Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Chair Pro Tem, the meeting is now being recorded.

I would like to call the regular meeting of July 27th, 2026 to order. Will Secretary please take call before I let you go. I'd like to welcome our new Commissioner, Jackie Gozman, to our commission. I appreciate having you. Thank you.

Please take roll call. Commissioner Guzman? Here. Commissioner Leo?

Here.

Commissioner Oliva?

Here.

Commissioner Pham?

Here.

Commissioner Wu?

Here.

Chair Pro Tem Benninger?

Present.

Chair Ramos? Chair Pro Tem, quorum has been reached at 5.30 p.m.

Thank you. Commissioner Gomez, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please? Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to remind my fellow commissioners to turn on your mic when speaking and off when you're not. And when speaking, please place about four inches away from you. For members of the public joining us this evening, Spanish and the Vietnamese language interpreters are available. If you would like to listen to them at the meeting or provide public comment, they are available.

Members of the public may attend. I'm sorry, Chair Pro Temp, we're going to have

Thank you.

Thank you. Members of the public may attend Planning Commission meeting either in person or virtual via Zoom. I now invite the Commission 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-ana.primegov.com slash public slash portal and on YouTube at www.youtube.com slash city of Santa Ana 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, 86572007175. 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 86 572007175. 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 6 to unmute yourself. For those who are attending this meeting in person and would like to comment, and 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 comment on non-agenda or non-public hearing items. Secretary, 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're 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. Chair Pro Temp, we do not have any speakers in house or on Zoom.

Very good. Moving on to consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve item A, minutes from the June 8th meeting, and item B, excused absences, item C?

I'd like to move item A and B. I'll second it.

Please call roll.

Commissioner Guzman.

Abstain.

Commissioner Leo.

Aye.

Commissioner Oliva. Aye. Commissioner Pham.

Aye.

Commissioner Wu. Aye. Chair Pro Tem Benninger.

Aye.

Chair Ramos. Motion approved by majority vote with Chair Ramos absent and Commissioner Guzman abstaining.

Okay. That concludes the consent calendar items. Moving on to public hearing. I will now review the process for public hearing so that everyone will know what to expect. Staff will provide a presentation and answer questions from the Commission. public hearing will be opened the app 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 three minutes the applicant will be given the opportunity to respond to the comments made by the public limited five minutes the public hearing will be closed discussion will return to the commission and formal actions will be taken, denied, or continued review of the application. Please consider following suggestions when organizing your comments. Please state your name and address, strictly voluntary on that. State whether you support, oppose, or are neutral to the proposal. And your statement should include all pertinent facts within your knowledge. Mayor Mrakas, Please note decision on these matters are final unless appealed within 10 days by any interested individual or party recommendation on these matters we forward to the City Council at a later date for final determination. Mayor Mrakas, Moving on to item one at this time in places a site plan review number 2026 dash oh two. FOR THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 722 SOUTH PARTON STREET, LOCATED WITHIN PACIFIC DEVELOPMENT NUMBER 40, ZONING DISTRICT. BEFORE WE BEGIN, DOES ANY COMMISSIONER HAVE ANYTHING THEY WISH TO DISCLOSE REGARDING THIS ITEM?

MR. CHAIR? POINT OF ORDER. JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY. The item of receiving the related Bristol development agreement, did we just skip over that or was that incorporated in the approval of item A and B?

I did not bring that up. Is there an item C to discuss on that, Bristol related? Okay, do we just have to vote on that? Okay. Okay. So I have to ask. Thank you, Commissioner Wu, for bringing that up. Do we need to have a vote to go back to open up item C? Am I understanding?

No.

No, you can just go ahead and ask for a motion and a second. You were to ask.

Do I have a motion and a second for item C?

Which is related Bristol 2026 annual monetary report for property located at 3600 South Bristol Street.

So moved.

Second.

I have a first and second. First by Commissioner Leo, second by Commissioner Guzman. Are we going to discuss it at all? Well, do you have a question on it?

Yeah. When do you get started?

Planning can answer that question. Yeah, we can take that. Thank you. So the annual monitoring report is a requirement of the DA for the project. At this stage, there has not been anything proposed to implement the plan. So we have not received an application for development within the specific plan at this point.

So this is a procedure for continuing to wait for them to get started? That's correct. Thank you.

Any other questions? Please call. Call the vote.

So we have a motion with Commissioner Leo, a second with Commissioner Guzman. I'm taking roll call. Commissioner Guzman?

Aye.

Commissioner Leo?

Aye.

Commissioner Oliva? Aye. Commissioner Fenn?

Aye.

Commissioner Wu aye Chair Pro Tem Benninger aye Chair Ramos motion approved by majority vote with Chair Ramos absent okay thank you returning to item one

This is a time and place for site plan review number 2026-2 for property located at 722 South Parton Street, located within Pacific Development number 40 Zone District. Before we begin, any commissioners have anything that they would wish to disclose regarding this item? Seeing none, The case planner, Christian Santino, will provide a brief presentation.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Good evening, Vice Chair and fellow planning commissioners. The item before you is site plan review number 2026-2, located at 722 South Parton Street within Ward 2. The applicant is requesting an approval or a new 267-square-foot addition to an existing 962-square-foot single-family residence within the Hedringer Park neighborhood. Staff is recommending that the Commission adopt a resolution approving SPR 2026-002 as conditioned. The site is designated under the General Plan Land Use Designation of Low Density Residential, otherwise known as LR7. The zoning is located under SD40 or the Hedringer Park Specific Development. surrounding the site or residential uses on all sides, primarily single family and the law is approximately 6175 square feet or point one four acres the building size is approximately 962 square feet. The existing site, the existing building on site was constructed in 1921 in the California bungalow architectural style. The site is located within SD 40, which contains the Henninger Park architectural design guidelines. For the Henninger Park architectural design guidelines, properties that are listed as historic, properties that are not listed as historic are deferred to the Planning Commission for review under an SPR application. The Commission has previously reviewed such requests in the past, the last being in 2025 and before that in 2024. The existing residence retains many of its existing character-defining features, which include a front-facing hip roof with a giblet and exposed rafter tails, an original front porch detailing, wood lap siding, and original wood windows with multi-light transoms. The site has previous improvements, including a roof replacement in 2019 and an interior kitchen remodel in 2024. The property is not listed in the Santa Ana Register of Historic Properties and not identified as potentially eligible under a historic resource in Appendix A of the Hedringer Park Architectural Design Guidelines. The 267 square foot addition to an existing 962 square foot California bungalow residence will result in a 1,229 square foot single-family residence. The addition expands the home's kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and laundry area while maintaining an existing three-bedroom layout. The addition is located primarily at the rear of the residence with a small expansion along the north side to minimize changes to the front facade. Additional site improvements include removal Additional site improvements include removal of an unpermitted patio cover, new gates, HVAC condenser, and removal of excess hardscape in the front yard. Here are some site photos of the property. Shown on the left is the frontage of the property from the west elevation, and on the right is the area where the new addition will be located. It's facing the north side, and this is considered the side yard. Here is the illustration of the site plan for the area and the addition is outlined in the red dotted lines. And then here is the floor plan of the new addition. As you can see, the highlighted red includes the expansion of the kitchen area, that new laundry area, new restroom and the expanded living room area. Here are the elevations of the project. The addition will comprise of new wood 1 over 1 hanging windows, which are compatible with the existing residence. The exterior siding will be slightly wider at 6 inches versus the 4 inches that can be found on the existing building. And matching rafter tails and decorative attic vents are also proposed alongside a compatible hip roof. The property is located in Hedringer Park, otherwise known as SD40, where major residential additions require Planning Commission site plan review approval. The proposed design was reviewed by the Hedringer Park Architectural Review Committee and found to be consistent with the Hedringer Park Architectural Design Guidelines. Because the property is not designated nor eligible as a historic resource, staff evaluated the project under the Santa Ana Citywide Design Guidelines. together with the applicable SD 40 development standards. Staff review the project for consistency with all applicable zoning and design requirements as well. The project complies with all SD development standards, SD 40 development standards, including setbacks, height, lot coverage and parking. The addition incorporates the California bungalow architectural design style, consistent with both the Hedringer Park architectural design guidelines as well as the Santa Ana citywide design guidelines. The proposed roof form, siding, wood windows and architectural detailing are compatible with the existing residents and the character of the Hedringer Park neighborhood. Staff is recommending approval because the project is consistent with the applicable development and design standards and is incompatible with the surrounding neighbourhood as well. Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act and the CEQA guidelines, the project is exempt from further review pursuant to Section 15301, Class 1, or existing facilities. The project consists of a minor addition to an existing single-family residence that increases the floor area by less than 50%. The site is located within an urbanized area with existing public services that is not located within an environmentally sensitive area. Based on this analysis, a notice of exemption environmental review number 2026-81 will be filed for this project, and there is initially no physical impact associated with this project. With that said, staff recommends adopting a resolution approving site plan review number 2026-02 as conditioned. staff is available for any questions, and I believe we have the applicant in the audience as well.

Does the Commission have any comments or questions for the staff? Commissioner Guzman?

No comments.

Commissioner Liu?

Commissioner Wu?

I just want to review for the record some of your statement. You said that in your opening statement the property improvement or additions are mainly at the rear of the building, but yet the drawing shows that the little red square is at the side of the building. So are we adding addition to the rear and on the side?

Sort of both. It's primarily on the north side elevation.

What was that again? Both?

It's primarily both, yeah. Okay.

Can we go to that drawing where, yeah, the addition. Now, since that abuts to the fence to the house next door, is there enough clearance room for future maintenance?

There is a five foot setback, which are by the code.

So there's a five foot between the wall and in the post addition.

Yeah, and the lot line.

Okay. You're in your statement, you said that the house recently had a roof with a new roof put on. Now, since they're adding the Are they going to do the entire reroof, the entire house, or just focus on the sections that they're adding on?

To my understanding, they'll be focusing on the sections that they're adding on. However, those sections will be required to match the existing roof.

Okay. Are they planning to paint the entire house after they're finished?

That's something that the applicant can clarify. That's something that the applicant can clarify, but the residents will have to match the color of the house for that addition.

Let's go to the driveway. The driveway has, when I drew through there, at least three to four cars. And it shares a driveway with the house on the left. Is that any concern under our new updated zoning?

That is the existing condition of the house. There's a fair number of properties that have this layout in Henninger Park. But part of the plan is to also improve the landscaping in the front. So there will be required to have only cars parked in the driveway, not in front of the residents.

And my questions are not to be restrictive for homeowners improving or expanding the size of their building for houses that were built. back when, you know, people's needs are smaller and didn't need as much room. My concern is the overall impact on the rest of the neighbourhood as we continue to do this. Although in our, you know, four-inch thick book here, we keep stressing neighbourhood integrity and preservation of neighbourhood character. So I'm asking these questions. in response to the updates and things going forward. And as staff is doing this due diligence, I'm asking for that good housekeeping assurance that it will not, you know, that be judgment to the entire neighbourhood integrity. Because if we keep approving these things like this, can you imagine if, like, we went through the whole neighbourhood and 60% of them doing it? It's no longer single family dwelling.

City Council Chambers. Thank you, Commissioner Wu. That's definitely something that staff is aware of. And we're looking as part of the update to make sure that community integrity is preserved as part of the zoning code update. But this application before you tonight predates the zoning code update. So all the standards currently in the SD are what staff are applying to this project.

Thank you very much for your clarification.

The project is fine, but in the spirit of a site plan review, I'm a little concerned about how the addition is added to one side, creating an uneven roof that doesn't match what was previously existing there. There's a little jump in the ridge of the roof. Are we concerned that it's a bit asymmetrical?

City Council Chambers, That was something that staff and also the architectural review committee looked at and. City Council Chambers, Christian if you don't mind going back to that elevation one of the architectural features that were included was to match the. City Council Chambers, events that are present along the front elevation on the side, so that was one of the design considerations that led to that slight distinct roof to accommodate that architectural feature.

City Council Chambers, And this was the applicant electing to add that detail was it feedback from the. review committee.

I believe it was a mixture of both.

And then my other question is, was there a construction restriction for sourcing the siding? Why we deviated from that six-inch siding to a four-inch siding?

It was to differentiate the new constructed area versus the original residence. as to not confuse it with any potential originality with the original building.

If I could just add to that, the distinction in the size was intentional for the reasons that Christian mentioned. If in the future this building does qualify for placement on the register, future planners and historians would be able to easily differentiate what part of the building was original versus what came after the fact. That makes sense. That's all for me.

Thank you. You talked about hardscape changes in front, but I didn't see where those were. Could you go over those again, please?

Yes, so that's this area here, this shaded area.

And what's there presently?

Right now it's, I believe, concrete or asphalt. It's like an expanded driveway.

And that's going to be removed?

It'll be taken out, removed, and to match the landscaping that's currently there in this area here.

Gotcha.

It's this section here.

Here, okay. And you have mentioned that this has been reviewed by the Heddinger Park Architectural Group?

Yes, it has.

Okay. Which is good and important because they would make sure it fits in with Heddinger Park and that whole area.

So, okay.

Any other questions? The public testimony portion of the public hearing is now open. Would the applicant like to speak on this matter? Okay. Seeing none. Recording Secretary, have we received any written comments, communications on this public item?

Chair Pro Tem, We have not received any public comments. 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 into 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 do not have any speakers in-house and in Zoom.

Very good, thank you. The public testimony portion of this public hearing is now closed. Is there a motion on this matter, and is there a second?

I vote to move this item.

Do we have a second?

I'll second the motion.

Okay, first by Commissioner Guzman, second by Commissioner Leo. Secretary, please roll call vote.

Vice Chair, just a point of clarification. The motion was by Commissioner Oliva.

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to be taking roll call.

Yes.

Commissioner Guzman?

Aye.

Commissioner Leo?

Aye.

Commissioner Oliva? Aye. Commissioner Fenn.

Aye.

Commissioner Wu.

Aye.

Chair Pro Tem Benninger.

Aye.

Chair Ramos. Motion approved by majority vote with Chair Ramos absent.

