for a mortgage right because either the asset the income and then there was like some kind of like mix up in between where like folks couldn't qualify in the open market for a commercial uh mortgage uh so i'm just wondering if we do have some sort of backup plan like if that is seen after like month six seven three uh just to kind of have that built in already they would the developer would have to come back and look for an amendment to the density bonus agreement so okay City Council Chambers, Okay, so just that on the radar and then number two, this is more of a general CDA question as it relates to the way that our staff reports are written. City Council Chambers, Right now, I think, on the fiscal impact that there is no quote unquote no fiscal impact from this. City Council Chambers, But my basic understanding is, we are going from a ymca which would have been treated as like a nonprofit. So we would be getting no property tax revenue from this. And now we're essentially adding what I will estimate about, you know, $36 million homes, of which we'll probably get like 0.15% of the overall value over time, right? So I'm just wondering if that was also something that your shop's already kind of including with, to give the folks up here a little bit of a better estimate as to, well, this development will, in fact, bring in additional property tax revenue. And it's fairly easy to calculate if we have some estimates from like, you know, basic...

We can do a positive fiscal impact, you know, we could look at it that way. Most of the time, to my knowledge, planning staff does a fiscal impact to look at it, how it would be a negative to the city.

Yeah, thank you. And for the benefit of the whole commission, I'll share that. the fiscal impact section of a staff report is meant to be more sort of like city spending money on a project. Like for example, if we are entering into a contract to provide like programming at a community center, what would be the fiscal impact? for what is being described as more of like an economic and fiscal impact. So you see that in larger project staff reports like related Bristol, the village specific plan, it's atypical for smaller projects because this commission is charged with more of the land use component and not necessarily making decisions based on like fiscal impacts, but more like making decisions on the zoning code, the general plan, state density bonus, all that. but nonetheless yes of course if a project is significant enough where that fiscal economic impact is notable you've seen it before in staff reports and it would be included thank you thank you commissioner skamia vice chair benninger yeah hi mike yes quick question for you who's going to regulate the fact that these low-income housings always sell at low income rates

They would have to present everything, including the local preference, to our housing manager and his staff, and they would need to review that.

So now four years down the road, person A moves out, person B moves in. Are the low rates still there?

Yes, they would have to go through a monitoring process. We collect a monitoring fee that is included in our annual miscellaneous fee schedule, and we would charge for sending one of our residential construction specialists out to to make sure that people are are there who said they were. And then we have some of our housing staff that also do monitoring that will go and make sure that people are very low and they remain as such. That being said, if they were to sell, they would have to sell to an eligible very low income or there's some equity sharing down the road many years from now. We saw it on some of the projects on Harbor.

that they wanted to sell and that was the city Ventures project uh just south of McFadden area okay great because I do like the idea of ownership here on it um also this may or may not be in your area but what prevents someone from buying one of these units is renting it out I'm sorry what prevents someone who's buying one of these units and renting it out trying to rent it out yes try to get home ownership in the city

um totally defeated well just part of part of the uh process for monitoring them is to make sure that they are going to remain in the unit and um yeah it would just be part of our regular monitor monitoring okay all right good all set thank you thank you vice chair benninger commissioner i was listening to a report at the affordable housing clearinghouse uh board um and um

I surmise that maybe the housing department could work with nonprofit lenders and housing counselors that may have already a pool of applicants that they've been counseling to be ready for this, and that they may also have some money available at a lower interest rate than the 6.75% or 7, whatever it is today, that perhaps that might help City Council Chambers, alleviate the problem of matching people that we want to get in there, but under normal circumstances, they may not be able to so there's there's ways of of getting your qualified applicants there.

We do have a situation on this project where Warmington Homes is currently speaking with the folks from Habitat for Humanity who would basically for a fee do the monitoring and take over right now as it stands what you're approving. That is not in the process, but we are working with them right now. to finalize an agreement where they would come in, find eligible participants, do all the monitoring and do all of that as a fee. And this is very unique. We're even looking at their special legislation down in San Diego County. They've been trying to do this for a little bit. that might make its way to the state and maybe by October get approved by the governor. And so fingers crossed, we think that would be a great way for affordable housing to partner with for sale town home style projects like this. and be able to have somebody like Habitat for Humanity or others that are familiar with going through the process of qualifying people, doing the monitoring, stuff of that nature. So that's under consideration.

You have the Mortgage Assistance Program too. Yes, we have our down payment assistance. But I think our point is that if these things fall into place in future, not only this development, but other future, you could wrap this kind of thing into it.

That's correct.

If there's our willing and nice developers out there. and there's property out there in which they could do it.

I'm glad you brought that up because Warmington really wanted to get the agreement put in place with Habitat before bringing this to Planning Commission. But it's very unique. And with the special legislation that's looking at moving forward, it kind of ran counter to the timeline and the schedule for this.

Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions for CDA? PB, Lupita D Montoya, I think I have one final one, so the city currently has a down payment assistance program assuming that program continues to exist as is once these go on the market is that program something that interested residents could use to potentially buy one of these affordable units.

absolutely our down payment assistance program we just applied for and received a 4.9 million grant from the state using cal home funds and they would be available to this i want to bring it to the commissioner escamilla's point that there's a very small window for being able to qualify for a loan and to be able to qualify for this townhome. So it's a very narrow window. I would expect only moderate income buyers to really fit in with our down payment assistance program and not the very low. So the very low, this is where Habitat would come in and they would seek other financing. They might have to have multiple layers of financing for the very low, those three units. Thank you.

I'll just finish my question and might give it back to Commissioner Wood. But just wanted to ensure that the way our program is set up, it's a program that can be used for these very limited opportunities to buy affordable homeownership units throughout the city.

That's correct.

Thank you. And Commissioner Wood, did you have an additional question or comment for CDA?

Well, you know, these programs are trolling for people. And they, you know, in like two or three years, they may be helping them to pay off their credit and build up to buy. And I was also thinking in other areas, veterans, because there's some state funding for veterans to buy homes too.

