Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, everyone. I'd like to call to order the 02/12/2026 meeting of the Planning Commission. And if we could have roll call, please.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter?

Here.

Commissioner Sisco? Here. Commissioner Horton?

Here.

Commissioner Pardo?

Here.

Commissioner Sanders?

Here.

Vice chair Duggan? Here. Chair Weeks?

Here.

Thank you. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present.

Thank you. And we have no remote participation under a b two four four nine. We have one set of minutes from January 22. Are there any changes, corrections? Okay. So those will be approved as submitted. And then we'll go on to public comments on non agenda matters. If you are interested in making a comment on a matter that could be before this commission, but is not listed on the agenda, please make your way to one of the podiums and you'll have three minutes. And you will see the countdown timer and I see you mister DeWitt. So

Thank you. We'll go ahead and get that prepared for you in one moment while I get the timer prepared.

Ready, set, go. Hello. My name is Duane DeWitt. I am from Roseland. I wanted to come and thank you for being the volunteers that you are, and I wanted to show you something I'm very proud of. It's the most expensive book I have ever bought in my life. It is the Santa Rosa General Plan. I gotta tell you, it's quite the read and here's what's really interesting. It cost $282.26. More than any other college book I ever bought.

The most expensive thing, but the most important thing. Because it has a great map right in here, and it shows my neighborhood, Roseland, right there in the Southwest area. I don't want you to confuse Roseland with the Southwest. Roseland's right here, Stony Point Road down to Hearne Avenue over to the Highway 12 back up to Sebastopol Road. 1.2 square miles with the highest density of population in the city of Santa Rosa.

A great place to grow up. I am so glad I'm from there. And what's really good now is this city is talking about what's known as tribal acknowledgment. I grew up with a number of Pomo Indians in Roseland. Good people. I still remember a lot of them and some of them are still around us in Roseland. And we've been working on a thing called Roseland Creek Park. We want to call it Pomo Park And Preserve. We believe we should honor the Pomo heritage of our community. And we've been talking to the people at what's now known as the Parks and Recreation Department.

And I want you to know this isn't just a spur of the moment thing. We've been talking to them for thirty years about having a park along the creek. So some land was purchased a full fifteen years ago by the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, and it was right along here in this Roseland area where there's a little blue line you can barely see, but it's Roseland Creek right along Burbank Avenue. And so, Ag and Open Space helped buy it in the first place for the preserve with a conservation easement and then came in the city to work with the exchange bank and get more property. And then recently, a few years back, they bought the last piece of land.

One of the first things they did was tear down the inhabited structurally sound houses that were there. And we had wanted to have a clubhouse like Doyle Park Clubhouse or Franklin Park Clubhouse or Howarth Park. But no, they tore down the houses and left us with nothing but trying to deal with transient vagrants that come through and trash that area. I volunteer at the creek to try to help it. I hope you folks will watch our efforts and help us. We want Pomo Park. Thank you kindly for

your you, mister Doitt. Is there anybody else who would like to speak under public comments on non agenda items? Okay. So with that, I'll close the public comment and read our statement of purpose. We are charged with carrying out the California planning and zoning laws in the city of Santa Rosa.

Duties include implementation of plans, ordinances, and policies relating to the land use matters as so assisting in writing and implementing the general plan and area plans, holding public hearings and acting on proposed changes to the zoning code, zoning map, general plan, tentative subdivision maps, and undertaking special planning studies as needed. And so with that, we'll move on to 5.2 commissioner reports. Are there any commissioner reports? Okay. And then we'll go to 5.3, which is the election of a vice chair, which we do every year. Is there a nomination for vice chair? Commissioner Horton.

Thank you, chair. I'd like to nominate our current vice chair for another stint in the role. I have just so appreciated your leadership, your nuanced approach to these issues, your very thoughtful engagement with all all the members of the public who come out. And just on a personal note, as a newer commissioner, I've really appreciated the way you've taken the time to help me get integrated and and keep this body running smoothly. So I'd like to renominate our current vice chair.

Thank you. And before I ask for a second, I would like to ask the vice chair if she would be willing to accept.

I'd be honored.

Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. So that was moved by commissioner Horton and seconded by commissioner Sanders. And so we would open the public comment before we take the vote on this, I believe. So we will go ahead. And if you are interested in making a public comment on this item, please go to the podium. I see you, mister DeWitt.

Thank you, kindly. My name is Duane DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. I'm very glad to hear of your efforts. And in no way shape or form do I want to take away from your expertise, but I really think you ought to get some young folks. You got a young guy on there. You got some other folks there. And miss Dugan and miss Weeks, miss Sisco, who I met twenty five years ago on our Southwest Santa Rosa redevelopment project area committee, You guys have been at it. It's good. But hey, spread the opportunity.

You know, we actually had a task force in the past, thirty full years ago, I think, that said we needed to have more diversity in our choices for our boards and commissions. So I'd just like to see you get some young folks in there so they can get prepared to move on up. Okay? We're all at retirement age, miss Doug Duncan, miss Weeks, and miss Cisco. I appreciate everything you've already done, all of us, but it's like, come on. Let's get some young folks in there and let them run the show because it's their future that you're making decisions on. Thank you kindly. Thank

you, mister DeWitt. Is there any other public comments on this? Okay. Then I'll close the public comments and we will bring it back for a vote. And as I said, was moved by commissioner Horton and seconded by commissioner Sanders.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter? Aye. Commissioner Sisco? Aye. Commissioner Horton? Aye. Commissioner Pardo? Aye. Commissioner Sanders?

Aye.

Vice Chair Duggan?

Aye. And with respect to mister DeWitt's comments, we're we're asked to do this and if they ask somebody else that's alright with me, but you know talk to your electeds. Oh, yeah. I understand. Chairwoman.

Yes for me.

Thank you. That vote passes with seven ayes. Congratulations vice chair

Horton. Duggan. You said this.

Vice chair Duggan.