Very good. Moving on to item two. This is a time and place for conditional use permit number 2025-25. for the property located at 1505 South Auto Mall Drive, located within Pacific Development number 60. Before we begin, do any of the commissioners have anything that they would like to disclose regarding this item? Seeing none, can we please have Fernanda Hernandez will provide us with a brief presentation.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, everyone. As previously mentioned, for discussion, I have conditional use permit number 2025-25 at 1505 South Auto Mall Drive in Ward 6. The request is to allow the reconstruction of an existing freeway-oriented on-premise digital sign into a digital billboard. with off-premise commercial advertising. Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission approve CUP number 2025-25 as condition. The site is located within specific development number 60 and has a general planned land use designation of industrial. The surrounding land uses include auto sales to the north, south, and west and the Costa Mesa Freeway or the 55 Freeway located on the east. The lot size is 172,020 square feet, or 3.95 acres. The existing digital sign was approved as part of SD 60 in 1964. Then on July 19, 2022, the City Council adopted ordinance number NS-3023, which reenacted Article 12 for off-premise commercial advertising signs in Chapter 41 of the Santa Ana Municipal Code. The intent of the ordinance is to allow the construction of new digital billboards or the reconstruction of existing static billboards to digital billboards in exchange for community benefits and or the removal of static inner city billboards when feasible. The project is proposing to reconstruct an existing freeway oriented pylon sign located at the southeast corner of the property adjacent to the 55 freeway. The sign will remain in the existing location and will maintain the same height of 70 feet. The main changes consist of changing the digital screen for a dual LED display in a V shape. Part of the project includes the request to allow the digital billboard to continue to exceed the 60 foot maximum height allowed and maintain the 70 foot high as part of the CEP. This slide illustrates the existing digital sign with the view from the parking lot on the top image and a view from the freeway on the bottom image. This slide contains the proposed site plan. The left side of the screen is Auto Mall Drive. The bottom of the screen is Edinger Avenue. The red dotted line represents the location of the existing and proposed sign. This slide contains the enlarged site plan, which shows the location and the shape of the digital billboard. This slide illustrates the elevation of the proposed billboard. As shown on the image, the billboard will remain at 70 feet in height. The billboard is designed in conformance with the development, design, lighting and operational standards to mitigate aesthetics, light and glare impacts. The size and design of the digital billboard is consistent with the context of the surrounding visual environment. The digital billboard will exceed the 60 foot high limit as the existing sign structure was previously constructed and is designed to be viewed from adjacent freeway. The billboard is expected to increase annual sales by approximately 3% annually. The 10-year term agreement will yield an additional $1.6 million in sales tax revenue to the city. In years one to six, the billboard construction payback period, the billboard will pay $36,000 to the city. Then beginning of year seven, 25% of the operator's net advertising revenue that is estimated at $56,250 and an increase by 1.5% annually will be paid to the city 10% of the advertising time will be reserved for the city to use for civic promotions, such as events employment opportunities and public service service and safety announcements. Go land use. One of the land use element. Specifically, policy 1.1 supports the continued vibrancy of the site while maintaining compatibility, compatibility, sorry, with the surrounding environment. Policy, urban development 1.1 of the urban design. I meant urban design, sorry. maintains a cohesive and well integrated signage design that is compatible with the surrounding development pattern. Policy UD 1.7 utilizes existing infrastructure in a manner that avoids unnecessary proliferation of signage. Goal EP3 of the Economic Prosperity Specifically, Policy 1.2 aims to strengthen and expand citywide business attractions efforts to help city achieve its full employment potential. In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, and Section 15162 of the CEQA guidelines. The project is within scope of the 2022 Santa Ana Off-Premise Commercial Advertising Sign Ordinance Mitigated Negative Declaration. The previously adopted MND adequately describes the project's environmental setting, impacts, and mitigation measures. A Notice of Determination, Environmental Review Number 2025-104. will be filed for the project. The total remittance to the city over a 10-year term of operating agreement is estimated to be $266,113. With that staff is proposing to adopt a resolution approving conditional use permit number 2025 as condition to allow the reconstruction of an existing freeway oriented on premise digital sign into a digital billboard with off premise commercial advertising and to allow the digital billboard to exceed the maximum height of 60 feet. With that staff is available for questions.

Does any commissioners have any questions? Commissioner Wu? Commissioner Pham? Commissioner Oliva? Okay, go ahead.

Just for a frame of reference, I know that the Delamo Motorsports digital billboard is just down the way. How much bigger will this digital billboard be?

the boards will be relatively the same size.

Thank you.

Commissioner Julio. Commissioner Guzman.

I do have a question regarding the operating agreement. I know that the PowerPoint presentation stated that it was 10% will be set aside for civic or civic opportunities by the city. But in reviewing the operating agreement, it says no more than 10. advertisements a year, I believe. If there's any wiggle room or I know this is a draft operating agreement to make it a solid 10% because I think that we are conditioning a very tall billboard and the city has so much going on. I think that we can probably encourage more than 10% for civic opportunities.

Thank you, Commissioner. That's noted.

My question, a little bit away from what we have here tonight, but who controls that 10%? Who in the city decides what 10% public information goes on there?

Thank you, Commissioner. So any requests from the city would be through the city manager's informations team. So Paul Eakins and team would be the one, kind of the funnel to the applicant to put up any public service announcements on this board or any of the other boards that we have agreements with.

Thank you. That was my only question. The public testimony portion of the hearing is now open. Would the applicant like to speak on this matter? Recording secretary, I see none. Whoops.

Yes, I believe the applicant is here.

Does he wish to speak?

Hello, I'm Rod Wilson, the owner of EMI, representing the Santa Ana Auto Mall Dealers Association. With me tonight is also Jim Speck, the president of the Auto Dealers Association. And we appreciate the recommendation of approval. If you have any questions, we're here to answer them.

Before you step down, does any of the commissioners have any questions for the applicant?

Thank you.

Do we have anyone that wishes to speak on this item?

Chair, Pro Tem, we have not received any public comments. 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 into 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 nine and then six to unmute yourself. I will wait a few seconds. Chair Pro Tem, we have one speaker in-house.

Thank you. Greg, I'm sorry. I'm going to blow this last name.

You can just call me Greg. That's fine.

Okay, sir. Please go ahead. Your floor is yours for the treatment. Just go ahead. Okay.

I'm a Santa Ana resident. I just happened to get a notice. on a newsletter that you were having this discussion about zoning. I didn't know that you were gonna be talking about certain items like this. I thought it was just a general meeting about zoning. But in sitting here and listening to the presentation, I do have some questions. Will this digital sign information, will it change periodically? In other words, will the information be changing Or will it be just a digital sign that will, where the information will remain the same?

At the moment, it is just a public comment. You have three minutes to speak. We won't be answering any questions. We won't be answering any questions.

At the moment, no. Okay, so that's a concern because if it changes periodically, then it may, my concern is that freeway motorists could be distracted. And So the next question that I would have is, was a safety study done to check whether this would be a distraction for motorists, thereby causing accidents and that sort of thing. That's the end of my session on this. I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Public testimony portion of this hearing is now closed. Is there a motion to approve this matter? So moved. Do we have a second?

I'll second. We'll give it to Commissioner Guzman.

Okay, this time I think I have it correct. Commissioner, we'll leave you a second, correct? Guzman, thank you. Second by Commissioner Guzman. Secretary, please call the roll.

Commissioner Guzman. Aye. Commissioner Leo.

Aye.

Commissioner Oliva. Aye. Commissioner Pham.

Aye.

Commissioner Wu.

Aye.

Chair Pro Tem Benninger.

Aye.

Chair Ramos. Motion approved by majority vote with Chair Ramos absent.

Okay, this is a time and place for site plan review number 2026-03. Vesting tentative track map number 2026-06 for the property located at 1901 and 1974 East 4th Street. And 515 and 525 North Cabrillo Park Drive, located within the Metro East mixed-use overlay zone district. Before we begin, does any commissioner have anything they wish to disclose on this item? Seeing none, the case planner, Fernanda Hernandez, will provide us a brief presentation.

Thank you again. As mentioned for discussion now is SPR number 2026-03 and VTTM number 2026-06. Project is located at 1901 East 4th Street. The applicant is requesting approval of the previously mentioned entitlements to facilitate the construction of 27 three-storey buildings containing 188 townhomes, including 10 units available at the moderate income affordability level, 407 parking spaces, and 6,431 square feet of ground floor commercial space within five buildings fronting 4th Street and Cabrillo Park Drive. Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution approving SPR number 2026-03 as condition and adopt a resolution approving VTTM number 2026-06 as condition. The site has a general plan land use destination of district center medium high. The project site is located within the professional zoning district and the village center district of the metro east mixed use overlay zone. The site is surrounded by a park to the north, offices to the east, medical offices to the south, and a multifamily residential that is currently under construction to the west. The lot size is 357,540 square feet or 8.2 acres. The office buildings on site were developed between 1971 through 1976. In 2007, the MIMU or Metro East Mixed Use Overlay Zone was adopted and expanded in 2018. In September 2025, the applicant submitted an SB 330 preliminary application. And then in October 2025, the development project review application was submitted and deemed complete on May 21st of 2026. On June 8th, 2026, the entitlement applications were submitted. Background on California Senate Bill number 330. The project qualifies as housing development project under government code section 65589.5. letter H and is subject to SB 330, also known as the Housing Crisis Act. The applicant submitted an SB 330 preliminary application on September 5, 2025, which sets the development standards used for the review to review the project. This means that non-objective standards adopted after January 1, 2020 do not apply to the project, and the project is limited to five public hearings, including appeals. SB 330 prohibits downzoning, housing moratoriums, permit limits, or other actions that reduce housing capacity. The project includes the construction of 188 townhomes, including 10 units at an affordable income level for moderate income households. The table illustrates a summary of the residential units provided. 56 units will be two bedrooms and will range from 1,261 square feet to 1,394 square feet. 61 units will be three bedrooms and will range from 1,767 square feet to 2,292 square feet. Lastly, 71 units will be four bedrooms and will range from 1,766 square feet to 1,892 square feet. The affordable units include three two-bedroom units, three three bedroom units and four four bedroom units. As part of the project, the construction includes 6,431 square feet of ground floor commercial flex space, 21,699 square feet of private and common open space provided through courtyards and landscape gathering areas, and 35,754 square feet of publicly accessible open space. This will be accessible through the east side property, through the east of the property. This slide illustrates the current office building development from the intersection of Cabrillo Park Drive and 4th Street. This slide illustrates the proposed site plan. The left side of the screen is Cabrillo Park Drive and the bottom of the screen is 4th Street. This slide illustrates the proposed elevations for units facing 4th Street and part of Cabrillo Park Drive. This slide illustrates the elevations for units that will be on the interior of the site. This slide illustrates the rendering of the elevations at the 4th Street and Cabrillo Park Drive intersection. This rendering was prepared only to illustrate buildings. This rendering illustrates the interior units. Site plan review number 2026-03 has been reviewed for consistency with the general plan, MIMU, and applicable provisions of the Santa Ana Municipal Code. Staff determined that the project satisfies the required findings for site plan review because it redevelops an underutilized 8.2 acre office campus with high quality residential community that advances a long-term vision for the MIMU zone. Introduces 188 for sale townhomes, including 10 affordable ownership units, together with 6,431 square feet of round floor flex commercial space that activates 4th Street and Cabrillo Park Drive. And it creates a pedestrian-oriented environment through widened sidewalks, publicly accessible open spaces, enhanced landscaping, internal pedestrian connections, and active street frontages. The project also provides a site design that is compatible with surrounding development through building massing, architectural articulation, transitions in building height, and integration of open space. And lastly, the project incorporates adequate parking, circulation, lighting, and safety measured features to support long-term operations while minimizing potential impacts on adjacent neighborhoods. Based on this analysis, staff finds that the project is consistent with the intent and objectives of the MIMU overlay zone and recommends approval of site plan review number 2026-03. Vesting track map. Number 2026-06 will subdivide the property for 188 condominium air right units in conjunction with the proposed townhome development. The project satisfies the required findings because it provides a site layout that supports safe vehicular and pedestrian circulation, incorporates adequate utility infrastructure and publicly accessible and private open spaces to serve the proposed development. Project is physically suitable for the proposed residential density and condominium subdivision. It will not conflict with existing easements necessary for public access or public utilities. It will not result in substantial environmental or public health impacts and qualifies for a statutory CEQA exemption pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21080.66, also known as AB 130. Accordingly, staff finds that the required findings for approval of investing tentative track map number 2026-06 can be made. The project meets affordable housing goal for the or sale category of the city's affordable housing opportunity creation ordinance, also known as a hoko, as it provides 10 onsite units design designated for households earning 80% of the AMI moderate income, which is currently set at $166 and $30 for a four person household. The units will be dispersed throughout the community and affordable units will be indistinguishable from the market rate units. The developers inclusionary housing fund has been reviewed and approved by the city's housing division. The project is consistent with the district center medium high land use designation. It supports the general plan vision for urban mixed use development for redevelopment, redeveloping and underutilized office campus with housing and neighborhood serving flex commercial space. The project also complies with the DC three maximum development intensity, which allows 90 dwelling units per acre in a floor area of 3.0. The project is proposing 22 dwelling units per acre in a floor area of 1.2. The project is consistent with goal land use one of the land use element, specifically policies, I'll give you 1.1 1.5 and 4.7 by remaining compatible with surrounding land uses, providing a mix of market rate and affordable housing units and contributing to a diverse range of housing opportunities and promoting mixed income development within the city. Goal he for housing element to specifically policies he 2.5 and 2.7 by providing multiple multifamily housing that contributes to the city's housing supply and includes 10 affordable units to moderate income households. The project qualifies for statutory exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to public resources code section 21080.66 enacted through assembly bill number 130 or AB 130 in 2025. The project satisfies all applicable eligibility criteria listed in AB 130. A notice of exemption environmental review number 2025-92 will be filed. And there is no fiscal impact associated with this project. With that, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution approving SPR number 2026-03 and VTTM number 2026-06 as condition. That concludes staff presentations and we're available for questions.

If commissioners have any questions for staff, we'll start with Commissioner Oliva. Commissioner Guzman? I'm going to go towards Guzman and come back towards Wolk. Changing it up.

All good. I don't have any questions.

My question pertains to how we got to the 5% of the affordable housing units. How did we come to that number?

So the number came from the applicant. That is what's feasible for them. But also it was to comply with the city's AHOGO.

Thank you. That's my only question at the moment. Commissioner Lill?

Yeah, bear with me. I have several. So my first question is, Fernanda, can you go back to the one where you show us all Cabrillo, just the regular picture? Keep going. Keep going. It shows the street itself. There we go, back that one. So help me out. We just approved the Think Together project, which was where?

I'll show you with my pointer. It's this location here.

And the height of that is how many stories?

It's seven stories.

Seven stories. Okay. And how high is the one closest to the freeway, multifamily?

Central Point is also seven stories.

Also seven stories. So the height of this project will be lower. Right. So my next question is, bleeds into landscape. Is the landscape compatible all along 4th Street? Is it similar to the other side of the street? Are we using similar trees? Are we trying to create a canopy there or no? Because if you think about other streets in the city where one side's already developed and then we have a development, is the landscaping going to look the same on both sides?

Yes. So right now we only have preliminary landscape plans, but as part of the plan check process, staff will make sure that it's uniform throughout.

Okay. And it's compatible with the other side of the street. So it creates a nice walkway for the people. Third question. Any access to Cabrillo Park from the backside of this development, or do they have to walk? How do they get to the park?

There's no access through the site. So if somebody wanted to go to the park, they'd have to access through Cabrillo Park.

So they have to come out the 4th Street and go? Correct. Or out the sides?

Yeah.

And then the Think Together folks, they're just going to have to walk up to the street and then come across to the park? Because remember, I had that question when we had, if this is all going to be housing or zoned housing, The park, the Cabrillo Park is their park, right? This is their community park. So they'll all have to figure out how to get there. What you're saying is these folks are gonna have to walk out the development onto 4th Street and then go around, or will there be another entrance on Cabrillo to get out to, yeah.

Okay. So some of the units along 4th Street will have to walk down 4th Street and then down Cabrillo Park Drive. But the units are on the interior will probably have closer access. And then also, it is the intention of the city for park court place to become a public street eventually. So hopefully the folks that live at think together will have access to that at some point. And they don't have to go around along Fourth Street.

Okay, that's we don't have any issues with trash pickup, the trash truck it's in comes out. Okay. So this is another 188 units. How much closer are we to the RENA goal set by the state? I mean, I feel like we've been improving housing like every other week. Carlos, how much closer are we to our requirements?

So thank you, Commissioner, for the question. So the total number that the city has been allocated is 3,137. Per the last APR that we submitted to the state, we're currently at 4,757. So we've done our part. For the total amount, we're over. However, there's two categories within the arena that we're still short on. One of the categories is for moderate income units, which this project provides for that. And I see if there's any other questions.

I have a couple of questions for. I have a couple of questions for the applicant. Those are my only questions now.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you. So how short are we on the moderate income units per arena? or to meet the renewal requirement for those.

Thank you, Commissioner Guzman. We're currently 274 units shy of what the allocation is for us.

Okay. Commissioner Hu.

What is the proposed income eligibility for the affordable housing?

It's moderate income for this one.

No, that's most of them, but you have 10 affordable housing units. So what would that income level be? The moderate is $166,000, right? $166,000. Yes. Okay, what is the affordable housing one?

Oh, you mean the price of the units? Can you clarify? I'm sorry, I don't think I follow.

The 10 units of affordable housing, and I'm thinking that means low income.

It means moderate income. It's affordable at the moderate income level.

Okay. So most of the units are market rate, which hence the $166,000, right? And then the moderate income eligibility is how much?

So 178 units will be for profit or market rate. And then 10 units will be affordable at a moderate income level, which that moderate income level is 166, 166,000 for a family of four. And can we go to slide 36?

The right side of the project abuts next to a business park area that has a circle around it. And I see a wall green. Does that mean that the cars from the development will not exit to the right?