Yeah, our down payment, just commissioners and for the public, our down payment assistance program provides preferences for individuals who graduated from high school, not in Santa Ana. They could have gone to Servite or all the way up in Fullerton. I know a gentleman who was a youth commissioner here at the city of Santa Ana, but actually went to high school up in Fullerton because it was near where his mother worked. But the way we redesigned our down payment assistance was to provide a preference for veterans, individuals who went on and got their bachelor's degree from a four-year college or trade school, and they had attended a high school and lived in Santa Ana during their high school years. So we wanted to open up in case somebody wanted to go to a school outside of the city. So what the goal is, is trying to encourage people to get their bachelor's degree or trade and come back and buy and be a part of our long-term, you know, city of Santa Ana, perfect weather. What do you call it, Ali? The capital of Orange County and, you know, be a part of our community long-term.

Thank you. Commissioner Wu, did you still have a question for Public Works? Okay, thank you. Are there any additional?

I got one question for Public Works. In your survey, when you looked about traffic, I'm glad to hear the flow. Could you come up, sir?

Sorry, we'll have you step to the podium.

I'm sorry, I should have brought this up sooner. It was both comment as well as question. But a lot of the flow out there, when they first opened up Seegers from high school, I was president of our neighborhood association. It took a lot of discussion, arguments, back and forth to get a flow pattern to reduce the amount. We're having rate backed up, people dropping kids off is halfway up rate, what have you. And so a lot of flow pattern you see out there is an outcome of working closely with the schools. We're also having a tremendous problem with people parking in the neighborhoods. We've done a great job reducing that. When you do your survey, was that even considered what neighborhood parking to be affected?

Not for this. The planning commission requires a parking management study that looks at that, whether or not there's adequate parking on site to handle the amount of units and the anticipated number of residents by this development. So we don't typically look at, you know, what the school is doing because this project is very specific on this development, not necessarily what folks are doing for pickup and drop-off for the school.

Because I know the church was also very concerned about if parking is going to come into their area also. So as you mentioned, there was a parking survey done by the city?

No, there was not.

Conditional approval is a parking management plan. Okay. Thank you. I got my question answered.

Thank you, Vice Chair Benninger. Are there any additional questions or comments for staff at this time? Great. Seeing none, the public testimony portion of the public hearing is now open. Would the applicant like to speak on the matter? We'll hear from you first if you'd like to step to the podium. Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Greg Okasik, project consultant for Warmington Residential. I appreciate being here this evening. And I've been taking notes as all of you have been asking questions, so I'm going to do my best to kind of hit each one. And first, there were questions, Nancy, on the fire hydrants. If you bring the slide up, I'll be able to show the site plan. This one's fine. So the internal island with the houses, with the parking on the north side. So in the upper left corner of that island, the middle part of the project, there's a fire hydrant there. And then in the bottom right-hand corner of the island, there's also a fire hydrant right there. I just wanted to be able to answer that question for you. Let's see here. Excuse me. There was questions regarding the pathway if you go to the landscape plan, Nancy. That little area on the, the internal drives are 26 feet wide. and the city came back and said would you guys consider doing a wounder when that's basically a a transition of different materials so that the you can see the kind of the stamped concrete decorative coming into the project and then on the outside of the internal drive you'll see that same design going up in front across to the sidewalk and back down and around so we incorporated that just in the last couple days on the request of the city to help with having pedestrian access. We are using a concession to not have to do the sidewalks, trying to give the six affordable houses and to make this project feasible. We've been able to do that much. So I wanted to connect with you on that. Let's see here. There was a question regarding the church and any comments that we had received from the church. We had two community meetings and the church came up and they had indicated that they'd like some type of right, kind of separate right turn in lane. And you can see we did accommodate that coming into the project. The church had also, let's see here. Right in, right out. A there is more there there was a request. At our first meeting for more parking so in the outside edge along the private drive coming into the project we added 7 parking spots there that used to be just all open space. So we tried to accommodate and do what we can for the comments we received from the community as well as the church. and regarding the wall height along the east east side there with the project entry there's a one two i think three foot retaining wall on the south side of the entry and then a six foot block wall north of the entry there's probably a i think it goes up to three to five feet retaining and a project wall on there and part of what the city requested was that we grow some type of vines along it to kind of give it a little more character than just a large wall so we put that in the landscape plans let's see here regarding the architectural overhangs on the architecture that's kind of done to it's all within the property lines and that's done to allow for more room for the bedrooms, be able to put them in the designs themselves. Let's see. Regarding the eight lots that are facing Alton, we were able to do that. The lots facing east, we were not able to do that to the question earlier. It's more from an engineering standpoint with the short distance and the amount of retaining walls. But again, the city did ask and we did all that we could and we were able to do and accommodate that for the eight houses along Alton. Yeah, we are aware of the school activities and that'll be part of the disclosure package that goes to new home buyers, that there are swim meets and there's a number of things, football games, where there'll be noise and lighting and whatnot. And regarding the trees on a landscape plan, yes, there is an approved list. We have it. And I know once we go to the construction drawings for the project from a landscape perspective, we'll make sure that whatever's required we have.

Let's see.

There was a question regarding how did we get to for plan ones and to plan twos and actually the city's. Housing checklist it's actually a requirement that you use the same percentage as that of your unit count, so we have 22. 22 plan ones and 14. Plan twos. And when you kind of factor all that end, you get the four and the two. And we vetted all this with your housing department to get to those things. And actually, they had requested some different locations for the houses themselves. So we accommodated that also. There was a question about how the affordable housing when the sales occur from the first home buyer to the next home buyer. Part of working with the housing department on the density bonus agreement that's in the staff report. It's very detailed and a lot of that is all lined out. There's a bunch of exhibits that all the home buyers have to fill out and it basically just spells out exactly what's happening. gets it and all that and that's kind of out of our control and that's part of the density bonus agreement and these are required documents at the time of sales and so forth yeah those are the notes i i could write down while you are all speaking i'm here available for any more comments or i'm sorry comments and i'll do my best to answer any questions, thank you, does the Commission have any comments or questions of the applicant.