Okay. So with that, we'll move to department reports. Miss Jones? No report. Okay. Thank you. So then we're moving right along. We have no statements or I don't believe we have any statements of abstentions or recusals tonight. Okay. We have no presentations, no consent items, no report items. So we're moving right along to our first scheduled item. It's a public hearing. 11.1 Del Valle Drive through conditional use permit 2000 Sebastopol Road, CUP 23 Dash 041. And I believe miss Beasla's gonna be doing the presentation tonight.

Yes. Thank you, chair Weeks and members of the planning commission. My name is Sachinoor Bisla, and the project before you today is the Del Valle Drive thru at 2000 Sebastopol.

Sorry. Thank you. My vice chair, thank you very much. Thank you, miss Sisco, reminded me about about ex parte communications on this. So we'll start with commissioner Horton. Do you have any ex parte communication?

Thank you, chair. Yes. I did meet with the neighbors on Kenmore and visited the site.

Thank you. Commissioner Sanders.

I also visited the site and visited with some neighbors.

Thank you. Commissioner Carter.

I visited the site.

Thank you. Vice

chair. I met with some neighbors and visited the site.

Mister Cisco.

I met with the applicant, I don't know, something like two years ago regarding that proposed project in the the former site plan. I too am a resident of Roseland and my neighborhood is off of Sebastopol Road, so I travel that area quite frequently. And I had a brief text exchange with neighborhood leader Ken Davis regarding just logistics of how how do you speak in front of the planning commission, what's allowed and timing and all of that. And I walked the site all the way up from Kenmore Lane up to, I think it's Gardner and all around the site. And I have no new information.

Thank you. Mister Pardo?

I did not meet with the applicant. I did not visit the site, but I am familiar with the site. They have good food.

Thank you. And I also met with the neighbors. I think it was last Monday. And we walked the site, and I have no additional information to provide to disclose. So now, miss Beasley, sorry about that.

Thank you. No worries. The project before you today is the Del Valle Drive thru at 2000 Sebastopol Road. The project includes for a conditional use permit for drive through retail sales, and this would be an extension of the existing Del Valle Mexican restaurant on-site. The new building would be approximately 850 square feet and would be subject to minor design review.

The proposed hours are Monday through Sunday 7AM to 11PM. There will be two employees at any given time and they will also be adding 15 new parking spaces for the existing restaurant. Here is a neighborhood context map so you can see where the site is. It's on the corner of Sebastopol Road and Stony Point Road. And here is a close-up aerial view of the project site.

The existing Del Valle Mexican restaurant is that building to the right of the parcel. A brief project history. There was a pre application meeting with staff on 08/02/2022 and a neighborhood meeting on 01/09/2023, and the official application was submitted in July 2023. The notice of application was distributed 01/19/2024, and following the notice of application, staff held an informal neighborhood meeting at the request of neighbors. And on 01/30/2026, the notice of public hearing was distributed for today's hearing.

The site's zoning is CG or general commercial and the general plan land use for this site is retail and business services. This is the original site plan that was submitted submitted earlier and also the site plan that was discussed during the informal neighborhood meeting that was held. So with this plan, customers would come down into Kenmore Lane and enter and then exit out onto Kenmore Lane as well. And based on concerns from neighbors as well as issues raised by staff reviewing the project, the site plan was revised and this is the site plan under consideration today where an ingress would to the drive through aisle would only be taken from the driveway apron off of Sebastopol Road and only egress from the drive through would go on to Kenmore Lane. Here are some conceptual elevations for the building.

The project still is subject to minor design review, so there are not official design plans yet, but these are just conceptual. The project consists of a queue management plan. So during peak hours, an employee will need to monitor the queue length. And once the queue reaches 10 vehicles, then the drive through entrance would be closed off and this would be done with a chain and a sign. The employee will then signal to the incoming vehicles that it's closed off and they will need to continue on either towards Bass Pole Road or towards the parking lot.

And then the drive thru entrance would not reopen until the queue length has reduced to seven vehicles. The zoning code has specific regulations and standards for drive through retail uses and this proposal is consistent with all of those. They provide enough minimum width of the drive through aisle as well as the radius And there will be signage at the entrance on both sides indicating the entrance of the drive thru. The entrance and the exit although close to Sebastopol Road, they are not directly taken off of Sebastopol Road. And the queue management plan helps to ensure that the drive through aisle is adequate for the queuing capacity.

As conditioned and as proposed, there will be screening along the drive through aisle on both sides to to minimize glare and noise both towards the residents but also towards Sebastopol Road. The proposed use is consistent with several goals and actions of the general plan 2050 in terms of land use and economic development by allowing the business to expand and provide a greater range of commercial services for the vicinity. The project is categorically exempt from CEQA with a class three exemption because it involves the construction of a small structure as well as a class 32 exemption because it is an infill project. The proposed project is also consistent with all of the required findings for a conditional use permit. There are conditions of approval on the draft resolution that were added to ensure that all of these findings could be made and with those conditions staff is able to support all of the required findings.

The only outstanding unresolved issue on this project is the proposed hours. The proposed hours were 7AM to 11PM. And on this slide and in the staff report, is discussed that staff is proposing a condition to limit the hours to 9PM. Staff is actually now proposing a condition to limit the hours at 10PM. This is because that would be consistent with the noise ordinance where at 10PM in residential areas, the allowable noise levels are more restrictive after 10PM.

And this would be to create more compatibility as there are residential uses nearby. The applicant has not agreed to the proposed condition. Therefore, this is an unresolved issue and it is also a part of our request and recommendation to the Planning Commission to decide on the the condition for limiting the hours. During the 02/06/2024 informal neighborhood meeting, we heard many concerns about the traffic and circulation along Kenmore Lane. It was noted that Sebastopol Road and Kenmore Lane, the intersection is commonly used for school pickup and that it's not typical for drive through access to be taken via a residential street.

There were concerns about whether emergency vehicle access onto Kenmore Lane would be impacted as it's already difficult. Many of the residents are already currently street parking because their driveways are too small, And there were also issues and concerns raised regarding the maintenance of the project site. Since noticing went out for this public hearing ten days ago, we did continue to receive further comments mostly in regards to the same issues regarding traffic, circulation, noise impacts. It is it is recommended by the planning and economic development department that the planning commission by resolution approve a conditional use permit for the Del Valle drive thru, a new drive thru retail sales facility located at 2000 Sebastopol Road to operate from 7AM to 10PM, not 9PM. That concludes my presentation.