That's correct. They'll have to exit through 4th Street. So that area that you pointed out in green, this is the publicly accessible open space. So cars here will not have access to enter the site that way.

There's two non-profits there. I think the Red Cross and also the Orange County Community Housing Corporation is there too. And they get clients coming in and then Parking is an issue, so I was concerned about that. So this development has some interior, not interior of the building, but interior to the development that has open space in it, right? So the plan is so it would be walkable within that, and then on the sidewalk, as Commissioner Leo was asking, to access the parks. north and south of the development. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Pham.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair. For the internal circulations, we have these multiple islands that are happening inside the development. I know there is a central corridor that runs up and down. I know there were discussions previously in other projects about Producing pedestrian paths that are able to connect all these units to a main path I couldn't tell from the PDF uploaded it looks like we have indication of addition path in the middle and then on the edge of these five plexus. But if you were the middle units in these islands, are you walking, is there an indicated path that leads you to the main corridor in the middle? Or are you walking past people's garages?

You would be walking across people's garage. There's designated crosswalks. And like you mentioned, that area in the middle, that's landscaped. But for some of the buildings, there's some landscape area, but there's some areas where you'd be walking by someone's garage. This area though, because it is internal residential, it is likely that has low speed limits. So likely not a traffic concern.

If I can just add to that, some of those buildings that are the islands that you're referencing, Commissioner, the dedicated walkways that Fernanda's referencing would have a differentiation in material type. That way there's a distinction of where the pedestrian is supposed to be.

So our development standards doesn't require a... separate protection path? It just requires an indication in terms of material? Or is it only applicable to kind of like a smaller subdivisions where they're like, single family residential units that requires like, I know that some, some town house projects, there is a, you know, all of the units have a pedestrian path that connects all the front door. Is this excluded because this is multifamily attached units?

So this is slightly different because of how the building types are located in the center. And then both sides of some of the island buildings that you're referencing would have garages on either side.

And then there's flex slash commercial spaces on the exterior of the property. Are there additional parking requirements due to the commercial nature? of these units because I see one ADA stall all the way towards the center of the lot. Is there any specific requirements or is it just a two per unit that was stated in the staff report?

This project only required two per unit because of the scale of the commercial that was proposed. So had they proposed a bigger area that was commercial, like the thing together, they would be required to do 2.25 parking spaces per unit.

Got it. So the ADA stall is not required. It's just a given by the developer.

It may be required per building standards, but not per the MIMU standards.

Got it.

Just to clarify too, they are proposing more parking than what's required. So the MIMU requires I believe 307 or 300, I can't remember how many now, 376 spaces and they are providing 407.

Yeah, it looks like they have a surplus of 31 stalls. So that does lead me to the next discussion item potentially is I'm not aware of the parking agreement that's in place or potential parking agreement that's in place. But my thought would be because they're providing a mix of two bedrooms, three bedrooms and four bedroom, it seems like that 71 or no, sorry, 31 surplus of parking ideally would be allocated towards the four unit because It seems like all the units are provided two covered parkings, right? So the two bedroom units are adequately served by the two car garage. If we were to kind of have it be a open, you know, open free for all, then it seems like the surplus parking is better served for the units that are four bedroom. because they have the two car parking as standard within the development, but they do have an excess of two bedrooms that potentially is better served with additional parking. So I'm not sure if that's something that we as the city can advocate for in the parking agreement. But to me, that seems like something that we might want to discuss with the developer.

Yeah, of course. Thank you.

That's all right.

Thank you. Go back to the layout plan. And right now, and this does concern with parking, the fact that right now that 376 spots will be through the garages, two-car garages, where's the additional 31 spots, parking spots be located?

Well, they're dispersed throughout the site in parking garages or parking that's available on site. I don't have like a direct location of them, but they're dispersed.

So, Vice Chair Benninger, there's a couple of fields of parking located along the drive aisles. In addition to that, there's some parking spaces located along the private drive that would continue east-west Park Court Place, where there's some parallel parking spaces there as well. So the field of parkings off the aisles are located dispersed throughout the site in addition to that central east-west corridor or drive aisle through the site.

Okay. So the shop area is being proposed along 4th Street. Is there a parking provided for them somewhere?

I'm sorry?

You mentioned commercial buildings, and I assume they're along 4th Street. Where are people going to park in order to attend those?

I'm not really sure.

So the the question Fernanda is since there's flex commercial space on the ground floor of the buildings fronting forth where would there be parking spaces for those flex commercial spaces sorry I misunderstood, I thought you were speaking about commercial other areas.

yeah they would park in those open parking areas. probably along Park Court Place or in the open areas where there's parking available.

Because there's no parking on 4th Street or Calvary Hill, is there?

No, there's no street parking. We did try to explore the idea of street parking, but it was not feasible in order to comply with open space requirements.

Okay. Did we do a traffic study what this is going to add to traffic in the area?

They did do a traffic study. Yes. We also have staff from Public Works available to answer questions about traffic.

OK. That's all that I have at this time. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.

What are the amenities for, number one, is there going to be a homeowner association mandated?

Likely there will be one.

Likely or is that in the contract?

Yes, there would be one.

Okay. Number two, what kind of amenities do they have there? Do they have a swimming pool exercise or?

They have open space in the middle that will be available for gathering. Possibly we can ask or we can request through the plan check process to include barbecue area or something for people who live there to use.

But nothing for physical activity?

No, not in this.

There is, if I can add, there's a game lawn that's being proposed as part of the site plan where residents would be able to play different games such as cornhole or seeding, different turf games in addition to a dog park that's also being proposed.

You know, if I was the owner of the property to the right, that roundabout seemed to be wasted space. I would develop a parking lot and charge rent. Anyway, thank you.

Vice Chair Benninger, I have a question. I have another question. Go ahead. Thank you for raising the issue of traffic and how that's going to be impacted. If public works could come up and let me know. I know that the far right lane going west on 4th Street is very impacted during rush hour. Because everybody gets on that far right lane to go into the five north i'm wondering how. How that traffic study came out and and what those impacts are going to be now that everybody's going to be ingressing and egressing off cabrillo park drive as proposed.

Yeah, thank you for your question. Commissioner Guzman, this is Mike Rizval, senior transportation analyst with our traffic engineering department. As part of the previous MIMU study, there was a need for a dedicated right turn pocket. So we're talking about a westbound right turn from 4th onto Cabrillo Park Drive. That essentially removes those right turn vehicles so other people can proceed towards the freeway. Their new traffic study, which was done in 2026. It doesn't require them to have a right turn pocket anymore. So justification traffic volume wise, there's no need for it. So that design feature is no longer part of this particular project.

And I'm sorry, what was your name again?

I'm Mike or Isabel. Yeah.

Thank you. And, and In your opinion, is that traffic study, the New York traffic study, reasonable in the conclusions and the findings therein? Because I've traversed on that right turn lane. And just adding 188 units with, you know, more than that people, maybe more than that driver's plan who lives in those units is definitely going to create more traffic. It's a nightmare there.

I can appreciate that comment. There's a lot of development going on in this area. We have CentrePoint, obviously. But for this particular development, there is an existing use on-site. If that on-site Existing use was fully occupied this project would result in less trips than what's out there today I about 100. But traffic engineering went back and asked for a more conservative analysis, knowing that that current development isn't fully occupied. So we asked them to get the actual occupancy rate of who's in the existing building there today. Only take that as your credit for a net don't take credit for the entire site because it's not fully occupied right. So they did that difference, and the differential is still about negative 25 trips for this particular project compared to what it's generating now. Hope that makes sense.

It did. Thank you.

Okay. Sir, before we go, I have a question. I know in previous projects you talked about how many vehicles at 8 o'clock in the morning this project will put on the street. I was surprised the number you gave me for the one near my house, but let's talk about this project. What do you expect out of 188 units with two cars each? What does your study show?

Okay. So without the taking credit for the existing land use, if we're just looking at this project, at 8 a.m., 19 vehicles will be entering, 59 vehicles exiting in the a.m. peak hour. But when you take into account the existing land use, it will be 90 trips less than what's occurring today.

Okay. There's also a question that was asked by someone that gave us a letter about this. Is there any proposal or any need that you see for a stoplight in the entrance of this project?

Yeah. Fernando, if you could go back to the site plan. Our court place, the private drive bisecting the project site, that is planned to be a traffic signal, and that's part of the center point development. So this particular development is going to be conditioned to pay a fair share towards that improvement. There's also a need for a southbound right turn from Cabrillo Park onto 4th. That's also part of center point, and this project is also conditioned to pay a fair share towards that improvement.

Based on what you're saying, will that light be put in before this project is complete?

So CenterPoint is actually has broken ground already. They are considering both of those project design features. So those need to be in place prior to this project being constructed.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other questions on the commission? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. The public testimony portion of public hearing is now open. Would the applicant like to speak on this matter? Do we have someone from the applicant? Please state your name, sir.

Good evening, Vice Chair. My name is John Abood, Vice President with KB Home. Vice Chair and members of the Planning Commission, thank you. I'm here on behalf of KB Home, the applicant for the site plan. Before I speak about the project and answer some of the questions that were raised, I just wanted to thank the Planning and Building Agency staff, particularly Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Soto, for their thorough and collaborative review during our processing of the plans that are before you. Their diligence in guiding us through the MIMU standards, the environmental review process, has really helped shape a project that we're proud to bring before you tonight. particularly its cohesiveness with the Centerpoint project, the Think Together project, which you approved at the end of May, and really creating and extending that vision along 4th Street. For those less familiar with our company, KB Home has been building communities across the country since 1957. We've built and sold well over half a million homes nationwide, and we've been long recognized as an industry leader in energy efficiency and sustainable building practices. And all of the homes at this community will have solar included, as well as other energy efficient features that'll help reduce the cost of home ownership for the home buyers. More than that, we build homes with the buyer at the center of our process. We give families a voice in the design of the place that they call home. with the opportunity to select the features, design features for inside of their home. In Santa Ana, we've been a part of the redevelopment along 4th Street in the Lacey neighborhood, revitalizing that corridor with our Lacey Crossing project at the Old Tom's Trucks lot. And we also were a part of the harbor redevelopment along Harbor Boulevard building a small lot detached home community there about eight or nine years ago This project will transform an aging and underutilized office campus. The four buildings will be demoed and the 188 new for sale townhomes that were proposed, including the 10 units reserved for the moderate income households under the City of Zahoko program. As Ms. Hernandez mentioned, 6,400 square feet of ground floor flex space. This space is really designed for the small business owner to potentially take that ground floor space and utilize it in some professional capacity, whether that's a design studio or architecture office, a real estate office or accounting bookkeeper, or even more creative, like an art studio, a photography studio, or somebody that could teach music lessons out of that ground floor. Beyond the homes themselves, this project delivers a real public benefit. The 36,000 square feet of public accessible open space, the dog park, the game lawn, as well as the streetscape and sidewalk improvements will help make the stretch from 4th up to Cabrillo Park revitalized, safer, and more walkable. um you know we've been tried to be a good partner throughout the process holding the two community meetings under the sunshine ordinance listening closely to neighbors their questions about affordability traffic and the timing so i respectfully ask for your approval of the site plan review and the vesting tentative track map i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have in addition to the ones you posed and i will take some time now to just answer those that i flagged In terms of timing, I know this question wasn't asked, but we're proposing, you know, if approved, it would be approximately a mid-2027 groundbreaking with the demolition of the buildings, then moving through with the development of the project. Since we are for sale, we would build model home buildings where a sales office would be located and the public would come in to view the models and make their selections. um commissioner leo you asked about access to the park um direct access can't be given at that northeast corner because of the grade difference but with the addition of cabrillo park or park court place which will be built should provide that access for the residents in this community to certainly not have to walk along forth to get there but as the golden circle gets redeveloped hopefully in the years to come you know to provide that access um commissioner wu you asked about an hoa there will certainly be an hoa and in addition to the amenities that were mentioned you know there will be a barbecue open dining a dog park game lawn all meant to really be dispersed throughout the community to to allow residents from across this eight acre site to to be able to co-mingle and and really create a center to to create a lifestyle for them um you know commissioner fam you talked about pedestrian paths as well as differentiation and material type that's something we did at our lacy crossing community so just a slight difference in material helps delineate where that can be and we're happy to look at that with staff as we go forward there are pathways that you know connect throughout the community so homeowners wouldn't have to necessarily walk in front of other people's garages but it's certainly something that we can look at to create that delineation You know, we are parked at the 2.16 per unit, so every home will have a two-car garage. In addition to that, and the guest spaces that were mentioned, there are an additional 26 spaces on Park Court that are not part of our requirement or our credit that we get, but those are open parking spaces. i don't think they'll be able to be controlled by our parking management plan since they will be on what will ultimately be a public street but there's certainly to be parking spaces that the residents here could park into as far as you know using the hoa to manage the parking spaces and assign those spaces to the four bedroom households it's it's a little bit challenging because those are meant to be guest spaces and so you know discriminating in that sense and applying them to the larger bedroom households might not be entirely fair to the two bedrooms that might need it for a guest to visit. So in the communities we've built and we've surveyed, despite being four bedrooms, they still tend to be maybe a three person household. So we don't expect three or four vehicles for that household. But it's certainly something that the parking management plan will have a way to address and the HOA being the residents of the community will be able to address that with the assistance of that management plan that we put in place for long term, you know, sustainability of the community. I hope that answers most of the questions I heard. But our team of consultants, landscape architect, civil engineer are all available as well as our traffic engineer here to answer any further questions. So thank you for the opportunity. And you know, we look forward to answering questions.

Do you have any questions for the applicant?

I have a couple. Go ahead. So I know you can't predict market price three, four years from now, but what are your kind of points that you're looking at? I mean, I know, I'll give you an example of what I know already. You know where the Carl Strausberg is across from Anaheim Stadium, that project's coming in, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, four-bedroom condos like this, 600,000 to a million, the four bedrooms? That's market rate is what they're proposing. Now they haven't gutted the, they haven't done, they're right where you are in this process of getting approved in Anaheim. So I'm wondering what you're thinking about, you know, entry level to the four bedrooms are basically bigger than some of our homes. So I'm wondering kind of what you're thinking. Second question is, you said there's gonna be parking on Park Court, right? is there a way and this is really for staff is there a way for us to make sure that those parking spots are available by parking permit for the people that live in this development so that someone's not coming down from the apartments that are a block up parking their family members driving down to get them and taking them back to their apartment because they don't have enough parking at the old residence so that's a question for staff If you can answer my question, that'd be great. If you can't, I get it.

Sure. I mean, as you mentioned, if I had the ability to protect the market, I'd be dressed a lot nicer. You wouldn't be here either. But you're probably correct. But I mean, our process is, as we enter the market, we'll survey Other new home activity. So I mean, right now, the there's the Meritage project on first is under development of the site that will be at market. So a lot of it gets dictated by what the market will bear. But, you know, the the the beauty of what we've tried to propose is a range of two bedroom all the way to four bedroom, roughly 1200 feet up to 2200 feet to give a broad opportunity of homeownership to people in addition to the 10 moderate income units. So it's probably in that range, but I can't, you know, depending on mortgage rates and where everything goes in the world will really dictate that at that time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here tonight. My question is regarding buyers opportunities. Will Santa Ana residents have the opportunity to you purchase these houses first? Or is it just going to be open market?

It's it's, you know, again, Santa Ana buyers will have in a sense of priority and that they'll be closest to the community, they'll be able to see development occurring. As we formulate the interest list, there'll be an opportunity to get there first, but we're not necessarily in an environment anymore where There's, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people on waiting lists. We will certainly, you know, we do offer programs for public sector. So targeting nurses, police officers, fire officers, teachers that can be beneficial to, you know, the entire sector, not just those folks that live in Santa Ana. But it's really difficult to provide priority, certainly on the affordable housing. You know, to the extent that the city has a list of qualified affordable buyers, I think we would start there as we build out that, you know, that list. In other jurisdictions, Tustin, in properties that we've built down in San Diego, we've partnered with Habitat for Humanity, who has done a better job than most of the cities themselves have at cultivating that list of people that have run through their program and can qualify for affordable housing. So to the extent that there's an opportunity there, we've partnered with them to sell to habitat at that affordable price, and then it's still deed restricted for the amount of time that the requirement is there in the agreement.