Commissioner fan. Speaking of the pedestrian access. With taking two feet, you know the Center island on the site plan taking two feet from parcels that are budding each other. taking two feet from either parcels to create a protection path that divides the center island. How would that impact your unit count since they're taking up kind of open space?

If we could have done it, we would have done it. We were able to get the sidewalks up above on the north and south side of the island, but to find room for sidewalks, curb gutters and whatnot, was not feasible. And so that's why we ended up on the project that we're presenting here tonight.

So it doesn't impact your unit count? Yeah. Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Thank you, Commissioner Pham. Vice Chair Benninger.

A build out time. How much time do you see to build this project out? Excuse me? How much time do you see to build this project out?

How much time? I would say 12. Instruction will start probably where we've started final engineering where we'll be submitting that at risk. So that all has to occur. When all that gets blessed, we'll be able to demo grade. So instruction itself is probably going to start in 12 plus months, I would say if everything goes efficiently. And then we go into the vertical component of building. So it's a couple year project.

Okay. Thank you for cleaning the area up. That was a place for homeless and what have you. So we do appreciate it and everybody for cleaning that area up.

Yeah, no, thank you for bringing that up. We did hear from the community through the city council and applying commission. So yeah, we did go in and clean the graffiti, take out a lot of the brush and hedges. So yeah, that was good.

Thank you, Vice Chair Benninger. Are there any other comments? Go ahead, Commissioner Escamilla.

Yeah, I just wanted to go back to that overhang question. So definitely understand the extension in order to make the bedrooms larger and to have a larger square footage and livability. But I'm just wondering why that wasn't, you know,

why the garage then had to be set back or was that just because because of the roadway width again i'm just trying to understand well yeah the roadway width was set at 26. the locks are set the building structuring and massing are within the property lines so um it's trying to get massing and undulation in the project it's a it's a small project small lot project and so if you just went max there'd just be these rectangles standing so we our architects do their best to add as much care excuse me characters they can so that was our

Okay, yeah, no, totally. And I think for me, it's just sometimes, and this is maybe more the architectural and kind of design critique of when you try to do the undulations and the changing of massing that you end up losing, you know, sometimes we try to avoid a rectangle so much to the detriment of the actual like final design. But that again, it's more of a probably personal opinion and more just, you know, a love of symmetry and kind of classical architecture, right? If this is like a craftsman home, you know, it's vertical, there is no undulation on like that first floor, even for like secondary crest, and they tend to be a little heavier on the bottom than on the top. So it's just one of those things where, for me, our love of having articulations, I think, ends up with poor designs and why we maybe a lot of people don't like newer contemporary structures, because there's a lot of asymmetries and things that just kind of pop out of nowhere and kind of like boxes on boxes, rather than just having a nice clean wrapped box with a great detailing and

know relatively minor trim you know that's again just well you could thank staff they did a very good job our first submittal we had a different uh aesthetic and the staff came back and said uh yeah let's try something different right and uh so that's what they did we worked and showed them and we got to where we are today so

I think the end product will be great, but those little details there. And again, just to try to reduce cost, because from my understanding, it is that additional articulation without just having those steady kind of rectangular beams will add some project cost. I'm not sure it's that much really in the grand scheme of things, but just a general observation there. And then I was wondering if you did have any perspective to share on those kind of required T intersections and what you might've been able to do with that extra square footage where we had those little like.

Well, if we go to the, yes, sorry for cutting you off. No, I'm happy to address that on the site plan. Those T intersections actually help the homeowners of the houses uh actually get to their driveways so everything is run by ocfa so everything's you know approved by them it's all safe we've got republic trash they gave us the will serve letter and then but those four t's as you call them yeah no those are uh access to garages

Right. And I guess in my mind, if we didn't require the T, we'd be able to extend the home and provide additional square footage and or landscaping and still be able to access the building again. Just theoretically playing this out where that wouldn't have been a requirement and it won't impact your project. But just as we talk about standards and policies here again, I just I think we keep running into the same issue where sometimes our utilities and fire requirements and kind of specifically the T intersection kind of requirement, the T turnouts are reducing the usable square footage of these urban lots. So that's really just more to the point I'm trying to make up here and just seeing if that is, you know, if there was an alternative other use for those kind of T, oh my gosh, those T turn turn turnabouts. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Chair, one last.

Thank you, Commissioner Skamea. Commissioner Pham.

While you're here, I just want to, you know, once we come back to the decision making, I am going to propose a condition and I want to make sure that you're amicable to it. I've noticed that a lot of newer developments, you know, the balconies on the second floor is kind of a feature that's very prevalent. And oftentimes we see that people, because, you know, these are they don't have backyards or these are quite dense properties they end up putting trees plants things like that and and even though it rains two or three times a year buckles the stucco and the siding they start to decorate and then there's you know especially the units are fronting the street there's starting to be a lot of kind of debris that has attached to the wall so i i would propose i'm one of you will be amicable to it, is that the condition that these balconies have either a drip edge or a internal drain?

I can tell you that staff has already put that condition in the conditions. Correct, Nancy? On the balconies, making sure that all the drainage is handled.

Yes, it's condition number five.

Okay.

Yeah, so. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. With that, we're going to go ahead and take public testimony. We may call you back after that if we have additional comments or questions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Recording Secretary, have we received any written communication or is there a member of the public that would like to comment on this item?

Chair, we have received a total of six emails in the form of public comments for this item before the 3.30pm deadline, which has been distributed to the Commission and posted online. If you are attending this meeting in person and would like to comment on this item, please fill out a request to speak form and turn it in to the Secretary. If you are participating via Zoom and would like to comment on this item, please select the hand icon to indicate that you would like to speak. If you are calling in and would like to comment on this item, please dial 9 and then 6 to unmute yourself. I will wait a few seconds. Chair, we have four speakers in-house.