Here's my contact information if there are any further questions or concerns. The applicant is here as well with his engineer as well as the consultants for the noise study and the traffic study. We also have staff available from engineering and traffic as well to answer any questions. And I believe the applicant has a presentation of their own.

Thank you. Before we hear from the applicant, does staff have any questions or does the commission have any questions of staff at this point? Okay. So then we'll go ahead and hear from the applicant. And if you could go to one of the podiums, they are adjustable based on height. There's a button on your what would that be? Your right hand side. And if you could state your name for the record, that would be great. Up above. Right. There you go.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Okay. Great.

Yeah. So, name is Pedro Martinez Navarro. I guess my question would be is how do I go to the next slide? Do I just say next?

Yes. Just say next throughout the process, and she'll Okay.

Let let's go back. I just wasn't sure if I had a clicker or something.

Okay. No. Okay. We're not that sophisticated yet.

That's fine. Alright. Hello, everyone. My name is Pedro Martinez Navarro, and today, I'm gonna give a presentation on the drive thru project that's being proposed on 2000 Opol Road. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, there's already an existing restaurant operating on the commercial site, and the proposed drive thru building would function as an extension of that existing restaurant to provide much needed stability and also expansion for our operations.

With me today, I have Bradford Boyes from York Engineering that helped us with the noise and air quality study, Deline Whitlock from WTrans that put together the traffic study, as well as Mark Hale from Carillon Macie that put together the various site plans. I asked them to join us today, just to help answer any comments, questions, or concerns that you guys may have. Let's go to the next slide. So, to give you some background on us, Del Valle has been operating since 2017, locally owned family run business, and we employ local residents and have built long term relations within the community. The proposal is about stabilizing the business because the current restaurant is very seasonal and it impacts our ability to employ consistently year round as the business gets slow in the winter and spring and picks up in the summer and fall.

Also, as you guys are aware, Sebastopol Road is a very competitive market for this type of business. So we are looking for a way to differentiate ourselves and keep up with consumer trends. Next slide. I include this slide just to show property context and ensure everyone in attendance understands where this project is being proposed. As I mentioned earlier, the restaurant already exists on one portion of the parcel on the eastern section of the property.

The proposed drive thru building would be constructed on the adjacent gravel portion of the same commercial property. And it's the highlighted section in blue in that slide. And I'll reiterate this throughout the presentation, but this is not a standalone project. It's an operational extension of the existing use on an already developed commercial property. It will not be a McDonald's.

It won't be a Starbucks or any large franchise. Next slide. So now, I'd like to give a brief history of the project so that those in attendance can understand that this is not a Rush project that has been hastily put together, but rather a project that has moved through the project life cycle and has been crafted by the feedback we've received from the city, the neighbors, and the consultants that have conducted the studies. The property was purchased in 2015. And in June 2017, Del Valle operations began.

At the time of purchasing the property, we always had plans of doing something on this part of the commercial property since it has great visibility, and we were shocked that no one had ever developed it up until this point. In 2019 is when the project informally began. We had some early concept discussions and traffic conversations with the City of Santa Rosa, but it was just an inquiry to see what would be needed in order to move forward with this project. This was pre COVID. And at the time, business was really doing really well.

And since we've never had been in the restaurant industry before, starting the business at Del Valle, we were more focused on the day to day operations of the business and learning how to operate. So we parked the idea. In 2022, as you guys are aware, COVID really put everything on its head and really put us in a bind from a business perspective. As with all businesses, we really struggled during this period. And at times, we felt that we weren't going to make it because business was so slow and there were all these restrictions that prevent us from doing business.

In January 2022, we decided to take action and went to the city with two ideas, both of which we explored in detail. Idea number one that was very well possible after discussing with with the city was putting together a pavement lot and then putting two food trucks on one on each corner. Idea number two was going with a drive through. Obviously, idea number one would have been easier for us to accomplish and would probably already be in operations, but it didn't align with our vision of the property. So we ultimately decided to pursue the drive through.

In January 2022, we formally engaged with Carole L. Macy as well as W Trans. In addition, that same year, we did the pre application meeting with the city, and we revised our plans based on the feedback we received. In 2023, we had a neighborhood meeting where we presented the latest revisions of all documentation received feedback from the city. After the neighborhood meeting, we met with the staff here at the city of Santa Rosa, including Chris Nay, Robert Sprinkle, and we updated all documentation with what they believe would address a neighbor's concerns.

We also, in that same year, submitted the major conditional use permit and minor design review application. And at the end of the year, we received feedback from the city and continued refining the project. In 2024, we were assigned, to Noor Bisla, and, we ended up talking about the project, gathering feedback, and then also talked to Susie Murray, Patty Sisco to just make sure we level set on what the expectations would be and how we can revise these documents to best suit, the restrictions of the lot. So that same year, we did this updated site plan, traffic study. We implemented a queue management plan as well as, sought after a noise and air study, and all the documents were resubmitted.

In 2025, we got a traffic clearance from Robert Sprinkle via email, and we also received conditions for approval and submitted the updated requested technical documents as well as providing conceptual plan. So as you guys can see, this project reflects multiple years of revisions and professional study and iterations. So what we're presenting today is years of refinement and consideration to best suit the property itself. Next slide. So, before we discuss the site plan that we're posing today, I think it's important for everyone in attendance to view the revisions we have gone through.

As you will see, we almost have gone in full circle, but sometimes that's what's necessary to ensure that you select the optimal solution. These early concepts helped us gather some information from the city as well as evaluate the site's geometry and constraints and also just get feedback from just general public. Next slide. Ultimately, out of those four options, we went with study c, as that's the one that allowed the best circulation as well as the best use of the property. Next slide.