Thank you. No additional questions.

Commissioner Wu?

Oh, you mentioned solar energy. I was wondering if you're going to have EV charging in the units or you have a dedicated place where all the EV charging.

So I believe there's EV, I'll have to check with our, I believe there's EV, a couple of EV places, EV stalls in the community. But we prewire our garages to be EV charger ready so that if somebody does have an EV, they could then be able to install their battery charger specific to their vehicle.

And where are you buying your solar panels from?

I don't know. You got a good deal? I got a good one for you.

Thank you for addressing all the previous comments. In terms of, it didn't look like you were proposing a gated access to this development. Is there concern about, I know that the lighting plan shows quite a bit of lighting, especially in the internal corridors. Is there concern about potential, because it's public open space, potential unwanted activity going into your development? And how are you addressing that?

So it's always a concern. And as we built along the area between 2nd and 4th Street at the Tom's Trucks community, I think that that area was much more depleted before we started development. There we were able to actually implement a neighborhood watch within the community. So it's a concern. It's something that I think the development at Central Point, if think together, this community will help sort of, I mean, that's the intent of the MIMU plan is to revitalize that area and over time see that concern diminish. You know, we have on those, the units along 4th, that flex space, you know, there's a lot of glazing, you know, a lot of just, you know, storefront look to that building. The walkway is, we worked with staff to really create a good setback for what that walkway should look like. It's also potentially inviting to, you know, to transients to sleep there. You know, we work with code enforcement, the HOA themselves can work to monitor things. So it is a concern. We didn't want to gate the community, particularly because of Park Court Place and the stacking that's required along there. So that's, you know, that's where we sort of landed.

Yeah, I think in general, this could be within your CC&Rs. But I think a resource for future homeowners, obviously, they can contact PD and Santa has our own app. But to be able to communicate with the HOA about possible, you know, someone that's deep within the public space, obviously, you know, owners will feel uncomfortable to address the issue themselves. But having a resource, especially in a community this large, a resource that will help facilitate that. We've seen indications of you know, unsavory activities within these kind of open public spaces. Obviously, you know, there's a give and take. You don't want to fence off the open space, but then you also want to protect your future homeowners. I think that's something worth considering. And then I know that there's trash enclosures right on the property. I think it's worth considering how to manage potential dumping. that could potentially happen because this is of public publicly accessible property uh i've um i've heard these these are some concerns as well with these um kind of exposed traction closures so i think something that's worth considering so the majority of the communities we build even you know attached for sale product like this uh tend to be self-contained trash bins within the garages so we design our garages to store those three bins

City of Santa Ana and its partners, its agreement with waste management requires those enclosures. So that's how this project was designed. But all the enclosures are, Even though there's publicly accessible open space and walkways, all of those enclosures are within the community. And there is, you know, it's hard to see on the plans, but there is fencing and walls that exist, even along the east edge where that, you know, where the dog park is and the game lawn. There's a wall, a perimeter wall on that boundary. Obviously, if Park Court place goes through in the future, that can be renovated. But it's an attempt to have openness, but also contain it with some walls to provide some level of security and protection in that sense. So that, yeah, people shouldn't, but will they? It's a possibility.

And one last comment. Is there a reasoning for the change in architectural style? The front seems to be very rectangular and there's a distinct color scheme to it versus your back development.

City Council Chambers with the city staff trying to create some cohesion between the center point to the west and think together had already been submitted. So it was a conversation about scale and massing and ultimately, you know, sort of pointing into the direction of trying to assimilate a little bit more with those projects as opposed to something that was maybe more traditional. So we did keep that on the three-story townhomes, kind of off of this corner. As soon as you get into the interior, those are all more traditional stylings with gable roofs. It was really the fourth street frontage. And then as you turn Cabrillo Park to kind of create that more distinct elevational style.

And in the blue, I've seen a few projects with a similar blue.

It's not a KB Home particular blue. I mean, no color boards have been submitted. So through the construction document process with the city, those can be modified if desired. There could be an additional scheme introduced, particularly as you turn the corner and move to the other buildings. It's not an American flag blue or anything like that.

I'm just curious because I've seen a few projects with that specific shade of blue. I was just wondering if there's a specific branding.

Must be what they're teaching at the architecture schools these days.

That's all from me. Thank you.

I'm very partial to color blue, so go blue. A couple questions that I just have. In this construction, this is completely electric? There's no gas appliances anywhere in this project?

Correct. So I think it's an electric heat pump for the water heater. The range, the cooktop will be electric, and it's all designed to be powered through the solar panels.

Okay. And how much of the solar panels are you expecting to provide?

It ultimately gets designed during the construction document process. The solar consultant will look at... you know, shading and the sun patterns at this location and determine, you know, the best location for them. With the homes along forth behind the parapet, there's a lot of space to locate those panels. And even the homes with the gable roof, there's plenty of roof space for them the way that they're designed. So it could be that you, you know, from a bird's eye view, you'll see a significant amount of panels, but from street level wouldn't be noticeable at all.

I'm very much a supporter of it. I've been in my own house and it's hardly noticeable. But how do you then divide that up between 180 units? Who gets what of the power that's generated?

Yeah, I believe the circuitry just runs through to the unit. So it's not necessarily because it's condominium ownership. It's not that, you know, if it's above your airspace, it's not a matter of is your panel above your airspace, they can run the circuit, that power to get to everybody's breaker, as far as I understand, but it's way above my pay grade.

Okay. I find it very refreshing not to see gated communities, so I appreciate the openness and I hope we can keep it that way over there. Okay, is there any other questions of the applicant? Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate your presentation. Recording Secretary, have we received any written communique or any member of the public would like to speak on this issue?

Chair Pro Temp, we have received a total of eight emails in the form of public comments for this item before the 3.30 p.m. 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 into 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 nine and then six to unmute yourself. I will wait a few seconds. Chair pro temp, we have five speakers in-house.

Thank you. First speaker, you have three minutes, Desi Ray.

Good afternoon. I'm going to speak to you as a 40-year career in real estate here in the city of Santa Ana. I'm also going to speak to you as president of a homeowners association at Saddleback View, which is a few blocks from there, and also as a president of a homeowners association in a condominium complex down in Morrison Park, which is a community. I don't know where to start, but let me see. 31, I believe they mentioned 31 additional parking spaces for those units that have four bedrooms for the flex commercial. I believe those are going to be used by these tenants or residents. Where's guest parking? I mean, when we have guests, all of us have guests in our houses, right? I don't see enough parking here. And this is going to be definitely an overflow into the residential community by Mary Park. Already Fruit Street, it's in Wellington Street. down behind the Albertsons. There's a lot of congregation there of crime, people parking crime. I just called the cops on Wellington Street, which is up by the Albertsons, because people there parked their cars to sleep in their cars, and they arrested two felons the other day. So they cleaned it up. And then in my neighborhood, by Saddleback, Down the street, we have McClay, Linwood, and Eastside. Those are the only ways out and into our neighborhood on 4th Street, right before you get to Grand Avenue. So as these developments come in, I mean, cars are already backing up from Grand East to Cabrillo. So we are locked in sometimes. It's not happening very often, but it's happening now. Off of Linwood, we can't get out during the rush hour. So for Public Works, maybe they should take a look at what they can do there. Maybe put lines for cars to park and not to block the intersection during high traffic. So that needs to be looked at. Maybe crosswalks too. Let me see. Gated, the gated community. You know, being a homeowners association, a president of a homeowners association down by Morrison Park, we gated our community because of transience. And I see this as a problem over here. There's no, it's not gated. It's going to add more to the association dues because we're going to have to have a dial patrol company to patrol the area. And they really don't do much. um so all these things um there's no amenities here there's no pool so I think by getting it um it adds a huge amenity and attracts more value to the property and makes people feel more secure I mean I got a lot more things to talk about but I hope you got my what I'm thinking of thank you thank you sir David Goddard

My name is Dave Goodheart. I live in the Shady Hollow neighborhood, which is just past the park at Cabrillo Park. I know I've checked the I'm opposed to this, but I'm actually largely in favor of more houses in this area. It's a great community. I love raising my kids here. Then this project does a lot of things right. I will acknowledge. Thank you actually for not gating it. My neighborhood is not gated. It's very safe for my family, and I love the fact that friends can come in without dealing with a gate. or breaking the gate constantly, which happens at my mother-in-law's place. I'm going to highlight the massive traffic choke point here that has been addressed, and that's 4th and Cabrillo. Everyone in this complex must drive to get in and out. I know I saw a lot of bicycles and all the pictures tonight, but let's be honest, there's zero bicycle infrastructure on 4th or Cabrillo. There's nothing. There's not even a painted bicycle lane. All the traffic light at 4th and Cabrillo does not have enough capacity for current traffic levels, especially for everyone heading east on 4th Street and then turning left onto Cabrillo Park Drive. Everyone in the neighborhoods on Cabrillo Park Drive must turn left here if they're coming from the 5 freeway in either direction or coming from downtown Santa Ana. I'll go through this intersection tonight getting home. Currently, cars waiting to turn left overflow into the pocket, blocking the through lanes. This is happening at all hours of the day and the night. This is also happening while this product is being considered underutilized. And the center point project that's going on next door, that's 500 units, I believe, has not opened. It can't handle what's currently there. The new apartments that are going in as well add additional headaches beyond just more people turning left. Residents will be able to make U-turns. Currently, nobody has any reason to make a U-turn there, so that slows people going left. Also, Centerpoint and this project are listed as walkable projects. It's what you guys are advertising it as, which is going to further increase traffic going through there because now we have additional pedestrian cycles going through, less people able to turn left. Your traffic team tonight did highlight that changes are coming to this intersection. However, those changes only benefit people leaving the intersection on 4th Street. There's nothing to address the people coming in. The traffic's so bad, actually, if you look at Google Maps for the intersection, you will see the pocket overflowing with cars. Trying to turn left here. Again, I am in favor of housing here. We do need more people living here. I constantly have friends asking me, hey, can we move in the neighborhood? And there's nothing. I like my neighbors. They're fantastic. We have community parties. but this project as is chokes access to the neighborhoods that are already there, in addition to the parking problems that you heard mentioned tonight. Again, doing the math, this project is 579 bedrooms, if I did the math correctly, and it's only 407 parking spaces. This is a problem, especially considering the underutilized area currently is actually used for overflow parking. I know they're not supposed to, but everyone going to a baseball game at Cabrillo Park is parking in this area. They won't have anywhere to park, especially if you guys try to make this little court park street that's coming in only for those residences. It's going to make it worse for the park goers. Thank you for hearing me out.

Thank you, sir. I'm a little hard to read. Gail Olivas. Olivas, thank you.

Good evening, hello commissioners and staff. Okay. You know I love Santa Ana, and you know I want what's best for her. And my goal in life at this point is to leave a better Santa Ana for my children and my grandchildren. That's why I come here and you see me sit there at every one of your meetings, and I see you approve all these projects. Stop. You've got to stop at some point. What are we doing? You have a seven-story building going on to the west, right adjacent to this property. You have a seven-story building going on to the east of this property. you have the kaiser building at 1974 that's my kaiser that i go to what are we doing folks come on 188 townhouses with 400 spaces for parking Makes no sense to me. And I do not like the box style architecture. It's not attractive. I don't like the color blue on my apartments. You're taking away Santa Ana. You're taking away her history. You're taking away the Spanish style of homes. And I think that the only people that are benefiting from all of this, as you can tell, I'm against the One Broadway Plaza project. Are there developers? They're the ones that benefit from this, not us, not the future of Santa Ana, not my children, not my grandchildren. If you think traffic, whatever was there earlier, saying it's going to reduce the parking, you are wrong. It's not. The traffic is horrible alone. I would say, if anything, I'm against this project and I will tell my friends and foes and my business associates of reasoning why. But I think what I would like to see if you really care developer KB development about Santa Ana, you care about the residents. Why don't you make more houses available for the low income? I'm all for generational wealth. I'm all for that. I want my children to be able to buy a home and their children to be able to buy a home. That's the way you develop generational wealth for the citizens of Santa Ana. I'm not here to make, to appease Tustin or Orange or anybody else. I want to appease Santa Ana. And that should be your priority up here today, not the developers. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Victor Mendez.

Good evening. My name is Victor Mendez. I'm president of the Zoo District Neighborhood Association, which sits in this particular development. And I'm coming here to support this project full-heartedly. I want to make some comments, though, because I think there are some state misunderstandings, both from the public and from the commissioners themselves about this area. First off, we've had a robust effort to clean up First Street. And the reason why I say First Street, First Street was hardly touched. So this gentleman was talking about crime and transients. They did exist, but on First Street. And we did a good job of cleaning it up to the point where the street actually sparkles, frankly, in my efforts. I didn't see much in that particular area of the project, not to say it could happen. But the real hot spot was where I lived and further down up to Zoo Lane. Not much was happening in this particular area. Not to say it will happen in three years, but your concerns are misplaced, frankly. That said, I do support the gate because we have a gate and we still have problems. So I definitely think a nice gate would have would be very helpful. The gentleman, Mr. Leo, was talking about people going to the parking lot from my neighbors on 2021. Well, all that's been kind of displaced because there's a huge parking lot that has been put in place. I don't know what the future is going to be for that lot, but a lot of those issues of people kind of finding spots has kind of gone away, enough to say they don't exist. But people aren't playing those games they will. If the games are being played, they're being played by people from the outside coming in. And as I said, with the cleanup that's gone on, a lot of that issue has gone away too. Not to say it doesn't exist, but it's not the concern that was probably a year and a half ago. Thank you, Mayor V. Thank you, myself. Thank you, the neighborhood. Thank you for Commander Gutierrez. All that happened because a lot of hard work So just be aware of that. The concern about the access to the Cabrillo Park, well, I have 600 kids at 2021 that have to walk a mile or so to get to Cabrillo Park. I think you'd be concerned about that, not somebody who's 50 yards away. So that's 200 having to go across First Street, busy traffic. Sure, I'm talking to you, Mr. Leo. Be nice. have to walk across tracks so i think that would be should be your concern not having to walk 50 yards in a nice air in a nice sidewalk so uh that was something else the other thing was on on the affordable portability points you know i think it's pretty good i mean you know should it be more sure but um i don't know it's just it's just a tough thing to do and we just need more housing last of all infrastructure more importantly than anything I've been pushing for First Street to get cleaned up and infrastructure has been a hard delay. I don't know how progress is going to be slow, but I can. I would encourage you to look at infrastructure and traffic management. Thank you. Oh, one last spot. You can put a 48 hour limit on those parking spots like we do where I live. 48 hour limit and that's a way to kind of avoid and ensure that these cars are turning over and no one's parking there permanently. Thank you.

Thank you, Victor. Amelia Rodriguez. Am I saying that, Ramirez? I'm sorry. Emilio Ramirez?

is that correct hey ramirez that's right thank you i'm emily ramirez board three i live in mabry park so right behind where this development is and i'm very much in favor i am very happy to see that we're having more development in this area i just have a newborn and i'm excited to see and to think that maybe one day he'll be able to live close by if he chooses to do so uh just to address a couple of things as well is that one uh affordable housing really comes from uh less restrictions which will come back up here with the sony code updates i wish we talked more about people housing and not so much about car housing a lot about parking and cars and i take fruit street down to my work as well and get on the five and that is a choice and that is how our cities were built but santana should be more bold and i see us taking this bold step forward and we should be doing enough this sony code update doesn't happen very often and for me i wish there wasn't any parking minimums let the market decide if the most of these units didn't come with the parking then people that don't want to have a car can just buy that place and it'll probably be cheaper because parking is a big cost developers don't really make that much money unlike popular belief they only have like a five percent margin so most of it is construction so it all comes down to what the city allows and that is the job of this commission and that is the job of the city as a whole as well as the staff so uh like the gentleman before mentioned a lot of it is about infrastructure too again i live there i'm a homeowner in this area i own a single family home and honestly i wish it was a little more compact i don't need that much lawn and even though i own cars i would be happy to be penalized for what it does to our city since roadway maintenance is a big cost to the city and I take my bike to work and I work in South County, so I take the bus as well. I think more people would be emboldened to do that if they looked at their Google Maps and they saw that the difference was shorter. And the only reason that it isn't is because we've allotted a lot of benefits to cars, but that doesn't have to be all that way. So I am very happy to see that there's gonna be commerce in this development as well i'm really itching to be able to grab some coffee with my wife and son and walk there right now we don't have a non-chain option for that so that is very nice and i guess lastly i saw there on the rendering that you were planning on putting palm trees i would really hope kb doesn't do that please consider planting some native trees maybe oaks or sycamore something that has a lot of canopy because we have these heat waves and it's impossible to walk on the sidewalk

so i think that's within the purview of this planning commission please consider that thank you thank you sir the public testimony portion of the public hearing is now closed i think that we did have a few questions for the staff any commissioners have any additional questions for staff seeing none is there a motion to approve this matter

I'd like to move, Vice Chair, before we take a vote. Do you want to provide the applicant an opportunity to respond to the comments provided?