We'll go ahead and begin with Ashley Prather.

My name is Ashley Prather. I live 3105 South Maddox Street, which is the project just across the street from the proposed project, the neighborhood that is. Question, I don't know if there's an answer to this, but somewhere along the line I heard about making sure that the homeowners, the new homeowners are only putting cars in their garages. How does that happen? I don't know if you all have an answer to this or somebody.

Now is not a time for question and response. So at the end, we can ask the questions.

Then there's a point that I would like to make, and I hope to get 100% participation in this exercise. How many people in this room own homes? Please raise your hand. Four people? Four? Okay.

Six or eight maybe?

How many of you have two cars in your garage?

That's pretty good.

How many of you have one car in your garage? Okay. All right, so less than way less than 50% and I those are, this is just the point I want to make um. unless you are actually forcing people to put their cars in the garage they will be parking on our streets and that will will definitely impact the high school is impacting and granted i'm not there i'm down the other street but it will overflow people will be parking if they are using the garage for storage which i do and most people do at some level, they will be, you know, parking their cars elsewhere. And ours is the first and closest place, our street on Maddock and Moore and the other street next to us, Center I think is the name of it. So that's really the point I wanted to make. Most people Don't use their garages for cars. Okay? So unless there's some way to force these new homeowners to keep their cars in the garage, there will be a problem. Thank you for your time.

»» Thank you. Moving on to the next speaker. And I apologize if I mispronounce your name. David Lesparanco. Sorry. It's not as legible. I'm just kidding.

David Lesbos. I live on Maddox Street directly across from the development. Two major issues. And if you could slide 21, please. It's almost a fantasy, this parking. They have to use our neighborhood to park. Take our neighborhood. We have 1,200 to 1,400 square foot homes, and we have three to four cars per house. And we each have six parking spots, two in our garage, this is in storage, We have two in the driveway, then we have two in the street.

They have no driveway. They have no front yard.

They have no sidewalk. There's no place for them in the park. So they're going to have have three to four cars and we're smaller home they're 50 larger they're going to have at least four cars each so where are they going to go they're going to go in our neighborhood we figure on an average day they're going to have 36 to 72 cars in our neighborhood and then on a holiday a july 4th thanksgiving whatever they're not going to have any guests they have a minimal number of spots you know there's gonna be another 36 to 72 cars parked in our neighborhood just if you on slide 21 it hasn't been brought up very much but this they're going to impact the pool for the school is right there where the word slide 21 is they're going to have a 36-foot home within 15 feet of the pool that hasn't been brought up so they have all-day tournaments there with the water polo or whatever and the kids like to crank the music When they have events, we don't mind in the neighborhood. We're far away. But there's going to be a real bad impact. The stadium is not that far from there. You can see the stadium speakers. So I don't know how you're going to get these people not to complain, saying, well, now the school has to change how they operate. There is no public transportation nearby. There's no bus coming down the street. I missed this part earlier. There's no public transportation. It's a mile away on Bristol. So how are these guys, how many four adults living there, how are they, where are they going to park? It's going to be our neighborhood. That's our major impact. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Luis Ramirez.

Good afternoon. I'm Luis Ramirez. I work at Christ Our Savior Catholic Parish. I'm the parish director over there. And I just would like to notice that we have an agreement assessment, an agreement and an easement of the previous property with the YMCA and whoever bought the YMCA. And one of that was that the parking lot, the entrance for that land was going to be at the end of the cul-de-sac. At this moment, nobody from the company has approached Christ our Savior to let us know about if we want to change that agreement or do we have to change it. I don't know how the city in this works. Probably our legal department will have to check that. But I think having it at the middle of the street is going to impact the church. And it's going to impact the mornings and evenings over there. It may be at night, no, because we don't have that much business. But in the mornings, whoever made that study, I don't think they did it in the morning or at 3 PM. Because over there, it's hard to just cross by. And that is 30 minutes of hard traffic. Having 25 or 22 cars for me that is crazy it's like we have like 60 or 70 cars sometimes park along the other ones. People that comes to church in the morning is very hard for them to come and go to mass at eight because of the school traffic right now, having all that many people going to work at that time coming out from one entrance. makes no sense to me. I don't know why that development didn't have another entrance in Alton to help with the easement of how people can get access to that place. So I think it's going to be a very hard time for us. And as they mentioned, if people don't find parking in the place, The streets look so small to me. I don't know how they can park outside or in front of their houses. I don't think they will be able to do it. How they are going to go to the church. And right now we are having a lot of pressure from the school parents children who come to school and bring their cars and leave them at the parking lot, so we need to make sure that we don't have. security issues and many other things it is putting a burden to our that in our in our church and not having in front I don't know how many cats 72 or more. that they will be parking if they don't find park. The first thing they will do is go to our place. So we are worried about that. I hope they can get a solution for this. And especially if they could find a way of getting another entrance for that development, because it is going to be hard to find one place, only one entrance, in order to make sure that all these people can get in or out. And having the school coming on, as I said, the traffic and also the parish events, it's going to be a little hard for that. But that's basically our point. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to the next speaker, and I apologize if I mispronounce your name, Dawn Nguyen.

Thank you. I live, my house, the second house up Ridge Street on Moore. And we had a hard time, even though without the development, the traffic is so bad. My house is second. I cannot, if I leave the house and come back into my house, people park all the way back, just like you guys I mentioned. So for me to go back to my own driveway, I have to like, hey, my house. They said, I don't care. I can't back up. I can't pull forward until the traffic out there is open. So my question is, regarding about the 36, 37 house that will be in the future in my neighborhood, Who's going to pick up the tab if we have to go the next solution, which is issuing the permit parking for the people who live there? Because that's, we never asked for those. Now that's only maybe it's a solution for us to control our parking spot. So who's going to pick that up? HOA on the other side going to do that? What is the commitment to them? Are we supposed to pay it or somebody pick up the tab? That's my question for today. Thank you.