So, basically, this is the first formal site plan, that showed circulation entering the queue from both Kenmore Lane as well as the easement, that enters into Rite Aid. But if you go to the next slide, after the pre application meeting, we got some feedback from the city. And, basically, it's what, we're showing here in this slide where all the traffic circulates and enters from Kenmore Lane. However, once we presented this plan to the neighborhood, in the neighborhood meeting in 2023, the neighbors expressed deep concerns of routing the drive through queue through Kenmore Lane because in situations of queue overflow, it could potentially lead the neighbors being blocked from their exiting their properties. And although the traffic study rejected that possibility, we decided to show flexibility on our end and revise all the plans and studies to appease the neighbors and show that we are willing to work with them just to have just as we have always went from the start.

Next slide. The next slide shows the final proposed layout and what we are proposing today. The project includes a roughly 850 square foot drive thru building that gets built on the western portion of the lot, has roughly a or has a very large queue which is 230 feet. And then the entrance is from the Rite Aid easement, and the exit would be on Kenmore Lane. In addition, there are 15 new paved parking spots.

One exists in ADA space. And 15 of the new parking spots would be perpendicular to the dead end portion of Kenmore Lane to which traffic study and the city of Santa Rosa confirmed as suitable. As you can see from the site plan, there have been many improvements being proposed, such as sidewalks, landscaping, etcetera, and it'll greatly improve the site for pedestrians while also improving the curb appeal of the property. And also, finally, rid of the gravel lot once and for all. So, let's go to the next slide.

So these next three slides are just intended to show the project concept on a very high level to help visualize what we're proposing today. This slide shows the project from the Northeast area of the property. You can see how the queue winds around the building. It also shows two operational windows with the window on the left being the payment window and then the one on the right being the delivery window. Next slide. This one shows, the property from various angles and also shows the elevations of the building, 23 feet being the maximum height and 17 feet would be the standard height for the rest of the building. Next slide. And then this slide just shows it from various isometric views. So let's move forward. Next slide.

Now that we provide context on the project, I would like to transition over to the findings of the study. Traffic study prepared by WTrans concluded that the proposed drive thru will operate at traffic levels of service D, which is the existing level of service in the area, meaning no change in traffic is expected. The studies incorporate both theoretical data as well as empirical data for rush hour service visits. The empirical data was taken very locally from a drive thru that's also on Sebastopol Road, and many of you guys in the tents are probably familiar with, El Vadolido. It also found that there are no degradation of Sebastopol Road or Stony Point Road operations.

The internal queue length is two thirty feet. And based on average sedan length of 14 feet, it would accommodate 16 vehicles. However, in our plans, we are accommodating a larger 23 foot length vehicle referenced in the study and accommodates approximately 10 vehicles that would be fully kept on the private property, which is twenty, thirty minutes worth of queue space. This is a very large queue. WTrans also found that the perpendicular parking on Kenmore Lane is appropriate given low volume and speed, and the traffic department also concluded the same.

The study also concluded no spill back on Kenmore or sorry, no spill back on Sebastopol Road or Kenmore Lane. Next slide, please. In addition to having large queue capacity, we are also proactive by implementing a queue management plan to mitigate any queue spillage concerns. At a high level, this is how the plan would work. We would actively be monitoring with cameras and staff. At eight vehicles, staff would be deployed outside to, to manage traffic. At At 10 vehicles, the drive thru queue would be closed with a chain and cars would be redirected. It would only reopen once the queue reduces back down to seven. We are uncertain if they will ever get to this point, but as I've said multiple times, if it does get to it, we'd be happy to have someone do this for us. Next slide, please.

Now pivoting to noise. The York Engineering Noise Study concluded the project's noise impact is less than significant due to the fact that Sebastopol Road already produces background traffic noise and the queue is in close proximity to Sebastopol Road. There's also additional mitigation efforts that we plan to include in the project, which includes speaker and activity oriented away from the residencies, hedging and fencing for screening, and then also limited hours of operation, which we are planning on 7AM to 11PM. But, we are also willing to show flexibility. If ten p.

M. Is the maximum allowed time, then that's something that we would be willing to abide by. So, next slide. I wanted to just show these tables that I pulled out of the noise study. But it shows the ambient background background noise on the west, south, and south b. And right there on the bottom of it, it outlines where these are kind of located. But as you can see, the ambient background noise is 60 decibels. And with the background noise plus the impact of the drive thru, it only goes up to 61, 62, and 60 respectively. And if you can see from the bottom of the conclusion of that table, it says significant change in daily average noise level. And the answer is no all across the board.

Next slide. Since we are operating later in the evening, I also wanted to show this table as well that also does a background, ambient noise. On all three locations, it's all 50 decibel. And also, similar to the last table, it says 54, 59, 53 respectively, and it also does not exceed normal noise levels. Next slide.

Ultimately, we will comply fully with the conditions of approval. The project will be a big investment for us, so it'll be important for us to comply with the conditions so that we are able to operate long term. The city retains enforcement authority, and we will, we are open to working closely with them to ensure this project is successful and iterating in the future if there's ever major concerns that is that are found. Next slide. Before we wrap up, I wanna outline four key takeaways from this presentation.

The first one being that the impacts are studied and controlled. Independent traffic and noise analysis confirms that the project operates within acceptable limits. Public streets and residential areas are protected. There's no spill back on Sebastopol Road or Kenmore Lane that is expected, and there are enforceable operational controls in place. The third one being, the project has been refined over years of collaboration, multiple studies, multiple revisions, and we've had neighborhood and city input throughout. And the fourth one is we are committed to responsible operation, full compliance with conditions of approval and queue management plan. And lastly, I want everyone in attendance to remember, we're a small business. We're not large franchise with infinite amount of land and resources. We asked to do this project on this property because that's all we have. And all we ask is for an opportunity.

We believe everyone deserves an opportunity to achieve their goals. And with this conditional use permit, we will be willing to adhere the rules the city lays forth because ultimately, we wanna continue to service our community long term. Next slide. Special thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout these years. It definitely has been a learning experience, and we've learned a lot since this is our first project that we've ever done with the city of Santa Rosa. So special thanks to the city of Santa Rosa, Carol L. Macy, W Trans, York Engineering, Tierney, and Figueroto Architects. And also, I wanna thank all the neighbors for the feedback they've provided so far. Thank you, and have a good evening.