Would the applicant like to respond to any comments provided? No. Moving on.

I have a quick question for Seth. Can you please review for us SB 330? It's a housing emergency, and it's a procedural thing that says that. We cannot pass any moratorium. But basically, we have to approve this. And these two motions, you are approving the site plan and you are approving the vesting tentative track map. Those are two procedural things so that they can begin to move forward on the construction, right?

This is a slide that talks about SB 330. Can you repeat your specific question so that I can address?

And so basically, the two resolution is to move forward.

Correct. Yeah. So the side plan review is finding the project in compliance with the MIMU. And then the vesting tentative track map is finding the subdivision in compliance with all applicable state and local laws.

And to answer the question, why we keep doing this is because it's state mandated.

Go back to Richard. Is there a motion to move this item?

I'd like to move that we adopt a resolution approving the site plan review number 2026-03 as condition and adopt a resolution approving vesting tentative track map number 2026-06 as condition.

Is there a second to that?

I second.

Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Wu, seconded by Commissioner Alderman. Secretary, please take a roll.

Commissioner Guzman?

Aye.

Commissioner Leo?

Aye.

Commissioner Oliva? Aye. Commissioner Pham?

Aye.

Commissioner Wu?

Aye.

Chair Pro Tem Benninger?

Aye.

Chair Ramos?

I would be abstaining since I just joined the meeting.

Motion approved with majority vote with Chair Ramos abstaining. And for the record, I would like to state that Chair Ramos has joined our meeting at 7.28 PM.

Thank you. And I'm gonna kindly request that Vice Chair Benninger continue chairing the meeting.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna go ahead and, call a ten minute break right now before we get into the next item. So we'll be back in ten minutes.

Okay, because we don't just work studies.

Where are you? Thanks, Valeria.

If you want something, there's some .

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I see.

How's that? Amen. You're welcome.

I'm not gonna say anything.

Yeah, it's over there.

Okay, we are back. Just like to announce that Commissioner Olivia she is she's left. She's unfortunately has had a migraine. So she's will not be here for the rest of the meeting. We're, we've just concluded the business calendar. We're moving on to the work study. The item is a comprehensive zoning code update, Part A. And the principal planner on this is Ms. Siri Champion. And she'll provide a brief presentation. Siri, go ahead, please.

Vice Chair, before we begin, I just want to give some opening remarks about this project for the commission and anyone in the audience. The zoning code update is a response to the 2022 general plan update. That was unanimously adopted by the city council and that general plan update touched on many topics open space economic prosperity conservation historic preservation land use being one of them, which is the realm of the planning Commission and, of course, staff in the city council. Implementing action of the general plan is the zoning code update, so the general plan talks about selecting certain areas of the city for new growth. City Council Chambers, talks about preserving other areas and shielding them from growth, unless the state mandates otherwise talks about economic development talks about environmental justice there's a lot of topics covered by the general plan. City Council Chambers, Shortly after the general plan was adopted staff launched a process to update the zoning code which series is going to get into part one of this evening with the Commission and our Community. City Council Chambers, But where we're at tonight is the culmination of several years worth of outreach and engagement with business owners, small and large with residents homeowners renters condominiums single family homes. City Council Chambers, The whole gamut that you could think of is has been contacted and series going to describe the model that we use for outreach, which is truly novel and has resulted in the highest volumes. of outreach and contact that this city has ever seen more so than the general plan, by the way. So I'm very proud of the work staff has done to get to this point tonight. And I just wanted to set it up as this is basically the next step following the general plan update that was done in 2022. Thank you.

Ali, would you like to say how many contacts you've had on this?

I'll save it for Siri. It's a it's a good number. And it was shared at City Council last week.

Just so the public knows, this is really going to be two parts. This is part A. At our next planning meeting, we'll have part B. And then we'll have the actual voting on the third meeting after that. Cherie, please.

Thank you very much for that. Thank you for the intro introduction director possessed rapport. Good evening, Vice Chair Ben injure commissioners. Thank you for the this evening. And thank you to all the members of the community who are here tonight to talk about this important subject matter. Before getting into the presentation, I just wanted to start out with this slide. Staff have espoused this idea that good codes make good communities. And as Director Posesh Kapoor said, we're implementing the general plan, and that idea comes out of the general plan. Yes, through these good codes, we can make good communities, we can preserve existing communities, we can protect and safeguard existing communities. And we can also create opportunities for new communities. And I'm trying to advance the slide. There we go. Now it's moving. As Vice Chair Benninger said, this subject matter of the zoning code update is being split into two separate parts. Given the magnitude of this project, we felt it was important that we highlight community engagement and outreach during one session, and then we follow on with the second session during which we talk about the technical aspects of the zoning code update. So tonight we'll cover outreach approach and status and next planning Commission meeting on August 10 we'll talk about the zoning map and the draft zoning code. So first, the purpose and intent of the update as director possession report said the purpose of the update is to implement the 2022 general plan. And in light of the subject matter for this evening being stakeholder input and engagement, I wanted to underline that the general plan is based on seven years of stakeholder engagement. And that included community meetings and workshops, youth outreach, advisory group meetings, pop up events, surveys, roundtable specifically for environmental justice accompanied by surveys and forms. And then we had EIR scoping meetings for the environmental impact report, and finally concluded with adoption hearings. And the intent of the zoning code update is to really transform the code that we have at this time, which hasn't been updated since the 60s. Now we would like to create a user friendly format that's that's easy to handle for staff for the development community for members of the public and so forth. City Council Chambers, Through the update, we are streamlining land use permitting we're promoting economic development we're working to enhance health and address environmental justice, as well as facilitate housing production and incorporate new state laws. The approach outreach and engagement will be broken down into a few different sections, but first I'd like to start out by talking about the beginning of the community engagement process. We began with a community planning collaborative, which was a group of community members that came together based on this Promotoras model of communication. The Promotores model is a communication framework whereby trusted and trained community members are those liaisons between an agency like the City of Santa Ana and their networks. So the liaisons really are helpful when it comes to educating community members, advocating for participation, and empowering their networks to be involved. In fact, tonight I think we might have a few of the community planning collaborative members in the audience. City Council Chambers, In terms of what happened after the Community planning collaborative we really built built on that promo Taurus model and we accompanied it with traditional outreach methods to get the word out about the project those outreach methods included a website. And someone in the audience asked about this presentation and whether it would be available later. And yes, it will be uploaded to the website where you can find information from the beginning of the project through today. In addition, we've published newsletter articles online. We've canvassed on the street to small business owners and to industrial business owners. We've had multiple email campaigns. We've done social media across all platforms. We have published news articles on the website. We've posted flyers in public places. We've advertised on CTV3, which is the television screens that are in City Hall and on the first floor. We've tabled at public events. We've had announcements at public meetings. We've notified the public through my Santa Ana app. And we've leveraged those organizational networks of the promotoras. In addition, we've made sure to make the project accessible by translating from English into Spanish, Vietnamese, and where requested, into Khmer. In terms of interactions with the stakeholders, so first we covered the outreach, which was how we got the message out to community members. And this slide talks about the ways that community members have interacted with the project. So we put the word out and in response we've invited people to participate through these various activities and we've had stakeholders involved with interviews community and business workshops. We held community meeting presentation we had Commission meetings, during which we made presentations to the various commissions of the city, such as the parks and REC Commission, the the. Oh, I forget the attack acronym for the attack i'll lean on my fellow staff members later on to spell that out. We had a variety of Commission meetings just suffice it to say. City Council Chambers, And then we did field visits to industrial areas, so we can understand the context of some of these issues that have arisen through the public engagement. City Council Chambers, We presented at neighborhood meetings and in response, we saw a high volume of website clicks, we have received a lot of phone calls emails and as a result of those we've had. City Council Chambers, Many different small group meetings and then Lastly, we held this planning Commission study session previously, and now this is adding to those study sessions. In terms of the impact of that outreach and engagement and the feedback that we've received, we have some data that we'd like to share. In terms of touch points, we have had about 800,000 or over 800,000. A touch point means a confirmed time that a message has gone out to stakeholders and community members. So that's through social media, through the emails, through the newsletters that we've sent out and so forth. And in response, we know that this is working because we've had interested stakeholders come to us to ask questions and to provide comments. they're learning about the project they're engaging in the process and they're sharing information with their networks which expands the number of phone calls that we're getting the emails that we're getting and so forth. In total we've had over 12,000 interactions which include clicks on the website phone calls emails meetings with stakeholders and field visits. As far as input is concerned, these next two slides really highlight the nature of the comments that we've been receiving. And they really fall into these two different categories that you'll see on these two slides. So on the one hand, consistent with the general plan, stakeholders want to see a high quality of life and want to see retention of the character of our existing neighborhoods. They also want to see an increase in open space and an increase in parking and neighborhoods. Public health is very important and specifically wanting the stakeholders would like to see a buffer between residential and industrial areas. And then finally we've heard about stakeholders wanting to see commercial areas where they can go and pick up a cup of coffee like we heard from one of our Community members earlier pick up a cup of coffee go take care of business for their family go for entertainment and so forth, and they want to do that in these vibrant and walkable areas. City Council Chambers, And then we heard input from stakeholders and the development community about facilitating economic development. City Council Chambers, By preserving industrial zoning and uses by addressing nonconformity between old uses and new uses and old structures and new structures, reducing parking requirements and enhancing signage. City Council Chambers, We've also heard about facilitating housing development and two of the things that have been highlighted by the development community are high open space requirements and high parking requirements which can make housing development challenging for developers. So we'll talk about those topics further on August 10th. But tonight we're going to talk about the status of the project and how stakeholders can provide input and then we'll look ahead toward the next steps in the process. So we're pleased to say that the public draft of the zoning code update is now available for review. We released it on July 20th and it will be available online through August 24th. which is the night of the planned Planning Commission public hearing. We'll be taking comments beyond that date, but in order to incorporate comments into the draft plan, we would like to see comments from community members by August 24th, and then there will be additional opportunities for engagement after that. And I can come back to this slide later, but if you haven't yet seen the draft plan, please use this QR code and you can go ahead and make comments online on the draft. In terms of the zoning code update, the format that we've I should back up. So as I stated previously, one of the main goals is to make the zoning code update or the zoning code itself easier to navigate. And with that in mind, we've gone with a very intuitive format for the code, which includes nine articles plus the zoning map. The first article covers the purpose and applicability and is administrative in nature. Article two covers districts uses and standards. And this is part of the meat and potatoes of the zoning code. This is where we talk about what districts are distributed throughout the city, what uses can be established within those zoning districts and the standards for both development and design. Article three covers standards for all zoning districts meaning parking fences and walls signage the variety of types of of improvements that are applicable throughout the city, regardless of what zoning district you're in. City Council Chambers, Then article for as you standard citywide these include things like group homes massage establishments. City Council Chambers, A variety alcohol and alcohol businesses, a variety of different types of businesses that have special standards, so that they can be regulated on their own. City Council Chambers, Article five is housing related regulations article six is made up of a discussion of nonconformity and the regulations therein. Article 7 has to do with permit procedures and how we review conditional use permits. It includes a recommendation of our new type of permit called a minor conditional use permit. It also covers variances and the other types of permits that are used to approve new land uses throughout the city. And then Article 8 covers administration of the zoning code, and Article 9 is really important. People ask questions about different use types, and those would be addressed through the definitions and accompany the different uses that are in the tables in Article 2. And then lastly, the zoning code includes a zoning map. An important aspect of making the zoning code more accessible is the use of tables and graphics. You see a couple of examples here. I wanted to highlight the interactive nature of the web-based draft. So when you use that QR code and load this webpage, you'll land here. The Santa Ana Zoning Code Update webpage includes a preamble and then a list of the different articles that are included in the zoning code. In the left-hand corner you can see it says click because you can click on any of these different zoning sections, these different articles. And then at the bottom of the screen it will populate with that specific article. Users can then go to this side of the screen and click on these quote marks. And once they click that, they'll be able to type directly into the zoning code their specific comments. We've already seen activity on the interactive site. Here you can see a set of comments that have been made about a section of the code. We're not diving into specific comments today, but I wanted to share that so you could see the activity to date. In addition, there is an interactive zoning map and members of the public can go on there, click on any parcel within the zoning map, and they can type in comments as well. As of 830 this morning. We've had 623 total readers of those total readers about four have made comments and they've made about 29 comments. Well, they've made 29 comments as of 830 this morning. In terms of of looking forward and the next steps, the State mandates noticing for this type of a project, and the minimum requirement is one eighth page display in a local newspaper, and the city's approach is to go far beyond that, and to actually directly notify all property owners, business owners and tenants citywide. We also will continue distributing information through the Promotoris model with their social networks. And then in addition, we'll continue to use those with major impacts such as social media, newsletters, and My Santa Ana app, which really pushes the message to thousands and thousands of people. And then we'll continue using the additional methods that we've used to date. In terms of the notification plan the the magnitude appears on this slide so for those postcards will be mailing to 280,510 individuals. That represents one per property owner per resident and per business owner or tenant for each hearing so one notice will go out for the planning Commission public hearing and a second notice will go out for the City Council public hearing. And the final layer to the notification plan includes newsletters and articles emails to our stakeholders, the use of social media, as previously mentioned, will continue posting in public places will continue using the CTV three. interactive. screens and the my Santa Ana APP as well as using the automated voicemail that the city has and continuing to push the information out through the permit Taurus. In terms of opportunities for engagement, stakeholders will be able to speak with staff through stakeholder meetings. We're happy to meet one-on-one or in small groups with stakeholders. We're happy to go out and make presentations. Really staff are available for the kind of input that stakeholders would like to make in the forum that works for them, either in these small group meetings or through presentations. We also have a second Planning Commission study session. We have a City Council study session scheduled, and then we'll conclude with the Planning Commission public hearing and the City Council public hearing. In terms of dates, that includes August 10th, which is the Planning Commission study session Part B, where we'll talk about the details of the zoning map and the zoning code. On August 24th, we're planning for the Planning Commission public hearing. On September 15 we plan for a city council study session, followed by the city council public hearing and first reading on October 6 and the second reading on November 17. I wanted to share this slide so that members of the audience could see my name and our contact information and the website. We can come back to this if anyone has questions later, I also have business cards for anyone in the audience that might want one. So tonight, the goal is to provide the Planning Commission with this information and to engage in a discussion about the outreach and engagement to date. We're happy to answer your questions and we're happy to take in feedback that you might have about the outreach and engagement that we've completed so far. Thank you.

Okay, Commissioners have any questions of staff?