Thank you. So with that, I'd like now to see if there are any questions that the Commission has for staff while the hearing is still open, and then we'll take additional questions for the applicant. I have a few questions that have come up for me that I'd like to see if staff can answer and if not, I will direct them to the applicant. So we heard one of the comments asked about how ask how homeowners would be persuaded to use their garages. And I know that in the staff presentation, there were CNCRs mentioned. Can you please expand on what a CNCR is, how they work, and why staff feels confident that with the applicant requiring parking in your garage in the CNCR, why we think that'll help alleviate some of the concerns? Sure.

A CCNR is a Covenant Conditions and Restrictions. In our conditions of approval, we're requiring it to be in the HOA document when people purchase the home, that that's going to be required, that routine garage inspections will be done, that parking will be in there, and it will also be required as part of their vesting tentative track map to put it into all their legal documents as a requirement. And if there's any issues that arise that are concerns that are brought up by the neighbours, there's another condition, number nine, that requires them to do a parking demand study of surrounding properties to address any parking issues.

Thank you. And then I'll also ask that question to the applicant on how they plan to enforce that. I also had another question. How large are these garages? Are they one or two car garages? Two car. Two car garages. And then do these homes also have a driveway?

No.

Okay. And then is based off the street with wood parking on the street in front of their homes be allowed?

No. Okay.

So as of now, based off the design of the development, the only parking within the project in addition to the guest parking outside would be the two car garages. That's correct. Thank you. And my final question for staff, we heard another public comment mentioned a representative from the church that the church had a previous or has an agreement with the previous owner, maybe wondering if staff was aware of that and how, if at all, does this development interact or interfere with that?

That was brought up before, but that private street that they show on their plans is actually a private drive on private property. It's not actually a private street, but it's managed by the city. So any agreement between on regarding that easements between between the two property owners and the city isn't involved in that.

Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions that any commissioners would like to ask of staff before we bring the applicant back up to answer additional questions? Commissioner Escamilla?

Sure. So I guess just a general question for, to try and answer from the audience. So if anyone is not using their garages for parking, what is the procedure, what would be the procedure to report that?

They would notify the HOA.

And okay, so that would be for this particular development. And just citywide, if someone's not using their, and I guess let's take a step back. Citywide, is it currently the ordinance or regulations from the city that garages can only be used for parking?

That's correct, unless converted to an ADU. But at that point, it's no longer a garage. It's a residential unit.

Right. And so what is the procedure to report somebody for using their garages for storage rather than for parking? So rather than the HOA, who do we report to?

If anyone is concerned about a neighbor not being able to park two cars in their two-car garages, they can download the My Santa Ana app and submit a complaint online. They can also call the Code Enforcement Division. They can visit the public counter during hours. And they can also email the city's Code Enforcement Division.

Thank you. And this is actually a question now just more on the circulation and design. So it might be a roadway engineering question. Do we have different standards is this like a meant to be a kind of a two directional roadway do we have any kind of regulations, if we were to make it one direction or kind of like you know one way. And that would allow additional parking I just don't know if we have any standards or regulations that would enable that or we have to kind of meet the minimum with regardless of the traffic direction so I. And maybe just try to squeeze in some additional parking spots here. That's all I'm trying to do.

so hi good evening commissioners um yes so the private drive the private street drive is what we have and we do have a standard plan which i did print out a copy of and have with me just in case you asked but it doesn't really speak to the parking per se what it speaks to is um the minimum width and so let me it might take me a second to pull it up if you can pause for just a moment remember where i put it in here need some jeopardy music here right and take a second i did bring it Or I can come back up if there are other questions, they will find it.

I guess it'd be more in general, you know, I guess if we are looking at options that would allow for more flexibility, if it was going to be unidirectional, is that just like a thing that does happen in other and other sites, like if the road is only one way. So I think the the thing I'm envisioning is cornerstone many because it was so heavily impacted by parking requirements, we just kind of made it one way and you're able to add parallel parking or not parallel angled parking and

basically adding and using the roadway a little bit more efficiently but it does limit kind of the direction of the traffic yeah well so what I will say is this approaching the intersection northbound there's red curb but there's also a through Lane a right turn only Lane and a left turn Lane so in that area there is not sufficient room for parking and similarly as you first enter and then they did add parking in that area there for some angled parking But with the widths I see, I don't see room for parking based on what they have shown in the site plan.

Commissioner Escamilla and Commissioner, if I could also just add, so the widths of the drive aisles, the standard for minimum fire is 20 for circulation. So if you imagine, you know, God forbid there's an incident on site, whether it's a medical emergency or a fire, 20 foot minimum width. At some point buildings can cantilever to be like closer on the second floors, but even that's 18 feet. So to have like one way you'd still have to account for fire access for for safety.

Just make sure there is no way out of out of this or any way to allow any sort of parking behind the units because of the width restrictions on

right but while we have thank you while we have this slide up you know i'll ask the case planner with the cursor can you highlight the guest parking spaces that are proposed by the project so how many are in that that bank up there eight here two here and seven here okay thank you so that's 17 guest parking spaces for how many units total 36. okay

And to follow up on Alton, there is not adequate street width for parking in the curb lane. As pointed out, that's usually 17 the bare minimum but it's supposed to be 18 for the curb lane. Okay. Thank you.

»» I have an additional question looking at this image and when we're looking at that island. I believe you all said there are seven or eight additional parking spots at the top of that island. Is there room to get an additional two by adding one on each side? I know that right now I see open space. I'm wondering if there's a minimum open space requirement that is limiting how many spots can be there or if there are concessions that would allow to add additional parking there.

They are already asking a concession to reduce the open space, but I presume the reason why they're not adding two more spaces is just for the turning radius.

What if those are compact spaces? No, they're standard. Thank you. And then I had an additional question on the CNCRs, and I may be missing a letter in the acronym. But are these spaces going to be, are those rules going to limit who can park in these spaces? Will these be able to be used by homeowners at any point? Are they only for guests? Can they... Can the homeowners do overnight parking? And I asked because I know in several developments throughout the city, both town homes, mobile homes as well, there are areas like this where you cannot park overnight, which kind of defeats the purpose of having these spaces available.