Thank you. What could you stay there just for a moment while I see if there are questions of the applicant by the commission? Commissioner Sisco.

Yeah. Mister Navarro, could you say a little bit more about the Rite Aid easement? Is it just one tiny little section there or do you have other easement rights over the the rest of the Rite Aid property for people to enter through that property to your restaurant?

I I actually don't have the answer for that but we do have access to it since it did at one point becomes an easement that the property gave access to Rite Aid for. So

But I'm more concerned about people that would come through the Rite Aid entrance, former Rite Aid entrance and come around that way. Would that be a lawful use of that other piece of property?

I I'm not sure if Deline's here. She might be here remotely Yes. From WTrans?

I'm gonna go ahead and promote her so she can go ahead and respond to Yes. Any questions. Thank you. Daelene, you can go ahead and unmute your mic and introduce yourself and respond to the questions. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Daelene Whitlock. We're a traffic engineering firm in Santa Rosa and prepared the study for this particular project. I'm sorry, but can you repeat the question for me?

I want

to make sure I've got it right.

I'm asking about the the easement rights that Del Valle may have on the Rite Aid property. If it's just that one little section of the driveway that they're planning to have the entrance from from Sebastopol Road or do they have other easement rights by coming down Stony Point entering the entrance of Rite Aid and utilizing that space to gain access to their property in the parking?

Unfortunately, this is a question that I would need to defer to us the civil engineers or somebody. We don't have any information on that Okay. For the traffic study. I'm sorry.

Oh, that's okay. And then the other, just confirming, at this point, Del Valle has no improved parking spaces because when I walk the site, the parking on the Rite Aid side says Rite Aid only and it seems like the only parking that's available is the unimproved lot.

Is that a question for

think that's a question of the applicant. Okay. I thought so.

Yeah. The the Rite Aid parking lot is for Rite Aid.

Right. Yeah. That that's why my other question is coming up about easements because it's pretty exclusively marked that it's for Rite Aid. And and up to this point, you've had no improved parking at all?

Correct. There's been no improved parking up to this point.

Any other questions of the applicant? Commissioner Horton.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Just a quick clarifying question. Is all the food for

the drive thru gonna be prepared in the the drive thru building or are are some of it happening in the restaurant and you sort of run it back and forth?

The plan would be for everything to be prepared in the drive thru building. Thank you.

Vice chair? Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Horton, were you done? Okay. I forgot to ask commissioner Cisco. Were you done? Okay. Sorry. Now, vice chair.

I've got a question for miss Whitlock, if she's still here. Did you do any as part of your trying to phrase this. The traffic impacts on Sebastopol Road, did you analyze the impacts at Kenmore Lane as far as people being able to turn in or out of that from Sebastopol Road during the peak hours with the drive thru and operation?

We didn't specifically evaluate that. The city is typically only interested in somewhat more major intersections, which Kenmore Lane is is kind of a minor intersection, so it wasn't it wasn't evaluated in that particular sense. However, my daughter lives in this neighborhood, so I've spent a lot of time there. I've been in and out of the area during peak periods, and I have to turn left to come out of her her home to onto Sebastopol Road. So I have made left turns across the traffic on Sebastopol Roads dozens and dozens and dozens of times.

So I've kind of based it's part of my analysis on on my personal experience on that area. So, obviously, the further you get from the intersection at Stony Point Road, the easier it becomes because the congestion is right there where you have those two major routes connect, and there's a lot of conflicting movements. And so there's a lot of delay in congestion. This inner site this Kenmore Lane is is close enough to Stony Point Road that it is, you know, obviously affected by how that intersection operates. But from what I've seen, and and I routinely am turning left to go from eastbound Sebastopol Road to Northbound Stony Point to get back on the freeway.

I have never seen the traffic backed up so far that there's not room for a vehicle to stop in the left turn pocket to turn on to Kenmore Lane. I have seen the traffic back up basically all the way to Kenmore Lane, but not beyond it. So, you know, in my experience, I you know, like I said, I routinely go over there right after work, so it's during the five to 06:00 hour. I you know, I've I've seen that Kenmore operates acceptably for a minor approach to a major arterial.

Right. But without the addition of drive through traffic. Correct?

The drive through traffic is very modest. We're talking 30 to 35 vehicles in an hour, so one every two minutes. It's it's not it's not a huge amount of additional traffic. And I suspect that, you know hopefully, most of those people are gonna wanna turn right onto Sebastopol because that's a lot easier than turning left. But, you know, the other the other hope is that it will be a lot of the locals that will stop there and pick up something on their way home in the neighborhood so they would have been there anyway.

K. And part two of my question is did you do any kind of study on people exiting the drive through and turning left onto the dogleg of Kenmore Lane to take a parking spot and to eat their food in the car, and how it that would how that could impact be impacted by cars unparking and coming the opposite direction.

No. I can't say that I did. I the the parking is similar to what you have on 4th Street, for instance, where you have which would have much higher volumes than we would have on this short segment of of Kenmore Lane. But it it is very low volume and very low speed. So people moving into and out of parking spaces perpendicular parking spaces, It's it's a pretty calm it it it's it's pretty easy in a situation like that compared to and, obviously, we wouldn't wanna back it out in this fastball road, higher speed, higher volume.

But with only handful of housing housing units along that road, the volume is is is quite low. I mean, it would be it would probably be considered a very a very low volume road for which the design standards are are lower and the the expectations are much lower than for, you know, a roadway with higher volumes and higher speeds.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Sanders.

Thank you, mister Navarro, for the presentation. Can you explain to me the how many employees are gonna be on-site at any given time?

Yeah. So similar to the actual business itself, we actually started off with two employees. One cook, one waiter. And I think in that similar fashion, we'd probably operate like that at the beginning with one person taking orders and delivering orders and the other person being the chef. As operations increase, then we can talk about increasing staff. But at this point, we would say that's what we're gonna start off with.

Great. And then of the two employees, which one of them is going to go out and put the chain up when the traffic gets long?

Well, if that was actually to happen, then we would probably have to have someone else. But I think it's optimistic to be in that situation. And, if we ever get to that point, we'd be more than happy to have someone dedicated to fulfilling that role.