Thank you, Sari, and thank you, Ali. I want to speak as a resident first. I remember going through the seven-year study, and thank you to the neighborhood improvement and Margarita, through the Artesia Pilar neighborhood association. I remember those meetings we had there, and all the I don't like this, and I don't like this, and why are we doing this? We went through all that, and we And then we went to another meeting. We played with those little Lego models, placing things where we want. Carl and I was there. We were arguing about something happening on first feet. But all that was taken down and provided through the general planning process and then serving on the planning commission to adopt it. I could see that a lot of the comments, the objective comments enter into the general plan, which set a goal and a vision for Santa Ana that really reflected what everyone wanted, cultural arts, embracing the different diversity, building businesses so they could get a great job, and protecting neighbourhood integrity. And then Jenna got me a copy of the update, which is this big book. It's heavy. I had this Thursday and I went through it. and started marking through it, and thank you for that. I like the paper, but as I was talking to Commissioner Pham, he went and got the web-based thing and played around with it, and it was helpful for him as an architect, because he could press here and press there and all that. I had to kind of search through it, which brings me to a point I'm trying to make. I can see in this thing, which sets out the goal, it has a section on, because as a former neighborhood resident leader. It has a section on economic development, streamlining, health and environmental justice, and housing production, and most important of all, neighborhood character, focused development, and contemporary living. And it spells out policy for responsible, focused growth, and compatible uses. And then it spells out the different things. So as I was reading for it, I was looking for a whole chapter or something that just focused on that. But then I went, ah, everything in each section have those kinds of neighborhood integrity and those kinds of focus there. So it's not that we don't have something. This makes it more uniform with the drawings and arrows and example. But It's more of an enforcement issue. And that enforcement issue is that if the city is not notified of it, if you don't have a neighboring meeting about it, if you don't get the inspector out there to take care of it, and you don't find it on the books that they are violating it, because it does say if they're in violation of this, this is what you do. So it takes upon the citizen part involvement to use it. and go there and talk to city staff when they think of things that they'd like to talk about. But then I think the key word, as we were talking about it, is that this is a very objective document to fulfill the mission and the dream that we have. And the dream is kind of broad, you know, and visionary, where we see the future of an aspiration of the city. to reflect all those comments in all the meetings that were held and including the survey through the website and surveys that went out. And I know that you reached out to neighborhood leaders and neighborhood residents because I happened to answer one of the home phone, which is the one that my wife used for the Artesia Pilar neighborhood and reminded her about the meeting tonight, you know, and she would be here as if she's working. So I can verify that actually you guys did call out to people to be here, and she notified some of her residents, but I don't see anyone from the neighborhood here. So that's what I have to say about the process and the update. I think this is a beautiful piece of work, codifying and orderly looking at it. So if we have a problem, we go and see the different example. That's all my comment. Now, this doesn't address all the problems that many people see and all that, but it's a way of getting information so that you could be better informed to detect the problem.

Commissioner Pham, any comments? Okay. Commissioner Leo?

I've got some. Paul Minehart, City of Boulder, Sarah do me a favor just put your put your contact information on my people take out your phones just take a picture of her information you're going to want to talk to her and staff. Paul Minehart, City of Boulder, So take a picture and do what you need to do, because everybody's going to have questions, especially once the zoning map gets up on the screen next meeting and think about your questions. Paul Minehart, City of Boulder, So being a longtime resident of the city i'm glad we're. We're almost at the point where we're going to set some real ground rules and kind of figure out where we're going to go as a city. The youngest city in the county, one of the big economic engines in the county, and we really need to figure out how we continue forward, where we have some old businesses that have kept us afloat for a long time, and we have some new businesses, and we have a lot of new residents, and we have to figure out how to balance it all. What I'll be looking for in the map when you guys present the map, the first thing is how we're going to generate economic development and revenue so that we can provide the services to the residents of the city. Every city in this county is struggling. You can take out newspaper, look online, everybody's thinking about a tax increase. Santa Ana has already done it on some of the poorest people in the county. And it's helping us, though. We've had park openings. We've had other things done. So the The citizens of Santa Ana made a decision to invest in Santa Ana. We're going to have to balance, and I'll look at it more, we're going to have to balance out business interests and the environment. But revenue has to be produced to keep the city moving, pave the streets, and all the other things that get done. The other thing I think that we've done a lot of is try to clean up the corridors. main corridors and and if you haven't seen the investment that's been put on first street recently it's a lot but it's it's a gateway into the city others other entrances to the city are fine you can see the development down in macarthur in the 55 freeway you can see all over the city we're trying to fix the corridors so i'm going to really look at the corridors because that will generate that can generate revenue And how flexible are we? Are we doing commercial with flex? Are we doing industrial? What are we allowing? What are we doing? That'll be something else that I will look at. And obviously the environment, because we're such a compact center, we were the industrial base of the county for a long time, along with Flat Anaheim. So we have remnants of a mess. There are environmental messes that have to get cleaned up and we're going to have to deal with those. And we all in this county, all of us here, we live through the chemical scare. in Garden Grove. If you don't think there's more of those sites in this county, there are plenty. You guys know if you lived here as long as I have and others, this was a defense industry based economy. So we have those things that still exist, but it's fine. But we have to provide the flexibility so those businesses can move. And I'll give you guys an example of what we did recently. Us up here, we approved buildings down near Calvary Chapel High School in Santa Ana off of Susan. Enderal, as you know, is a drone-making company. They needed flex space, and I think many of the businesses here need flex space. And we gave it to them, commercial flex, so they could grow. And I think that that's where I'll be coming from as we move forward with the zoning map. We're going to have to balance out the business and environmental. That's a given. But the residents, we have areas where there are industrial and commercial, but the neighborhoods are somewhat removed from a lot of it. Not as much as you'd hope, but we'd hope. And so that's kind of what I'll be looking for. I appreciate all the outreach. It's not easy. And you're going to hear people say, I didn't know about it. Because we hear it all the time. Did you do the 1,000 notices? Oh, can you do the 2,000 notices? Did you go to five meetings? Did you go to 10 meetings? Keep at it. People will hear about it. Hopefully we can get it all over the place. But I appreciate all the work from staff. But this is what it's about. We're planning for the future. And as I commented when we were away from the dais, there's a lot going on in Santa Ana. If you go to other cities, go to other cities and tell me what's going on. A lot going on here. And I appreciate everybody who's here because that shows that you care about your business, you care about your neighborhood, and you care about the city. And that's what's, I think, most important to all of us, that you're willing to spend time with us tonight longer. Probably some of you are kind of hungry, but we'll get through this. But all your input is necessary. so that we can make the right decision so we can move the city forward. So that's what I'll be looking for when we get to the next extended phase of this, which will be a much longer meeting than tonight. Thank you.

Commissioner Guzman.

I just want to thank staff for the outreach that you guys did. Well, above and beyond, like Commissioner Leo said, some people are going to say I never got the notice. I never saw the City Council Chambers, I never saw the APP notification, but really. City Council Chambers, This effort has been gargantuan monumental and I, as a Santa resident I really appreciate it. City Council Chambers, The things i'll be looking at our parking. City Council Chambers, I, just like everybody else I just received the zoning code update I wasn't even a planning Commissioner until a couple weeks ago or last week I don't even know. City Council Chambers, So I will be looking at that I know that parking is an issue in the city of Santa Ana. I will also be trying to navigate and figure out how to balance the industrial areas with the residential areas that are close by and how the zoning code navigates that. But, you know, great job, great job doing the outreach staff. I really appreciate all the efforts you and the promotoras model, wonderful in all the languages you provided it. I commend you. Good job.

In general, to keep the spirit of this is the communication scoping of the zoning update, I think like Commissioner Wu mentioned, someone that practiced architecture, I really appreciate the code having a lot more visuals to it. It not only helps the person that's doing the development, but also just the general public, because I'm sure that you always have questions about can I do this here, can I do that here. It's very hard to explain with just words, but if there are diagrams like what you provided thus far, I think it's very appreciated. And that kind of ties into what I've seen playing staff, the tools of playing staff have used to communicate the zoning update. I was talking to Siri before, the zoning map has a slider. that you can slide to see the previous zoning, and then the new zoning. So you kind of have a general sense of what's changing within the city, without kind of like hearsay about Oh, this person told me this is going to happen. That person told me it's, it's very clear and objective. And I think that's the goal that we want to have moving forward. Now for the lower housekeeping, because I see a lot of residents here. You know, obviously, pen on paper, there's charts, there's pictures, there's divisions, there's a full binder in front of us. So when we are soliciting comments and input from here to the next work study session and ultimately the next hearing, you know, what are you expecting from the comments? Is it more of to kind of reinforce things that you've already done that we might want to tweak? or is it an open book? Hey, I don't like this section. Let's remove it. And you come back in the next 60 days with a new section. I think if you could illustrate that to us, to the residents, to define our scope.

Also, I'd like to remind you, there are some things that are in and above our jurisdiction, such as state mandates, that although here it might say the setback requires 20 feet, we might have to make a difference because they cite a state SB or AB that we have to follow and it supersedes our authority. So please keep that in mind. We'll try our best. Perhaps Commissioner Ury has something to say.

We will get to her in just a minute. Did you get your answer?

let the public know and us what kind of the scoping is.

Thank you for the question, Commissioner fan. The intent of the public outreach and the input at this stage is to take in comments period. So whatever the nature of your comments is, I would say they're welcome. Having said that, there are certain pieces of the draft, like the format. So Article 1 contents will remain in Article 1, Article 2 contents will remain in Article 2, and so forth. So we're not looking for comments that would totally reformat the whole thing. But ultimately, the decision needs to go to the decision makers, and the recommendation comes from the Planning Commission on to City Council. So we'll take in all the comments received, we'll organize them, we'll present them to you on the August 24th Planning Commission public hearing, and then it's up to the Planning Commission to reflect on those comments, reflect on what staff is recommending, and then to make the recommendation to City Council.

And one last comment. In general, I know it's probably hard to quantify, but is there specific portions of the city that we've gotten more input than others? Meaning, are there kind of like areas of concern that seems to be more pressing maybe, you know, certain areas have more commercial activity, there's less input, because there's just tenants in the commercial, whereas there's like historic districts that seem to have more volume of input than others, just to give us a context of, you know, obviously, such a large zoning map, but what are the areas of concern that you've seen from via communications?

The input that we've received at times is associated with a location, but the majority of the time we don't hear that they're commenting on a specific neighbourhood. But when we do hear of specific locations, we hear about areas north of the transit zoning code, the SD84 transit zoning code to the north of that. I think tonight you'll probably hear from members of the public that represent other neighborhoods, and I'll let you hear from them in terms of what their geography is. Beyond that, I can't think of any. Oh, and then out to the west end of Santa Ana Boulevard, we've heard some comments from stakeholders out there. But generally speaking, we don't hear about specific locations, and I anticipate that will change when we receive comments on the zoning map itself.

Chair Enormous, would you like to make any comment?

Yes, thank you. I wanted to start by saying that I also appreciate all the work that has been done by City staff and appreciate all of the work that has been done by the community and by residents that have chosen to be active members of this process and that are also requesting more. Now reminding of the general plan process and how thorough it became um which was ultimately the best for this community and that also came because the community requested it and because the community you know said we need to do a bit more so i i Again, I want to say thank you to staff and thank you to our residents that have been involved and would also ask that we continue to work with and directly with the residents that are requesting additional engagement. I think it's a great thing to have members of our community that want to be very directly involved. So I'm not sure what that can look like. I know that we will have a part two to the study session at our next Planning Commission meeting in about two three weeks depending on you know when the second monday of the month falls on but i'm wondering if there's room to have city staff meet uh directly with some of the members of this community before that meeting and you know start to start answering questions and to start uh maybe doing a review of the zoning code update that is not public with them before that planning meeting before that planning commission meeting But yeah, but overall, I'm very excited to see this. I think it's great that we're now going to be looking at how the code will actually implement all of the great things that are in the general plan. And I am very, I'm going to be very focused as well on the environmental justice element and all of the zoning code updates that will help bring that element to life. While the city has many industrial areas, there are a few areas of the city that have the bulk of our industrial areas. And that has meant that neighborhoods, some specific neighborhoods have been very disproportionately impacted compared to the rest of the city. So I, yeah, I ask that we all take a close look at that. And then also just look at how different neighborhoods have been impacted by different things and how the zoning code update can help improve the quality not just implement all of the great things of the general plan but how the zoning code update can help materially improve the quality of life for residents today very good thank you um my comments are along this way because I've heard I've heard from industry I've heard from environmental over the last couple weeks uh the general plan

Right now, where could a person look at the general plan so they could compare some of those points in terms of general plan to look at this? That is on city website, correct? General plan?

That is correct.

Okay. And how does one find it on a website?

The easiest way to find it would be to simply search Santa Ana General Plan, and the main page pops up at the top of your screen. If anyone has questions or difficulty finding it, they can contact me, and we can also make a link from the zoning code update web page.

Very good. For those that will be coming with questions in the next couple sessions, and you refer back to General Plan, Please educate us as to what you see different. I've already taken some questions that we're not living up to the environmental portion, but when I ask the question how and where, I don't get any answers. It's just we're not living up to the general plan. So educate us as to where you see the difference and where you would see, where do you want to go with it? It will help us up here. Again, I thank Siri and planning this as one large project. I hope they have a bottle of champagne ready for those things over and done with to say yes. But it is something that has just actually been needed. I'm gonna throw a question out there right now, kind of a curve ball. How much of the plan is being proposed to be changed? Are we looking at 30%, 40%, 10%? If you had to put a number on zoning, how much of zoning do you see us changing?

Let me make sure I follow your question. I like the curveball. You're asking what percentage of the existing zoning code is changing?

Correct.

100%.

Okay. Take your time to please the website, or if not, as I have gotten a printed copy, go through it, because this is a major change for the city that we're going to go through. And the point being is that we can recommend to the council, the council has final say, and those meetings will be important when it reaches to the council. Okay. Any other questions of staff? We're going to open up the public testimony portion of this hearing right now. Recording Secretary, have we received any written communications? And is there any member of the public wishes to speak?

Chair pro temp we have received a total of three emails in the form of public comments for this item before the 330pm 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 into 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 Pro Temp, we have nine speakers in-house and two speakers in Zoom.

Very good. I'd like to take the Zoom at first, if we can. When the secretary mentions your telephone number, how are you going to call them on Zoom?

They have names, so I'll be calling off their name.

Okay, please call the first one on Zoom, please.

First speaker in Zoom is Diana. We are ready for you.

Hi there, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hi there. I just wanted to praise the team under Ali and Suri. You guys have been doing a remarkable job. My name is Diana Vogel. I'm with the Vogel Victorian located on the corner of Spurgeon and Civic Center. I have proposed a small business to the city and they said, well, it doesn't meet our zoning codes. So, you know, I'm pretty determined. And I said, well, how do we change that? And it's been two years I've been involved with Ali and his team. and i should say the handholding i have received has been extraordinary i have received in-person meetings they have come to the property they have hosted me my husband um in person in chamber and i am so grateful for the amount of cooperation and support i've gotten from the city um it did take some gumption on my part to be persistent. So I do want to make sure that others in the community and as a resident know that we can as residents build our own community. I'm not somebody coming in with a lot of money to try to build a business here. Me and my husband spent our entire savings and quit our jobs to make sure we plant roots here in Santa up the economy. So not on park area. Not only do we of French Park, but we w growth of the area with business and we've gotte and support. So I just ca you so much and to not gi resident, it takes a long but it is worth it and it sounds like a lot of red tape um and it is honestly that's something i hope they work on but i just again want to thank the uh team i want to thank ollie i want to thank everybody who has been involved in this process and i have high hopes that the zoning will come through and pass so that we can move forward with our business and help uh contribute to the city of santa ana that's it thank you ma'am

Next speaker will be Erica Gonzalez. We're ready for you.

