Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We will be starting the meeting shortly, thank you.

you

Okay, two days later, we're done. Okay, we're ready?

We are.

I now call to order our Planning Commission meeting for September 2nd, 2026. Would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and please remain standing for the Statement of Values. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Statement of values. As we gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage and will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice to all. Let us seek wisdom so that we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbours and our country. All this we ask so we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs before all. Thank you, Chair.

Please be seated. The Planning Commission consists of six members right now. We have a new member that was just got approved and it will be sworn in next Tuesday. And his name is Jonathan Mariano. He's in the room here with us. And he will be joining us on October 7th at our next meeting. Elizabeth, can you please call roll?

Commissioner Botnagar?

Present.

Commissioner Cherukuru?

Here.

Commissioner Wang?

Here.

Commissioner Bosa?

Here.

Here. Thank you. Commissioner Saleem?

Here.

Chair Crutchlow has notified us that he is unable to attend tonight. Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion to excuse Commissioner Crutchlow.

Seconded.

Okay.

Just a moment.

Please cast your vote.

Thank you. The motion passed.

Sure. Would you please? Declaration of commission procedure.

Thank you, Chair. Public hearings are conducted by the Chair in accordance with the following procedures. The Chair of the Commission directs all activity during the hearings. All comments shall be addressed to the Commission. Any item on this agenda may be continued to a subsequent hearing. Applicants will be allotted up to 10 minutes to present and justify proposals following staff presentation. Other speakers will be given up to two minutes The applicant is then allotted up to five minutes for a bottle of comments. No additional comments shall be received upon the close of public hearing, although the Commission reserves the right to direct questions to any speaker on any matter. Special procedures and time limits may be applied to any items as prescribed by the Chair. Appeal of Commission actions must be filed in writing within seven calendar days from the hearing.

Thank you. Copies of the current agenda and staff reports for each of the items on the agenda are available from the Planning Commission office on the Friday afternoon preceding the meeting and available online. Continuance and exceptions. This part of the meeting allows for applicants, members of the public, or other interest parties to request an item to be continued without a hearing, withdrawn, or taken out of order. Are there any requests from applicants, the public, or the Commission for continuance or exception for any of the items on the agenda tonight? If there is a request for the continuous, do we have a motion?

Chair. We do have a request for an item to be dropped to be re-noticed to a future hearing. This is item number two on this evening's agenda, which is a proposed rezoning from planned development to medium density residential and a vesting tentative subdivision map for a property located at 1816 Worthington Circle. the applicant has requested that we drop this item from this evening this evening's agenda and it will be re-noticed for a future agenda so those who got noticed of a mailed notice for this hearing will receive a new notice and that's number one correct it's item number two on the agenda the first public hearing item is just number which is number two to make things more confusing okay

Yeah. Do I have a motion?

Well, technically no motion is necessary. If the applicant wants to withdraw, we can't force them to rezone their property against their will. They're going to pay for re-noticing this for a future public hearing and the public will be, again, informed. No action needed at this time.

Are there any public presentations or public hearings?

Any of the items We're here. Yeah, so there are no consent items And we will move on to public presentations, right? Okay.

Thank you If any would like to address the Commission or an item stat on the agenda Anybody online or present?

Let's see here We don't have any requests online, and is anyone in the chambers wanting to make a public presentation? Yes?

Does that mean you can't speak on item two at all?

That's correct.

You can still speak on the public presentation. You're in the public.

You can say anything you want.

To be clear, any member of the public can speak on any item within your subject matter jurisdiction, including item two, but this won't be considered part of the public hearing record, which will be the future meeting.

Understood. Okay, so just public presentation. Thank you. Good evening chair and commissioners. My name is Kirk Vartan. I understand the applicant has requested a continuance to October 7th to meet with staff. The staff's report recommendation will carry forward on this hearing. This is the one that you just mentioned for continuance.

It's dropped. It's dropped. Not continuous.

It's not continued.

No, it's dropped for now.

Thank you, Chair.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

But it will be heard at a future meeting. You're welcome to speak on it now.

Let me clarify this. Before this meeting has been dropped, there will probably be a hearing on this on future meetings.

Understood? Understood. I'll continue then. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair.

We're gonna reset the clock for him?

It's okay, it's below, I'm good. Thank you. For the record, I support staff's recommendation to deny the rezone and map for the reasons set out in my August 24th and 31st letters to the commission. Whatever you decide on this continuance, which you've already decided, three requests for the record. First, the city's Public Records Act, the Public Records Act production on this project is due September 15th. I ask that it be completed and posted well in advance of the new hearing so the commission and the public can see the full record. Second, if the proposal changes as a result of those meetings, I ask that any revised materials be made public at least two weeks prior to the meeting. Third, I'd ask commissioners to disclose any applicant contact in the interim. The community that has followed this project for many years will be here on October 7th. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else?