The CCNRs do have that, but it does not specify the time limit. But it does require on-site parking permits or hang tags or stickers for any of the guest parking spaces and generally a maximum time for vehicles to be parked at the guest spaces. So the HOA can determine that to limit the hours and then maybe prevent overnight parking as well.

I just want to add, thank you, that City Council Chambers, It would be an opportunity to ask the applicant about how much flexibility, the Community Commission desires to see or how much stringency the Commission desires to see built into the CC and ours in some hos. City Council Chambers, The residents can use the parking spots during the day, and then you got to go back to your garage at night. City Council Chambers, I can tell you, and my parents ho a my dad's left his car out overnight, one of the guest spots, and it was gone the next morning right toad. in other communities, it's never available. Like in my community, the guest parking spaces are never available to homeowners. It has to be for guests. So it's just a difference in the language of the CC&Rs, and staff review the draft CC&Rs before they're recorded as part of the final map. I think it's prudent to not only decide what degree of stringency the Commission desires, but also invite the applicant to see on their other projects where there were known concerns about parking from the neighborhood. How did they respond to that through their CC&Rs that they proposed? That's certainly an option available for the Commission.

thank you and then i i just said sorry i have one final question and we can put that um graphic image back up and then i believe commissioner scamia has some additional questions as well and we may have other commissioners as well i got one question for city yeah so i'll ask um my so right now i'm looking at this and just trying to Obviously I'm not the, I have questions around exactly what the parking space size requirements are, but I'm wondering, and I'll also ask these questions of the applicant, but is there, so at the top, how many spaces are there at the top of the island? Eight. Eight. And at the bottom, there are how many?

Two parallel.

Two parallel.

Okay.

So those are parallel. Why are those parallel versus angled or vertical?

There's not enough space to do perpendicular due to the width of the private drive.

Okay. Thank you. And then when we're looking at this image in the close to the north west corner, there's like a little area, sorry, close to the edge of the development. Sorry, if you go low, if you go down a little bit between yes, that little space there. Is there room for parking like in those little areas to add one or two spaces that would be horizontal?

If you put parking there, it would prevent that last unit from entering their garage space.

Okay. Okay, thank you. I will ask applicant and well, I guess, yeah, if there are any spaces where they might see the room to add, even if it was one or two spaces throughout the development, I think that would be helpful and help ease some concerns. I'll go to Commissioner scummy. And then I believe vice chair Benninger has some questions.

Nancy, I got a question the city did. We say this is a two car garage, but what are the minimum width and depth of those garages? And do we have a standard for that in the city?

10 by 20.

Sorry?

10 by 20.

10 by 20?

20 by 10 feet.

Okay, repeat again, 20 by?

10.

20 by 10. Per car? 20 by 20.

That's correct.

Okay, okay, because I just, I've been where there have been two car garages, but try to get half a car in, it doesn't work, okay? So you end up really, it's a one-car garage, but they call it two. So as long as we have a standard that we agree with, and these do meet that standard? These two-car garages meet the city standard?

Yes. Thank you, Vice Chair Benninger. Commissioner Skamea.

So I guess earlier it was referenced that there is an agreement for an easement between the adjacent properties, the church and the former YMCA site. Um, theoretically, is there anything that prevents a similar type of agreement between two private parties, the church and the developer, if they wanted to do some sort of leasing of parking spaces or kind of week long parking passes? Is there anything in our code that would prevent that from happening? Like if that was something that they could work out on their own, not saying to have the city involvement, but nothing that prevents us really from saying, Hey, you, we know we're going to have overflow. Here's a parking pass pay us $100 a month because it's more convenient for you.

Yes, they can enter into that agreement if they choose to.

So totally, we won't stop any of that from happening if that's something that they can work out together.

Thank you, Commissioner Escamilla. Do we have any other questions for staff at this time? Great. With that, do we have any questions for the applicant? We can have the applicant please come back to the podium. Thank you. Commissioner Skamea, would you like to begin?

And it's going to be following up just on exactly that. So, you know, just to make it known to you that if there are kind of parking impacts, that if there is anything that could be worked out with the church potentially might not even be the prime spots, but, you know, just worth exploring because I think we probably will see more cars here than we have parking spaces eventually. I don't know when that will happen, when that will occur and exactly where overflow will go over time. But it's always nice to have, I think, flexibility and options that's mutually beneficial and that seems for me at least a natural option or something that could be did have an outreach consultant talk with the church about that and they at this time at least at that time they were not interested in doing that okay yeah all right as long as the the conversation approached yeah we're you know we're open awesome thank you uh go ahead commissioner fam

Yeah. In regards to the CCNR for parking, a suggestion of mine is that, like Ali said, certain HOAs will just tow your car if you are parked in the visitor's parking. My suggestion to then help alleviate some parking kind of issues would be I've seen where of course the owners need to prove that they have two vehicles parked within their garage whether it be registration to the address but if they happen to have three cars within that household then they would kind of qualify to use one of the guest parking or one of the overflow parking as permanent parking because we're assuming every household is going to max out at two cars. But the reality of it is there will be household with three or four cars. And so if they I think it would be more convenient if the CCNR or the HOA guidelines allow for that flexibility. I wonder what your thoughts are.