Yes. Hi. Good evening, everyone. My name is Erica Gonzalez. I'm a lifelong Del High resident, and I'm also a director for Orange County Environmental Justice. And I've been a part of, as well as the organization that I'm a part of, OCEJ has been a part of this zoning code update from the beginning. so i do want to say and appreciate say thank you for all the hard work that has gone into this update because i know that it's been tedious and it's definitely been a long road but i also want to uplift commissioner ramos's comment about being more inclusive with residents i'll say that as a resident i don't feel like i was um involved as much as i i could have been and i agree with the previous speaker that you need a lot of gumption and you need a lot of persistence to be able to get answers um regarding the the update as well as other topics throughout the city but um i do want to say that i i urge you to make it more accessible for working class families because allowing only two study sessions is is really um unfortunate because you are are not allowing enough um time for residents to really review this update thoroughly because i'll be honest i've been trying to review it on my own and this isn't the first time that i reviewed um these types of documents but it's very tedious and it's it's a little difficult to read at times um so i worry that you know other folks are not going to be able to to really grasp the update or what's being proposed for this update and being that this is going to be the first update in 50 years i think it's extremely important that we have all levels all income classes of residents involved and that we don't have any type of language barriers because um i just feel like that that language accessibility tends to be um one of the biggest barriers in the city although we've come a long way i think that there's still room for improvement so um i do want to say that uh i think that we need more involvement with community members directly um i know that we put together a committee and that we've been helping to ensure that the 77 ej policies that were introduced are carried out but i also want to ensure that once these policies are implemented or put on paper, that there's actually protocols to make sure that they're put in place. Like, it's great that we're going to have this on paper and that we're going to update our zoning code update. But I want to make sure that the there's protocols in place to make sure that things that changes that are going to be proposed are actually carried out. And the last thing I wanted to mention and bring up was in regards to the flex corridor or the flex zoning. um as a resident along the standard corridor we've mentioned multiple times that we we want either a carbon sink or green space or something thank you thank you thank you thank you for your comment switching now to in in-house uh mr thomas boza are you here

okay um maria marn

Ah, mas o menos. Buenas tardes a todos. Mi nombre es Maria Marin y represento a la Asociación de Vecinos de Cornerstone, una organización activa con una sólida visión, y estamos listos para aportar comentarios sobre la, el código de actualización. El código de, perdón, el código de zonificación. Um, um. Tenemos reportes de que hay indicios de que nuestra salud se ha visto afectada. Por ejemplo, las tasas de asma infantil son especialmente altas en la zona de Cornerstone. A principios de la década del 2000, se sospechó que había un grupo de casos de leucemia. de leucemia infantil cerca de la escuela primaria Kennedy. Nosotros vivimos en una zona donde hay industrias las cuales usan materiales o químicos, ¿no? materiales o químicos que están afectando a nuestra salud. Nadie nos pone atención. Simplemente aprueban los negocios que se abren y no miran las regulaciones o no se, no toman en cuenta qué químicos están utilizando y cómo nos perjudican a nosotros. El código de sonificación de la señora Siri ha estado con nosotros, yo creo, como en dos o tres ocasiones. Mencionó que se hicieron como 12,000 reuniones. pero de esas 12,000, ella dijo 200,000, pero en el papel dice 12,000, pero en estas creo que hemos tenido tres en nuestro vecindario. Desafortunadamente no se nos ha dado bien bien lo que es el código de zonificación. A grandes rasgos se han llevado a cabo o tienen proyectos de apartamentos, pero que desafortunadamente nosotros como residentes no es que el tiempo se va no no podemos vivir en ellos simplemente nos están alterando lo que es el tráfico y la contaminación ambiental nuestros niños muchos de los niños de nuestro vecindario caminan a las escuelas hay mucho tráfico y no hay muchos semáforos o muchas personas que puedan estar cuidando a nuestros hijos entonces Thank you.

Reminder, as an interpreter, it's really difficult to grasp three minutes without pause. But I understand those are our rules right now. But I'll try. I'll do the best I can. My name is Maria Marin. I am part of Commerce with Only Visions. I'm sorry. My name is Maria Marin. I am with Commerce of Visions. Here, we've been listening to their sonification codes. We've been looking at your screens. However, that's not really explained by every topic. You just place a lot of information on the screens. In our neighborhoods, we have Lots of industries in our neighborhoods, which brings a lot of contamination, which affects our health a great deal. We have a lot of cases of asthma among our young kids and our youth. Since 2000, we've had even some cases of leukemia on our jutes right by Kennedy School. There is a lot of chemicals that are affecting our health and our well-being. I hear we hear in here that you we approve a lot of business and we talk a lot about business, but we don't really talk in depth about all the chemicals that are in our city. We mentioned the the 12,000 on the screen. The 12,000 meetings, even though ma'am mentioned 200,000, it's 12,000 meetings. We ourselves had three meetings in our neighborhoods. They've talked about projects for apartments, but we can't leave because this is altering and affecting our health. Our kids have to, there's a lot of traffic. This is going to bring more traffic. Our kids walk to school. We have to keep that in mind. We need more traffic lights. We need to care about our people. We need more green spaces, and we need to care for our kids and our neighborhoods better. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Kim Fortin.

Good evening. My name is Kim Fortune. I'm a professor at the University of California, Irvine and director of EcoGovLab, a research unit that specializes in the study of environmental governance in settings around the world. And since 2021, we've worked here in Santa Ana, partnering with environmentally disadvantaged communities in the city to help them and us understand their problems and possible solution pathways. So since we've been here since 2021, it was really in the last phases of the general plan being updated that we came to know the city really intimately. And it's from that vantage point that I offer my comments here. First, I want to note that in summer 2025, we were promised a draft, a written draft of the zoning code update that was reiterated at meetings in October. We just got it in the last week or so, and now it's on a fast course for finalization. I find that we certainly can't provide research support to your most vulnerable communities on that timeframe. i also want to comment on the community engagement public participation that has been described to us and while i have appreciated the leadership and the sincerity of many city staff i must insist that the quantity of messages pushed out is not a measure of best practice community engagement The measure is in when your most vulnerable communities are heard and their feedback incorporated into decision making, and then that's shared back with the community. We haven't gotten any of that. I want to also voice the prize that at all the meetings that I've attended, I've never seen sustained systematic attention to the general plan, and particularly its environmental justice policies. And as a teacher, I see this as a matching exercise. You have a general plan commitment, an EJ policy in particular, how is the zoning code reflecting and honoring that? And I've never seen that work done systematically. I also want to note that I haven't seen economic analyses that would support the claim that keeping areas industrial is actually good for revenue and will keep the city going. With community members, I've walked the streets and driven in the industrial corridor on the east side of the city. And particularly, think about Edinger and McFadden, Grand and Standard, that kind of bubble out to Century High School. There are so many underutilized properties, apparently not very prosperous properties, because they're not nicely maintained.

Your time is up, thank you, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. James Adams?

James Adams, Hello, my name is James Adams, I am associate director of legal gov lab I work with Kim fortune and kind of picking up where she left off. James Adams, Looking at the 800,000 touch points the 12,000 interactions those are impressive numbers, but I wanted to focus on some of the changes. that have happened in the planning since that feedback has been incorporated. And in particular, the shift from the original plan of designating the areas that I'm most invested in as a researcher partnering with the Cornerstone Village Neighborhood Association which includes the shift from the business park to the residential industrial interface. And the original plan for the business park, comparing the changes that have been implemented in this transition, I agree that it's a snappier name. I like that. But when it comes to the actual policies, what we have is We have opening up these areas cornerstone village, according to the latest edition of Cal EnviroScreen is in the 99th percentile its census block is in the 1999th percentile for pollution burden overall pollution burden it's in the 96th percentile for toxic releases. And these changes move from protecting this interface by opening it up to lumber yards by opening it up to taking away the conditional use permits requirements for machine shops or other metalworking. taking away the conditional use permit and making it open to manufacturing and general production, enabling recycling, large recycling facilities, both light and heavy recycling, and enabling the storage of different kinds of materials, including hazardous materials. as well as the location of freight, bus, truck, and other kinds of terminals and impound yards. So this is, I can see how the industry has had a lot of influence on these changes in the planning from October to today. But in the meetings that I've been to and the feedback that we've been providing, these inputs that we're looking for greater protections for these communities that share a disproportionate burden, their input doesn't seem to have nearly the impact that these industrial interests are having on this planning process. That said, I do also want to recognize my colleagues who have been participating in this process very steadily. So we're getting the message. It's not that you're not sending the messages out. We're receiving them. We are showing up. Also props to Asuri for actually showing up to one of our meetings at Cornerstone. So I want to also recognize that there is connection happening here, but we're not seeing how our feedback is being incorporated into this planning process, and we're actually realizing our protections. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Amelia Ramirez.

Thank you, Commissioners. I also want to thank Ali and Siri for their work that they've done in the draft of the Sunning Code update. I was involved in many of the meetings. I thought I was in all of them, but I guess there were 12,000 of them, so I don't know. And first of all, I guess I'm a little curious of how much of that input that were done at the meetings was incorporated into the update. As I've read through the draft, I'm not entirely sure. I've seen a lot of the things that were offered or discussed in our meetings. It's mostly seems... pretty standard like in terms of the the maps and the new districts i can see how that's changing and that's very promising and i'm very hopeful for that i'm very happy but on the nitty-gritty stuff a lot of the things seem to be the same in terms of parking and commercial use and setbacks uh i am really concerned about these things because you know last time we had a general update like it was mentioned before was 60 years ago so uh by the next time that happens i'm going to be 90 somethings if god willing and i may not be able to see the changes that i see in our city and i do believe this commission is probably one of the most important in our city because land use uh precedes everything and uh it was talk about um the changes that we see on first streets uh i mean my uh dream is to be able to walk with my son son to the santana zoo which is very close to mavery but very dangerous to do on anything but a car uh and there's the first street study where there's going to be bike lanes and all of that and Having good land use precedes all of these very exciting things happening. A lot of people complain about parking, and that's only because we have planned our neighborhoods around cars in the way. I really wouldn't want to have a minimum parking for commercial use if I've never wants to open a little coffee shop in front of their house that should be the case as it is right now i'll wrap that it up especially for single family home half of the use is for lawn for the backyard and the front of that property And that's not a very good use of the space, especially with worsening droughts. I want to see more leeway for landowners, honestly, and homeowners and people to do things that they want to do with their space. And yeah, thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Gabe, I believe this. You are. Thank you.

You know, my name is Gail Evo, so commissioners and staff. Okay. And Siri, you know me very well, right? I've gone to the majority of your meetings. I was surprised at the numbers, though, because quite frankly, the meetings were held on Tuesdays at 10 o'clock in the morning at Centennial Park. And because I am now recently retired, I'm able to attend those meetings. And because I'm recently retired, I have all this time on my hands, and I decided to pay closer attention to what you guys are doing. So that's why you see me here. On all your meetings, you see me right there. To pay attention to my city again, because I want a better and greater Santa Ana for my children and my grandchildren. That is my only goal. I wanna see what this zoning is doing, because I am concerned. And I don't know if my concerns, if CRE did implement them into the, I have to agree with the lady back there that you just put up the chapters, but I wanna see the nuts and bolts of what's inside those chapters, because I can't believe that you would allow zoning for, for a 40-story tower to be on classical Broadway. I'd also have to see some zoning where if developers did not develop within a certain amount of time, they could find or the project is pulled, because I can't see why this team and why zoning has allowed the one Broadway Plaza to be in the pile of dirt for 20 years. I just can't accept it. And that dirt is going into the streets, going to this whole academy right across the street, which is a school that I'm a founding parent of, as well as Ocean, as well as Osea, and nobody seems to care. So I'm going to, Siri, I'm going to look at the plan. I'm going to look at it thoroughly, and I'm going to give my updates. I didn't appreciate on these plannings that I went to that the city hired a third-party person who's not from Santa Ana, again, who doesn't know the streets of Santa Ana. And I found it very bothersome that we have allowed a third-party person to come into our city and tell us what is best for our city. I have a problem with that. I really do. I really want people that are from Santa Ana that love Santa Ana as much as I do to offer suggestions, not a third-party person that my taxpayers are paying for. I didn't roll well with that lady, and I'm sure Serena knows that. But anyhow, I look forward to reading the zoning. I hope it's user-friendly, and I don't think we're ready to make a decision on this zoning the next two meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to apologize for destroying this last name. Mr. Greg Ohanness. How do you say that, please, sir? Ohanness. Ohanness. Thank you.

That's fine. Thank you. So I came here with the understanding or with the impression that I could ask questions and get answers. Maybe I can direct my questions to Siri is that okay. So are these meetings to ultimately change zonings such as from residential to mixed use or business use or are these meetings, just to make zoning information more accessible and more functional or both. So I guess I'm asking for the purpose of these meetings. What is the ultimate purpose?

I think the point right now is that we're taking public comment. I think if you have questions like that, the time would see is after the meeting or set up an appointment for her or call her.

Okay, good.

I find that she does respond very quickly. So I think that would be more appropriate to take your time here.

And another question again, and I'll ask her after the meeting or later. Does the zoning map reflect the future zoning of the completed Bristol widening project? So there's an ongoing Bristol widening project and specifically the roadsides from St. Andrew to Warner on Bristol. Will the map or is the current map reflecting what the zoning is?

Again, after the meeting is the time to discuss the meeting. I'll go ahead and state what your questions are now because she's writing them down.

I did only receive one notice, which is adequate, but I think had I not opened this email and scrolled, I wouldn't have seen it. So I think that's the end of my comments and questions. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Jack Haley.

My name is Jack Haley. I'm a partner with the Lilliet Associates Commercial Real Estate Services on the board of directors with the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce. I think we all know that this zoning code updates needed to occur. I think we all agree with that. I think the planning department's done a great job to get it to this point. I mean, it's overwhelming probably to go through what they did over the last few years. They've been very responsive to questions I have and other people that are in this room. I think Mr. Vice Chair stated it, that this is a big deal. I mean, it affects 100% of the properties in the city. So we really need to get this right. I think from the way it sounds like here, that the rollout through residential neighborhoods occurred and was done very well. You went to community meetings. They came into your neighborhoods. You had multiple. Not one person in an affected industrial building in this city that I've talked to knew this is coming. They still don't. so the rollout really hasn't really whatever's been done hasn't reached them yet they might get a postcard a week before your next meeting but that's nothing's happened unless we've notified them i think that's a big deal um i think if you owned a building in these neighborhoods and there was a fenced yard and you were storing a company vehicle and maybe some materials in that yard and now you're being told you can't do that anymore it's going to devalue your real estate so i think you need to get into the details of this and i challenge all of you on this commission to reach out to somebody like me that knows those areas that you're affecting and actually visit those communities to understand You know, what problems are you trying to fix? There's not a lot of real issues in the industrial communities. The buildings that are on the zoning map that are being affected are not adjacent to residential real estate. They're not near residential real estate. If you're on Grand Avenue, you're not next to a bunch of homes. So I think you need to either drive those neighborhoods with somebody like me, or I'll come to your office or talk to you on the phone. But I think I could help you understand what improvements could be made with this zoning code update. What's going to happen if it's approved the way it's written? It's going to devalue a lot of the real estate in the industrial communities and possibly the businesses. You won't be able to sell or lease your building with some of the restrictions. So it's not going to be a lot of tweaks, but I think we need to improve The information that's that's there needs to be either improved so it's more specific and not vague, so we all understand it and it doesn't limit somebody's ability to expand a little further or do their business on a day to day basis. I think all your neighboring cities don't have very restrictive zoning codes for the business community. And I think, you know, Tustin, Fullerton, et cetera, don't have the.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I apologize on this name, but we'll give it a shot. Yes. More journal. I'm saying that right. and last name spelled m-o-r-r-u-j-o or you is she here come on up and come on down i apologize okay

Buenas tardes. Buenas noches, perdón. Mi nombre es Yesenia Marrujo. Soy residente del vecindario Cornerstone Village y también participo con Echo Gavlock en el estudio. Quiero empezar con una pregunta a todos. ¿Quién de ustedes han visitado algunos de los vecindarios desfavorecidos que tenemos aquí en Santana? Tenemos bastantes. Yo les invito, les extiendo a cada uno de ustedes que vengan y visiten mi vecindario.

hello good afternoon i'm yesenia miss sorry to interrupt can you hold the translation to the end so she could have her full three minutes that's fine

Okay, I hope you give me a little more time, please. As I was saying, I invite you to come visit my neighborhood. My neighborhood is in an industrial area of heavy metals, where we have houses, apartments. We have three schools that are almost surrounded by these industries. We have one called Kennedy, which is crossing the McFadden, A un lado está la compañía llamada Marklin, que afortunadamente hicieron lo que tenían que hacer y está cerrado porque estaba contaminando. Ahorita no está activa, pero no sabemos si está contaminada o no, o qué van a hacer, qué tienen pensado hacer en ese lugar. La otra, donde yo vivo, vivo en la mini chica, no sé si la identifican, es una... un vecindario, un lugar donde está discriminado, bueno pues hay muchas gangas, hay muchos homeless, no tengo nada en contra de ellos porque desafortunadamente ellos no tienen donde vivir y pues están viviendo en calles. Entonces, lo que a mí me preocupa es que en el Código de Zonificación hemos dado muchos comentarios públicos, muchos correos, muchos mensajes con la señora Siri, pero pueden hacer miles de reuniones, pueden recibir miles de correos, pero si no implementan nada en el Código de Zonificación, he de cuenta que no nos toman en cuenta. Un comentario que hizo el señor Ali.