Well, man, I've had your food, so there's gonna be a line around the block as far as I'm concerned because it's really good. Right?

Hopefully. Okay.

So, if that's the case, then with two employees, know, if we're gonna plan for the future, right, that's what this whole thing is all about, where do they go once you've you've taken, I guess, one of the employees, the cookout, you know, put that down, put the chain up, and he's gonna tell people to go where?

So, they would be redirecting traffic. So, example, if they put the chain and we're saying that right it is not easement that we can allow traffic to go through, then I think in that specific case we would point them to go forward down Sebastopol Road. So that would be the solution there.

So, I'm sorry. Say that one more time.

I'm sorry. In a situation where we're saying that the Rite Aid easement is not accessible for, let's say, this type of traffic. What we would do is once things are chained, we would prompt the people that are trying to go into the drive thru to continue going eastbound on Sebastopol Road.

And not come to the restaurant? And not come

to the restaurant. Wow.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm sorry. We gotta turn people down. We can't let the key overflow. Right?

Correct. Correct. Just give me one second. I had another question that I wrote here. Well, I guess this is not really much of a question but it just sort of addressing the traffic that's on Kenmore.

I've visited the site because I'm weird like this. I went in the morning and then I went in the evening the traffic is probably gonna be the, you know, the the heaviest. And what I noticed is driving off of Kenmore and trying to take a left is really difficult. If you're going to go straight to go to Foodmax where I'm sure a lot of people would do the grocery shopping, that's almost impossible. And then if you're going to take the right turn, but then you want to go north on on Stony Point, that's really difficult too. So I don't know if the traffic person is here to kind of break that down.

But that would be a similar situation to the right at easement as well. Right? The right at easement has that same scenario.

And I would probably be asking the same question. I mean, I imagine. Here. If it was Rite Aid. Yes.

So, you know, as you said, it is gonna be difficult to go straight across, although I can't imagine somebody picking up food and having it hot and then wanting to go grocery shopping. So I would think that mostly that people are gonna be coming out and either turning left or right. It is it is gonna be more difficult to get out and make a a left turn to go across on Stony Point. It it's gonna depend very, very much on the time of day and and how much traffic is is queued up and stacked up. I because it did you know, it is a difficult location because there is just a lot of traffic traffic out out there. There.

Right. And I guess what my question was more focused on was the residents, not necessarily the the customers. The residents so the drive through basically, you know, t bones into the driveway of an existing home. And that person's gonna have to deal with that, what'd you say, 30 some odd additional cars coming out of the driveway, out of the drive through. I'm just trying to get in my head what does that day to day living look like for the residents who actually live on that street.

And as it stands now, it's kind of difficult making their way around to go grocery store, to go to, you know, grocery shopping and now we're gonna have additional cars coming out of the drive through. Is is that been looked at? Is that a concern? Am I am I overcomplicating it?

No. It it I mean, it it when you add traffic to a minor street approach to a major arterial, it does increase the delay that's going to be experienced by everyone, not just the, new drivers, but the existing residents as well. They're going to, they're gonna be delayed longer to to turn either left, right, or go straight through, from Kenwood across or onto Sebastopol Road. We did not evaluate that. Like I said, the city typically focuses on major intersections.

It is not unusual for folks waiting to turn out, especially left turns onto a major arterial delays of one, two, sometimes three minutes. It's it it's not uncommon. It happens up and down Santa Rosa Avenue, Mendocino Avenue, Guernville Road, College Avenue. You know, Brooklyn, pick any major arterial across town. And if you've got a a minor side street entering it during certain times of the day when there's a lot of traffic on the on the arterials, people trying to turn on to the arterials are gonna experience a lot of delay.

So it it's it's already concerned. I'm sure the neighbors are gonna tell you that. I'm I'm sure they're already having to wait a long time to get out, and this will make it worse. It's it's kind of the way it works is when you add traffic. And it doesn't matter whether it's this this project or if somebody built, an accessory dwelling unit, which would be allowed, but it's they're gonna that's gonna add trips too. So anything that that adds traffic out there is going to make it harder and take longer, turning up from Kenmore onto Sebastopol Road.

Thank you for that.

Okay. I have a question on, I'm sorry? You have a question? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Carter.

Quick question for the applicant. Will there be seating in the drive in facility?

There will not.

Okay. And another question, and it may be for staff more than you, but I'll put it out there. The queue management plan, is it just the conditions that we see in the exhibits and the resolutions or is the applicant gonna be required to submit a more fully fleshed out queue management plan and possibly even reports on how the management plan is being implemented?

Do you want me to answer first?

Well, if you're if you have an opinion on it, sure.

Yeah. We're flexible. If there are any if there is any feedback on it, then we're willing to revise. But this is just kind of a first stab at it. Just kind of gauge just to see if it's a viable way to manage the queue. But obviously, if there's a better idea of how to manage it, we're open to it. At the end of the day, I think what's most important for us is the operations day to day. So we're going to show flexibility on that front.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So I have a question on your slide 13 that talked about spill back wouldn't be occurring. And my guess is is that because of the queue management plan?

Deline, are you able to answer that question?

I'm trying to get my my my video to come back up, and it doesn't seem to want to. So I'll just there it goes. So we we actually looked at the service rate for another similar facility right on Sebastopol Road that had a drive through and how long it took for them to to process each person that drove in. And, you know, based on that, we found that they could process 33 vehicles an hour, and we're projecting 34. So it's it's it's really close to being a wash in terms of, you know, how many vehicles are gonna come on to site.

Now, obviously, they're not all going to arrive at, you know, every two, three minutes so that they're evenly spaced nor are they all going to arrive within a five minute time period. But, you know, we did kinda look at it and and assume that there would be a a relatively even distribution. And, you know, we we did estimate that the queue would exceed the the 10 spaces of stacking approximately. Or well, that would be depending on kind of space we use, but we were we we did project that they they would have an estimated queue that would exceed it. But, you know, again, it it's it's it's so there are so many options in this in this neighborhood.