I would say we're open for your guys' ideas. A lot of this would probably be working with staff to figure out the correct language for overnight parking. Maybe you get a pass and you're allowed one overnight. So you have family members stay overnight, something like that. But there's those types of things that we can work with staff on figuring out what the right mix is. As it relates to, there's only 17 spots. anyone buying in the project is going to be made very clear that there's two car garage, those are for your two cars. And these spots, there's going to be a parking plan that are it's going to have whatever is agreed to for those 17 spots, you know, and all 36 homeowners are going to be aware of it. And there'll be an HOA monitoring it and whatnot. So

And yeah, no, no, I'm good. And for clarity on on the site plan, the dashed line that that delineates that right turn, that's your property, right? That's that's the applicant's property. The dashed line, it kind of

Yeah, that dash line that cuts through the private drive. That's an Orange County Sanitation District easement. And we're allowed to put in asphalt and real low like shrubs in that area. Regarding the church, there is an agreement and reciprocal use agreement that runs with the land. and for example it allows them to use that part of the project that you see inside of that dash line and uh we're allowed to use the other part of the private drive and go around the roundabout and leave so okay yeah there is an agreement we're complying to it and um okay i misunderstood i thought that dash line indicated your property line Well, for the homeowners, the property lines are, if you look at the diagonal parking south of the entry, that just to the left of it, that's the block wall that will be the backyards of those homeowners. And if you extend up, thanks, Nancy, and you go up there, that delineates the property lines for those homeowners there. And that green area between those houses and Alton, that's communication and power easement. but that'll just be landscaped.

Thank you, Commissioner Femm.

Commissioner Wu. The property is not gated, right?

No, it is not gated.

Okay, so we've been assuming that those homeowners are going to be a problem. Going to be what? A problem on the entire neighborhood. What if it's the reverse? What options do they have for e-bikes invading their property or the neighborhood people parking in the parking spot?

With what we've just talked about, we'll create a parking management plan where all the homeowners have stickers or passes that they can give to their guests. So if there's a car that doesn't have one of those in there, I would assume there's going to be a rule that says call the tow truck, have that removed.

Right. I live in a single-family home, and there's people that come over from Floral Park and leave their car over in our neighborhood. And so you just have to get home by a certain time before they get there so you can park in front of your house to unload your groceries. So it's a problem throughout the whole city. And I hate the fact that whenever we come up with this, we just blame someone. And we make these statements that we don't know is going to happen, you know. But you have a homeowner association that can work these things out. They have someone that they could address so they could create a community response to a problem, right? Okay. And you have Habitat, which is a social service agency that can help mitigate, right?

Yeah, and part of it too is obviously we'll have conversations with the church, understand their issues, which we've already heard them at the community meetings, and we've tried to accommodate what we can within our property boundaries as it relates to the public streets to the north of the project. We don't have any control or That's just out of our control. So all we can do is manage the parking spots that we have on this site and make sure that the people parking there have the right to park there via whatever parking management plans in place.

I remember living in a redevelopment housing project like that in Pasadena. When I moved in, they got a handbook to stick with all these rules and regulations as to what you do and, you know, all that, you know, and how many times you got to mow your lawn and pull up the crab grass and all that stuff. So you're probably going to have that, right?

Okay. Yes, is the answer. Yeah, there'll be rules, regulations, and then the CC&Rs.

Thank you, Commissioner. Are there any additional questions for the applicant? Thank you. With that, I think we're all done.

All right. Thank you very much.

And then I just have one final question for staff before I close the public hearing. But can you please just remind us of our what we are to consider tonight as a commission when we consider this project and exactly what is within our purview and what is not?

So the actions are to adopt a resolution approving busing tentative track map number 2026-05. And then a resolution regarding concessions and waivers or reductions requested for their project, the density bonus agreement.

And then with that, can you just I know, I asked this earlier, but can you just expand again on density bonus and what state law says we can or cannot consider and I don't know, or Ali, if you'd like to do that?

Yeah, so for the benefit of the Commission, when it comes to density bonus law, there's a couple of findings that a Commission would need to make statewide, forget Santa Ana for a second, if they were to want to deny the density bonus application. One of it would be that it's like a health and safety danger. So I'll give you an example. let's say the applicant proposed a site plan that did not meet fire standards right it was too narrow the turning radii were there and the fire department continuously through the staff review said we will not be able to service these homes in the event of an emergency and staff said we're not going to move you forward and the applicant said i insist on having a public hearing right so they get to this commission and staff would say we're recommending denial because this is an unsafe project there are homes that are out of reach of the fire truck We can't support that. The Commission could make that finding based on the Orange County Fire Authority's testimony that this is an unsafe design, right? Another alternative is let's say this project were proposed on top of an old Victorian mansion that was listed as landmark on the city's register, right? It's destroying an historic resource, right? So it's kind of narrow. And that's, that's, that's it. So when staff are confronted, and it used to not be that way, right, but through successive legislative cycles, and this is one of the oldest pro housing laws on the books in the state since the 70s. Right. And it's been modified and modified. And it's actually the one that's proven to be the most efficient in delivering units as well. It's just research has supported that. But coming back to this application, so When staff is presented with any project that proposes a density bonus agreement that has waivers, concessions, and incentives, while the state law says there's a limited number of incentives and concessions they can seek, when it comes to the waivers, if the applicant can demonstrate that any of these other standards like setbacks, parking, pedestrian walkways in the drive aisles, all that, preclude the physical construction of the units. And the state law says they're entitled to it unless it's a dangerous project, or it's on top of that Victorian mansion, or both. It's very rare, most cities don't find themselves in that situation. But believe it or not, it does happen from time to time in the state. So that's that's for the Commission's consideration in their deliberation. Now, recognizing these limitations that staff have in many cities across the state, I believe as director of this department that our staff go to incredible lengths to work with applicants who know that the law is largely bluntly on their side. To minimize Community impacts, so the conditions you heard tonight that are proposed for parking management, for example in many other cities, they would just say our hands are tied. But luckily, we have in house Community planners that take the temperature and pulse of our Community. They know we have community meetings. The sunshine ordinance process is a way of eliciting community feedback early on so that staff can hear that and work with developers to retrofit the project with as much room they have to try to make it the best of the situation. And so that's where the conditions of approval are that you see tonight, as well as the site plan. Again, the developer could have said, where in your standards does it say I should turn these units to face Alton? right. But through the community participation process, they hear it. And they decide, you know what, I want to leave a better legacy for our community. And so they make adjustments. And we've had a very high degree of success with that. I can't even count ever a situation where a developer said, I'm just going to go straight to hearing. So I know it's it's painful. It's painful for staff. It's painful for for all jurisdictions and counties across the state. But I do want to reassure this commission and our community that our staff go to extraordinary lengths on architecture, on site planning, on parking to squeeze every last drop that's left out of that largely dried up lemon.