There's no way I can do three minutes, by the way.

Is she through with her comments?

Yes, usually they double the amount for interpretation. So three minutes.

No, I will let you comment and I will let you translate. I just want to make sure she's through with her comments.

She's not done. I'm going to interpret.

She's got 53 seconds. Let's please go ahead and use this up.

Okay.

Good afternoon. Excuse me.

Point of clarification.

I'd like her to finish her statement, please. If she still has more to say, say it, and then we'll do the whole translation.

Okay. All right.

I might not get everything. Disculpe, estaba hablando sobre el comentario que hizo el señor Ali en la reunión del día 21 de marzo de este mes. Este comentó de que ellos no estaban obligados en... ask the people what we wanted the zoning code, they are simply forced to put it on the city's website certain things of the plan, that is, they do not have to let the community know, they just have to put it in a newspaper or on the city's website, so that's not good, so it bothered me a lot, sorry, Three minutes are up. Translators, please translate, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Yesenia and I am part of the Cornerstone Village and Echo. And I am here to talk about the zoning plan. I invite everybody to come visit our community. Where my community is, it's in an industrial area. There's about three schools around. There's apartment complexes. And there's even Kennedy School. There's a company with an industrial company with the name of Markland Company, which is currently closed because of contaminant or pollution purposes. And I'm not sure if that company will reopen. And there's another neighborhood where Mini Street is. It's a neighborhood that's known to be margined, discriminated because there's gangs, there's homeless. And I'm not against homeless because they have no place to stay. I'm not discriminating them. But what is very concerning is the zoning code. Why? Because there's been comments, public comments, and there's been communication between myself and Citi, and a lot of the messages and correspondence that has gone to Citi, her replies have been nothing to do with the implementation. They've been very short, and I would like to have the notices sent to these residents because on the page on the website they don't have any notices to invite the community to comment on the zoning codes thank thank you

Yes. You have your three minutes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. May the interpreter make a recommendation as an experienced interpreter for city hall meetings and commissions? It is traditional for an interpreter to interject the person so we can have an accurate interpretation. If I can recommend that to your committee, that would be helpful.

I can only relate to you that I've been to many city hall meetings here in Santa Ana and they let the statement be said and then translated.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, that closes the public testimony hearing. Hearing is now closed. Staff, do you have any closing comments?

City Council Chambers, To everyone that came out and spoke tonight into the Commissioners, I think you can get a good sense of what conversation topics may be of interest to our Community when we meet again in two weeks or at the next meeting for the zoning code update so. City Council Chambers, Again, the study session tonight was to lay out the city's communication strategy if following tonight's commentary there's any other ideas. City Council Chambers, or any other interested persons or parties that want to continue to meet with staff, as I said at City Council last week, we would be more than happy to continue those conversations. City Council Chambers, we're always available, I believe, staff is even coordinating a meeting this week with some stakeholders as well. City Council Chambers, Some of which are here in the audience tonight, so the our doors remain open to that and again we're excited to bring to you part two of the zoning code. update study session at the next meeting. If any other questions come to mind as part of the commissioners or the members of the audience, again, please, you have Ceres information up there, an email address, a website and a phone number. There's many ways to get in touch with us and we look forward to those meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner, any comments?

I do not believe the community understand what we're doing here tonight. and what we're going to do in a couple of weeks and fully comprehend the process and where the input are. Again, we go back to seven years, but I think we also have to go back historically. We have a lot of problems in the city because of past city council and past decisions, you know, where they burned down Chinatown to build a freeway through Logan and Lacey neighborhood. And then when you have the freeway there, why don't we put some industry there? So what we're trying to do is deal with those things, as Commissioner Leo was saying, we have to deal with it because residents are suffering from the environmental impact. But I'd like to see some empirical study. Is that specifically from a Pacific business that is polluting Or is that a combination because the five freeway and all the cars going through there, you know, put all the lead into our atmosphere, you know, and that we have boulevards, major boulevards going through every section of the city. And that was one of the designs that we'd done years ago, decided that that would be the traffic pattern. And we get people driving through from Garden Grove to Tustin to Irvine, going through our streets and getting on the freeway. So it's a combination thing that we have to accept, not set, but to understand, you know, the sources and be objective about it and be specific with some evidence that I like to see. You know, it's coming from that guy. He's intentionally doing it. He won't do anything. But then when we start digging into it in enforcement, as we saw in the public hearing that we had last year, that the subject property had a lot of other decisions that made and conditional use permits and things that allowed them to operate certain things. They made adjustments by cleaning up the air and putting filters and things like that. Is there still a violation after they've done that? No. Someone else from the Santa Ana Chamber brought up property value because of restriction. Yeah. That's also on our residents too, you know, on our houses. You know, there's a lot of, you know, money out there from Texas and from other countries buying up properties in Santa Ana. There's also residents that, you know, for a generation buy up other property and start renting them out or renting them out as group homes and, you know, other things. So we have a lot of these kinds of issues, as Commissioner Leo said, that we're going to have to deal with, we're going to have to understand, and they may not be a perfect solution. And I'm not back-pinning or defending what we're doing. It's just by nature of the work that we do and that we do listen and we do try to understand. But in the end, there are laws, there are regulations, there are things that sometimes, and jurisdictions, and that's why I often go back and ask questions about what are we approving, why are we approving it, and what is compelling us to make certain decisions based on the laws from the state or some other jurisdiction that impact our decision and what we're doing. So, and the question of why keep coming up, sometime there is no answer to why other than the fact that someone told us to do it, you know, and take it up with the legislature and some other addiction. Within our jurisdiction, we get a greater price as to what to do, you know, and we now get more because we're organizing our zoning plan so that we could see better and guide developer to follow the rules that are established unless they file an SB 330 or some other filing. And I say that if you think this is horrible, I served on the California Public Utility Commission and everything is litigated, every action, every discussion, is a litigation and is a legal process that you go through. And you have lawyers all over the place going from, you know, representing the ratepayers to the citizens and all that. And you go through all their process and listen to every citation. So, you know, I wish we were like a kingdom where we could, like, do what we want. But we're a nation of laws, right, still.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Pham?

Thank you, Vice Chair. I think just overall housekeeping, if next hearing, if we just agendize the study session, or if we do have other items, maybe shorter, smaller items, because I'm sure everyone sitting here, you know, they've been anxious to discuss the issues, us as well. Obviously, Council goes a little bit longer, but we're not doing our best work at 9 o'clock. So maybe if we can agendize that. And then maybe this is a discussion between staff and vice chair and chair. But because this is such a hot topic item, and maybe we can agendize what will be discussed. in the next study session. Maybe that can be published a bit earlier. Rather than our typical agenda has the name of this item, but maybe a roadmap of what Siri will be presenting. Obviously she's not going to be presenting the entire body of zoning code, but if there's a roadmap, then maybe the community can have more feedback on what they would like to see and discuss. Rather, you know, we're discussing one thing, the community is giving input on the other thing, community doesn't feel like they're being heard, you know, and it puts us in a hard spot. So potentially some coordination there. I'm sure it's the chair's responsibility to agendize the next item. But that's my recommendation. That's all.

Thank you. Commissioner Leal.

I just look forward to there are five more sessions. We have two more. City Council has two or three more. Who knows what the City Council will do? They may create an ad hoc and say we got to try to blend it all together. Who knows? So for people who say we don't do outreach, it is infuriating to me. It is just utterly infuriating to me. Santa Ana Chamber has monthly meetings with the city. So that information needs to go out. I am sorry for people who don't think they got a notice. I really am, because the city has plastered this everywhere. And next time you come, I hope you have the My Santa Ana app on your phone. If you have a business or you live here, you have it on your phone. And as for the people from Cornerstone Village, I'm almost offended. I worked on Mini Street before it became Cornerstone Village. And the people who come here from UCI, you don't live in Santa Ana, do you? Do you have an empirical study that shows what's going on there? I knew what it was like. I knew Victoria-Saragossa very well. I remember when there was lead in the stream next to Kennedy School. So for anybody to get up here and say that we don't know what's going on in this community, it's almost laughable. And I will keep an open mind, but I want you to know, I know what those apartments are like. I remember when there was not even a police substation in those apartments. I know what that work takes. And we got another street that hasn't even been addressed. You want to go to Townsend Street? Try walking down Townsend Street after dark. I don't see anybody here going, let's go down Townsend Street. So what I'm telling you is we listen, we see, we've lived here. I've lived here over 30 years. Alan, how long have you been here? Jackie, her whole life. We know what's going on, so don't think we don't. I think sometimes people talk down to us. This is our free time. We're doing this because we care about this city. So please bring facts, as you said, bring studies. We listen and we try to do the best we can. But to constantly think that we don't know what's going on, I've served on this commission almost 20 years now. I know what's going on. And I don't like people trying to tell me that we're not doing our job. Because we are. We're doing the best we can with what we got. Do you know what was here before in the 60s? Where, do you know what Cornerstone Mini Street was? Do you know what it was? It was barracks for the base, the Tustin Air Base. Those apartments were built for Marines. So there we go. Well over 60 years ago. But you guys think we don't know. We know. We know. We're educated. We go out. We do this on a regular basis. So please come with intelligent questions. Come with empirical studies. And please, please, please, please say where your address is. Because Ms. Olivos is from Santa Ana. I'll listen to her first. Because she's lived it. The people from Cornerstone Village, listen to them first. The outsiders we listen to. But that doesn't mean your opinion is the final opinion.

Thank you. Commissioner Guzman?

Thank you, Vice Chair Benninger. All I wanted to ask staff is that I know that the website is excellent. I was tinkering around, I was looking at all the zoning areas, et cetera, but I know For some of us that's not accessible to us, and I don't know where you have printed copies available. Is it at the libraries? I think that it would be helpful to be able to see what the proposed zoning is and what the definition and allowable uses are in order to help the community ask specific questions about what concerns them about that designation. City Council Chambers, Because the more specific, the Community is about the designation about where they live, I know I heard a lot of. City Council Chambers, General concerns, but the more specific, you are the more helpful you're going to be to this Commission and to staff. City Council Chambers, So that's I mean, and you know, again I said the websites excellent, but for those of us that are not. able or whatever, for whatever reason to access that, then I do recommend that there are printed copies. It's huge. I mean, Alan, you want to lift it up so people can see it. It's huge. But if there are printed copies somewhere like a public library, a community center, whatever, so that people can access it, that would be actually helpful along with the definitions and have them understand like what we're trying to do here just to piggyback on what Commissioner Wu said and what Commissioner Pham added.

I'd like to add something, Carl, please.

Go ahead, quick.

I came here 40 years ago to organize, because I was a community organizer, with an organization called Sano, Santa Ana Neighborhood Organization. There were 13 barrio neighborhoods that was disenfranchised. And those residents are still neighborhood leaders, and they know what's going on. They call, they get the agenda, they hold meetings, they go research, they meet with the planner, city, police department, whoever they need. They call them into the neighborhood and they prepare the neighborhood to make presentation or go to the city hall. Now, do they all show up with all their preparation and guards sometime and sometime? No. takes a lot to call everyone and get them to come out in sono that's what we did we held meetings with each neighborhood and then came together as the 13 neighborhood because we had more power when we showed up here with all 13 neighborhood and we brought everyone including long meetings where we cooked burritos out there and we fed our children and we brought babysitters and we stayed all night past midnight with the city council going over stuff that's preparation that's preparing your neighborhood that's teaching them doing the research and your pay staff and you're not doing that you're not having the meeting so so it's not our it is our responsibility for me and we do but you got to also prepare your your residents in your neighborhood to be able to make the presentation thank you thank you chairman rumus you're still with us would you like to make comment

Yes, you're patiently waiting. First off, I want to say once again, thank you to the residents that are here and provided public comment. It is very important to me that we hear from you directly and hear your recommendations in whatever form they may be. so that we can take those in and see how we can best address issues in each of the neighborhoods. And I also want to thank staff. I heard our director, Ali, share that there is a meeting being planned by staff with some of the residents that are present. So my earlier comment, I requested, if possible, that staff meet with residents before the next planning commission meeting to begin review of the zoning code update. I know it is a lot. And I want to ensure that residents and any other member of the public that wants additional support before that meeting has access to it. So thank you, staff, for sharing that that is being worked on. And I am very hopeful that that will happen before the next Planning Commission meeting. And for now, that is all I also actually want to echo Commissioner Pham's comments. I do expect next meeting to be more thorough on this item. So Lucie-Anne Radimsky, CA OSDS, Staff I know that you are strategically agenda items and some of them are time sensitive. Lucie-Anne Radimsky, CA OSDS, The extent that it is possible, I would request that for next our next meeting it only be the zoning code update so that staff can spend extensive time on that presentation, I know we heard some comments from. Lucie-Anne Radimsky, CA OSDS, Members of the audience that felt that what was on the slides was a bit. Maybe not as detailed as they would have wished, so I would request that for the next meeting, you know it's going to be extensive there's a lot here, and that we be as thorough as possible in the presentation. In our feedback Community members in their comments and Oh, I understand that you know where we're on a timeline that we're aiming to me. I would also like us to be realistic, as we go through this process, and if there is a need for an additional meeting. Well, it may not be what it has been planned that we consider and do things in a way where we can all be thorough and intentional and the city council ultimately decide how they do this and what their approach will be. but it's happened before where we have two meetings planned or the city council has two meetings planned and they decide that an additional meeting is required. So I just ask everyone to have an open mind as we go through this process and that we all show up in a way where we're sharing our comments, we're doing so respectfully, and that it feels like a process that is truly inclusive of all of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman, and we'll look forward to having you here at the next meeting. uh i really appreciate all the comments whether i agree with them or not tonight thank you for coming out thank you for sharing what your what your feelings are on this as i said earlier please if you have any questions give uh miss champion a call she if we put her name and number back up there again take the time and give them a call and when you come to the next session please come with uh uh direct facts uh hearing that we're obviously talking to industry and industry you know i i don't like that as far as uh uh that because i've heard the same thing from industry we're catering to uh environmental i'm in a unique position my background is chemical engineer i worked for dow chemical i was a fresh engineer in 72 when epa came in and it was needed yes it was i spent a whole lot of my time correcting problems And I had the EPA on my throat all the time, checking on us, following up on us. And we did a lot of unique things at Dow to cut down odors, to cut down releases. And so it can be done. So if you have a factory out there, it's kind of like the crematorium when we heard about that in the Lacey neighborhood. And why EPA doesn't get on that is beyond me. We need to contact our council people, I mean our our federal folks and we have an area in cornerstone a business that is polluting that is letting uh odors and smells let's get the proper governments after them the city can do only so much on it and the question i didn't like tonight was you didn't understand industry and success of a of a city i grew up in detroit and there was just an article on youtube talking about when industry left detroit what happened that's when detroit went downhill and i saw it i was there starting to come back now and why is it coming back because industry is coming back does that mean you have to accept industry and all this pollution and pollution because of it no and no one up here is saying you have to all we're saying is that we're here for everyone's right and as you have a right they have a right to so again please come and bring your questions with you and talk about our our general plan and how you see us not or how you see us matching that. Bring the facts to us. We greatly appreciate it. With that, I'm going to call this meeting to an end. Look forward to again meeting with everyone on August 10th, 5.30 in this room. Thank you.