Most folks I mean, if I if I pull

up to it I've done

this just recently. I pulled up to an In N Out. The queue was so long. I said, no. I'm not I don't want it that bad. I I can eat somewhere else. And I think that similarly, if people pull up and they see a queue of 10 vehicles, they're just gonna pass by. They're gonna go on down the road and and go to a different restaurant because there's too much they don't wanna wait that long. I mean, that's the whole point of of a drive through is convenience. And if it gets to take longer to to get it than it would to just park and walk in, most people are not gonna do it.

So, you know, while theoretically, we projected that the queue could be slightly longer than the than than 10 vehicles. We really think it'll be more like eight or nine, which is still almost a twenty minute wait given the the service rate.

Thank you. Any other okay. Vice chair?

I've got one question for the applicant. So as far as the menu because the food should be prepared separately from the food in the the stand alone restaurant. Correct. Are you offering the same extensive menu in the drive through?

It'd It'd probably be a reduction of things that are much faster to produce. So think about El Fadalito that's down the road, something along those lines where it's more catered to just like tacos, burritos, quesadillas, things that will move faster.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. You started hearing other people and you get more questions. Sorry. When you were when the drive thru was being proposed, how did you arrive at the number of 10 vehicles?

It's assuming a 23 foot long vehicle. The queue space is 230 feet long. So if you assumed it was a sedan that's 14 feet long, you would have a much bigger queue space. But we went conservative and we said, alright, let's think about SUV sedans which are 23 feet long.

Okay. Thank you. Yep.

Okay. Any other questions before I open the public hearing? Okay. Thank you. With this, would like to go ahead and open the public hearing on this item. If you are in the chambers and wish to make a comment, please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes. You will see the timer and please state your name for the record. And for those of you who are new to this, you have to get really close to the microphone so we can hear you. And as I said before, there are buttons on either side of the podium to adjust them. So with that

Give me one moment, chair. The timer

went Okay. Sure.

Think that should be good. Okay. Yeah. That's good.

Okay. So we'll go ahead and proceed with the east podium chair. Okay. We have the timer prepared for you. You have up to three minutes. Please state your name for the record if you so choose.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Edina Flores and I'm the leading civil rights activist for Sonoma County. I'm here today Latino. And the truth is that everything here is political. We claim that we advocate for the Latino community.

Rosalind was not legally incorporated into city limits for the city of Santa Rosa until a few years ago, and we're fortunate enough to have councilman Eddie Alvarez who's present today because he loves his community that much. And I used to live right across the street in Roseland on the corner there right next to the Foodmax. And so if you move to Roseland, you kinda know it's the hood. You know that beforehand. And so when we're claiming that we uplift BIPOC voices, when we uplift the Latino community here, if we don't approve this business today, you guys are gonna show me that, you know, all those individuals that are outside protesting in front of target anti ICE, anti deportation, primarily white liberals, that you don't actually support the Latino community.

So I have commissioner Sanders who's running for council against Victoria Fleming. And so I do expect that he will support the black and brown community here, and I encourage him to do so because that campaign hasn't started and I'm very good at ruining campaigns within about twenty four hours. Chair Weeks, we also have your candidate up for election against supervisor Lance. That is the candidate that that I'm supporting. And so I will be very vocal if you do not show support for our Latino brothers and sisters.

There's absolutely no reason not to approve this project when we're talking about being equitable and culturally sensitive. A lot of those individuals coming through Rosen are farm workers or people that have, you know, three, four, five jobs like my homegirls, and they can't take the time to go grab dinner. So that's accessible for them. That's quick. That's in their immediate area. And if people don't have time to sit and wait, can keep it pushing. That's how it is. So, God bless you. Thank you for listening. Please push this project through because if you don't immediately after this meeting, as we know, it's gonna be a problem. Thank you so much.

Is there anybody? Is anybody else who would like to speak? Please make your way to the podium. And we will use both podiums, both the east and the west. So we'll go ahead. Thank you, Rafael. You

wanna go? Go ahead. Okay.

Good evening. My name is Andy Mehue. I'm a resident of Kenmore Lane. And just real quickly in hearing the traffic plans that were looked over, Missus Whitlock did say that they did not look at Kenmore Lane. And I think that needs to be looked at a little bit closer because as a resident of Kenmore, everybody knows that 80% of the cars on that road are not from the residents on Kenmore Lane.

It's used as a thoroughfare in and out of that neighborhood. I did that. I've done that my whole life. I lived in that neighborhood, and we just all used it as a cut through, and that's why they had to put the speed bumps in there because everybody was just going too fast. So what I don't think they're considering is the increased traffic that we'll have to deal with, not only as residents, but then people going through that neighborhood.

Also, if you are leaving and you're exiting the drive thru, you're not only gonna make a right hand turn to get back onto Sebastopol Road. If you live south of there, then you're just gonna make a left onto Kenmore and avoid all the congestion at Sebastopol and Stony Point. And then that increases the traffic going down towards my house right there, which we already have plenty of. So I just want people to take a closer look at how this is going to affect all the traffic on Kenmore Lane. You already seem to be looking at what's going on where Kenmore meets Sebastopol.

And as we all know, that's just a headache. And another thing is I I do appreciate the business. I've I've lived there, around there my whole life. I think it's a good business. I like local business. I think putting a drive through there is a good idea business wise. There's not a lot of drive throughs for the restaurants like that. So it's a good idea, but the traffic plan doesn't seem to be thought through as much. And I do think it's going to increase more than we would like as residents there in the neighborhood. And then I really honestly feel sorry for the people on that little strip right there off of Kenmore Lane. That's going to suck. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll go to this podium.

Hello. Good evening. My name

is Sam Metz. I live on the third house on the East Side of Kenmore Lane as you're going down. And I'm a general contractor, and I'm all for development. And I love the idea. I just don't think it's thought out. We love the restaurant. We patronize it. We love it. I just don't believe that it's thought out correctly. It's really bad for the people on the dog leg of Kenmore Lane.

The parking spots, how it is designed now according to the plan, already stick four feet over their property line into a public roadway. And that's if you have a 17 car. If you park my truck there, my truck's 22 feet. Now I'm sticking out even further. We pulled out a tape measure when some of the council people were there.