Thank you very much for the elaboration. And also affirming that staff has done everything they can to make sure that this project and any other project that comes before us is being developed in the best interest of the community and addressing all community concerns to the best of our ability within those limitations. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. And I would like to ask if there is any motion on this item.

I have a motion.

Commissioner.

Based on the fact of the presentation given us today and the staff have checked marks, gone down the line, and they put some condition after hearing some of the public comment into their motion, I'd like to move that we adopt a resolution approving vesting tentative tract mat number 2026-005 as condition and adopt a resolution approving concessions and waivers or reductions in development standard as memorialized in the density bonus agreement number 2026-04 as condition. That provides an instrument by which staff can come back and monitor the project later for enforcement.

Thank you. We have a motion from Commissioner Wu to approve. Do we have a second?

I'll go ahead and second.

Go ahead, Commissioners. We have a second from Commissioner Escamilla. Secretary, can you please call a free roll call vote?

Commissioner Escamilla?

Aye.

Commissioner Leo? Commissioner Oliva? Aye. Commissioner Pham?

Aye.

Commissioner Wu?

Aye.

Vice Chair Benninger?

No.

Chair Ramos? Aye. Motion approved by majority vote with Commissioner Leo absent and a no from a need from Vice Chair Benninger.

Thank you. That concludes the business calendar. Moving on to staff comments. Does the commission have any closing comments or questions for staff?

Chair and commissioners, I just want to share an update with the Planning Commission. So for those that have been tracking the budget adoption process, one of it included recension of several commissions, of which this commission sends a representative to the Historic Resources Commission. So there will be a special meeting for the Historic Resources Commission tentatively scheduled for the end of this month, June 30, for an item. Now as part of that um sun setting of the hrc the functions of the hrc the historic resources commission will come over to this commission i do want to share that we will be providing a proper send-off for our historic resources commissioners as they are a very important part of the work that we do in the planning and building agency and of course in this community uh so that is part of the the sort of send-off for the hrc but i would fully expect that former hrc members uh visit us as audience members when there are historic applications and that's okay because they have a lot of knowledge to contribute through the now the public testimony process now that aside for this commission i want to provide assurance that staff will be providing a training a crash course as you will in historic preservation principles so that you also feel like you can stand on confident grounds when you're asked to make a decision on an historic resource application so we're not going to just leave you to figure it out Or provide you a training one thing that i've always admired about staff here is that even at the historic resources Commission when something was like the first time in a long time or out of the ordinary. City Council Chambers, As part of their PowerPoint presentation, they would also do a little mini crash course or a couple of slides just as a reminder on like hey This is what the law or the policy say about this, and now here's the project. City Council Chambers, Just rest assured that as these items and migrate to this Commission, you will be put in a position where you can stand confidently and, of course, we are here to answer your questions as well, so. It'll be an exciting time for this commission as you expand your powers and authorities, but we will be here as staff to support you in that transition as well.

I have a curiosity.

So we'll go ahead to comments and questions if there are no additional staff comments. And I apologize, I didn't realize that I skipped the staff comment. Okay. With that, I'll go ahead and give it to Commissioner Wu, and then we'll go to making closing comments.

If the former Or should I even joke about it? I better not. I was just wondering if we could limit the amount of speech we get. But I won't.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Pham.

Well, since Ali is here, I would say the city is moving to online submittal with a new vendor. Very good. I, you know, I encourage everyone, even the residents to use it. But yeah, I think that's a really good direction.

Can I just add to that? Thank you. For anyone listening, santa-anna.org slash permits. It can't get any simpler than that. But July 1st will be the date that the city stops accepting paper submittals and moves online. But of course, we will always be there for customer service and problem solving.

Thank you, Commissioner Femm. Vice Chair Benninger.

Manny, is this the week we can finally say, you're gone, this is it? Mayor Mrakas, I just want to thank you because I really pleasure working with you on this Commission, as well as on the tech and I always always appreciate your your your input, maybe you know always agree, but I always appreciate your your input and good good good luck to you.

Thank you, Mr benninger Commissioner oliva. Thank you, Commissioners come here.

Mayor Mrakas, All right, i'm confirming that, yes, I have formally sent in my resignation letter, so I will be formally. formally resigned from this board as of tomorrow. So I will be leaving to Boston next Monday on a red eye. So I'll just wake up and be like, Oh, I'm in Boston now. So I'll be sleep jetlagged, sleep deprived and just excited to start a whole little adventure for a year but fully intent on coming back and I'm going to try not to pay too much attention to all of your proceedings in detail, but I probably will send a couple of emails your way. So it won't be the last time you hear from me, especially now that we need more public comments on the historic preservation side of things, as well as what I'm still looking forward to, which is the final zoning code update. So I'm excited to see that as a final doc. So maybe it might be wrapping up when I get back.

I don't know.

We'll see how things go. But I just really appreciate working with each and every one of you. The thing I do like about our body here is that we are City Council Chambers, You know, generally positive and collaborative with each other, despite any political or ideological differences, I think we've always put. City Council Chambers, Community and kind of objective standards first and it's really great when you have staff that enable you to do that and focus in on really what we're all here to do so, thank you.

Thank you with that i'll just quickly say again, thank you for your service Commissioners coming in, not just to this Commission, but also the historic resources Commission. And the attack Commission getting those trees on those approved list and the arts and culture Commission and previously been city staff. Commissioners coming in, has served the city of Santa for a very long time, since he was a youth at the library. just across the plaza. So excited to see you come back, hopefully, to this commission. But if not, as a member of the public, also sharing your new insight and knowledge that you earned at Harvard with us. So with that, we wish you the best of luck, Commissioner Escamilla. And I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this regular meeting with our next one being scheduled for July 13th at 530.