Council, Commission, I understand I'm not facing this way, but I am facing the council. I just wanted to state, Lord, make me a channel of thy peace, that where there is hatred, I now bring love, that where there is wrong, I may bring the Forgiveness. That where there is error, I may bring truth. And I always had a question about a ride, with the Santa Clara Police Department, getting a ride along.

This this is nothing that perhaps Yeah, so I completely outside our scope prayer you probably addressed that better off at the City Council meetings until next season creating a Santa Clara account set up a SCC gov SCC CA gov account is that um That's not our scope completely. Yes, that's completely our scope. Yes, I You can request you can request from from staff force or from the City Council meeting.

Thank you Just to be clear, mr. Chair, I believe SCC gov is that's a website of the county of Santa Clara so the speaker would best Be advised to consult the county of Santa Clara rather than the city for help with that. I

Anybody else? There's something. Come around.

I'm actually speaking, even though I know it's dropped.

Can you get the microphone closer to you? Thank you. Sorry, is it better?

Hello. My name's Kathleen Freed, and I'm a resident at AgriHood, which was part of the project that CORE is handling. I just wanted to share with you some of the things that have happened in the last three years. So it was like 40% of the appliances that they installed are failing. They have to be replaced, which I find really strange. It's a Whirlpool product, and they're breaking down. Electrical outlets, if you plug something in, the cord is hot when you pull out, or electrical outlets do not work in the apartments. Just out of, I know it's Measure A that really financed a lot of this, but like in subsidized like five studios, just five different studios, they're getting $2,478 per studio. And that means $12,390 a month just on those five. So it's something to think about. And Jon Stewart, unfortunately, is doing an extremely minimal job of managing the place. You know, we have some huge safety issues, and it's always, oh, we'll look at the budget, or we'll get to it, or, but I can tell you, excuse me, there's been almost five turnovers in that office since I've been there, lived there. And mind you, I'm very grateful that I have some place to live, but, you know, I think they need to be more accountable.

Appreciate you coming out. understand what you're saying actually it's kind of a little bit on the unsafe conditions you say if your electrical is having problems with it or something to start fire so you should talk to the management have all the tenants write a letter and also come back and present in front of the city council so they'll know what is getting a better idea what's going on but i really uh understand what you're saying i feel you know i feel for is

It's chlorine now. It's like the very strong smell of chlorine when you turn on your faucet. It's just started to happen. So there's just, yeah.

I understand. I'm sorry to hear that, but okay. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. Kathleen, can you come back up again? Well, we have, when our commission has a question for you.

Perhaps staff could point you at the correct venue or the correct path to take to report issues of quality in the residence that you're part of and that could get communicated out to the right group to, I have no idea what the structure is within the city to assist. No, no, I know where it is. I don't understand the structure within the city to address those. I'm sure that there's safety concern. If there's safety concerns, they might send somebody as an inspector to deal with reviewing it.

There's a lot of concerns.

The best, I think, would be to try and reach out to city staff which is a very generic term, to communicate the issues and ask if they could point you at the right agency to pursue it. And that's true for any resident.

We've been doing that periodically.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Anybody else?

There is one hand on line.

Somebody on line?

Yeah. Catalyze SV, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners. This is Alex Shore, Executive Director of Cadillac.

Now I understand why you're here today. Yeah.

Any other questions? I have.

Go ahead. Sorry, EFSA.

And light manufacturing. It can also accommodate service establishments serving employees.

Yeah, I was just curious. Given your good, excellent research and your attention to detail, have you considered perhaps joining? He is on a call.

and a letter to the city. They are very supportive of the circulation improvements and in the spirit of Pedestrian Safety Month, which is this.

Motion was made by Commissioner Cherikourou, seconded by Commissioner Wang to approve staff recommendation four. Go ahead and cast your vote, please.

And the motion passed. Thank you. Congratulations. Well-earned.

Is there any new motions or anything in consideration by the Commission? No? Okay, so reports on Commission boards, liaison, and committees. No announcements, all right, there's no announcements Commissioners travel and training reports Any requests to attend wait, we should recognize that we had City Council Appoint and we did that already at the announcements. Yeah, we did that at the beginning Got it. Thank you.

There's repetition.

She was asleep at the time.

Yeah.

I've had to wake her up. Okay. Any reports, director of community development reports? Do we have any?

Where are we at? Are we planning commission budget update? So your update on your budget is your balance is approximately $17,000.

Any upcoming items in the agenda So your next meeting is October 7th You will likely have a tentative map to review the item from our assistant city attorney Updating the Planning Commission's policies to allow a planning commissioner to attend City Council meetings That's right. Yeah

to be designated as the official representative. You are, of course, always allowed to attend.

Thank you for that clarification. Possibly a couple other items that are in the works. We'll let you know. Okay.

Thank you. Those are the two I know. Any city council actions?

Since your last meeting last week, no, there were none, except for the appointment of the new planning commissioner.

Thank you, Lynn.

You're welcome. Is there a motion to adjourn through October 7th, 2026?

So moved. Motion to adjourn.

Second.