And for anybody on that dog leg to get out, If there's a big truck there or anything like that, it's gonna be it's gonna be a 15 turn for them to get out there. Another one of my concerns is and I don't know how big of a concern it is, but people are gonna get their food to go. They're gonna come out of the on drop on the Kenmore Lane. They're just gonna drive down the road, park, you know, in front of the houses, maybe eat I'm not saying every, but maybe eat it, and we might have a garbage problem. Probably less of an extent.

One thing that the VA might wanna check into is if they have somebody from construction, if they have somebody out directing traffic that is not on their private property, whoever's directing that traffic is responsible for anything that happens. If one of their people is directing traffic in the thoroughfare for Rite Aid and somehow causes an accident by having somebody come through, they're responsible for it. You can't direct traffic on a public roadway unless you have all the proper signage and all of that. The other one is I'm just wondering where the employees are gonna park. Obviously, the restaurant employees, get a FoodMax parking lot, I guess, if that's what they're gonna do.

And let me see what else. And then on their slideshow, the number two, the key takeaway that public streets are protected, I don't see how that street itself is protected with all those cars coming in and out there. I would love for something to be done with it. I'd love for Del Valle to stay there, but I just think it needs to be looked at a little more. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll go to the East Podium.

Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Manuel Benjivar. I live in Kaymore too. And I don't know if you guys did visit the site taking consideration. They they we have a school right next to it. And it's a lot of traffic to the school bill. And this is gonna create more. And on top of that, we don't have a signal or a keep clear sign in between that intersection from Kaymore to Sebastopol Road. So it's almost impossible to make a right turn during, when the kids are getting to and from school.

The other thing is, like, on Kenmore Lane is no sidewalk, and this is gonna create a very dangerous zone for the pedestrians to walk through. It's gonna be more cars and it's not enough lighting. It's it's a very dark street. I don't know if you guys visited at night but it's very dark and there's no sidewalk. And I don't know if the people from traffic took that on consideration when this project is being considered to be open.

I like the food of that restaurant. I've been there. I love it. I'm Hispanic too, and I support them. But this drive through, I think, is gonna create more problems than being a a good place for our community right there. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll go to the that podium right there.

Can I have the light? Yes. Light here?

Yes. We'll prepare that. Thank you.

And you can lower the podium a little bit if it's Or if it's easier for you.

That's fine.

And You

see Oh, there it is. Okay. I'm not sure how well it's gonna view, but anyhow, my name is Howard Layton. I live five houses down from the northern part of Kenmore Lane from where the stop sign is. I don't know if you can see very well here, but you can see the cars coming out of the restaurant.

And I would assume most of them are gonna wanna make a right hand lane there. And right now, you know, you may get two or three cars that are waiting. But have you ever played the game called Frogger? That is what it's like when it's busy there. Many times, I've I just have to ease out slowly so that I have to pretty much block the right lane because I wanna make a left onto Stony Point so I can catch the freeway or go to Oliver's or whatever.

And it's actually inching your way out and hoping someone will let you in. Because if you just wait for someone to let you in, it's not gonna happen. So that's that's a major concern because you're not most people I would think would wanna make a right there on Kenmore Lane coming from the dog lane out the gravel road there. And and and and the ones that decide to make a left after using trying to do that right turn when it's busy, a left hand turn. The problem with Kenmore Lane is the first dozen houses or more going from north to south, they usually have a lot of parking in their driveway.

But, the further you get up to Kenmore Lane, a lot of people will park on the street. And so, you got if you have two cars side by side parking on one side for one house and one side for the house, it becomes a one lane road. And for safety concern, and it's it's it's just another problem of traffic on Kenmore Lane. And so those are my issues. And I know the dog leg, the people live on that dog leg, they're gonna be up here pretty soon. And and that's that's even more radical. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll go to this podium.

Hey, everybody. My name is Don Goodwill. I'm Terry, I love you.

Can you speak into the microphone so we can hear you?

Is this better? Real. Okay. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Thank you Okay. So my name

is Don Gibble. I'm overweight as you can see. So I go to drive thrus every day. There's a couple of drive thrus in Santa Rosa that that are worse than this these people are saying that's gonna happen at this restaurant. I just say let them do it and see what happens. We haven't seen what happened yet. You know what I mean? And if it doesn't work out later, then people can say let's close it. But give them a chance, you know. And everybody I know loves that restaurant. I don't know. I just think it's ridiculous that people are and we're gonna hear more people complain because they live there. There's And gonna be traffic. There's traffic anyway. I live really close to that area, and it's impossible to to navigate during the I'm I'm on asthma medication, by the way, so I'm not I might not make sense.

But go on Stony Point and Sebastopol Road any time of the day and there's traffic. Okay? And it's later when, you know, when school gets out and when people get out of work, it does get a little bit worse. But like the woman said on on Zoom, you know, their drive thrus are even I don't anticipate this restaurant having what In N Out has near the near Coddingtown. You know? So it's to me, let's give them a chance and see what happens. The Hispanic community needs something like this. You know? And it's like Adena said earlier, she's very vocal. And if it doesn't happen, it's gonna be really, really bad for a lot of people.

And I'm not threatening you or threatening anybody. I'm just saying I feel that these people deserve a chance to see what happens, And, it's not gonna be that that bad like people are saying. They don't know what's gonna happen. So, let's see what happens. You know, let's see their business thrive. I don't know. But, that's what I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. So we'll go over to the West Podium.

Yes. Can we get this light on?

Yep.

Yes. One moment. Is this thing working?

Yes. I'll activate the projector in just a moment.

Yeah. Live on Kenmore Lane. I'm about five houses down on the other side of Howard. You know, we're a residential area. We're not we're not a commercial drive, and that's exactly what's gonna happen here. They're gonna dump traffic from a commercial zone onto our residential street. Now I can already tell you by looking at this, they're gonna be standing. They're not gonna get home with warm food, first of all, because they're gonna be forever getting out of the parking lot. You know, we have a bunch of people here. We're not here for you know, we're here to try to have some kind of peace in our life, not fight for our life to get out on a a Stony Point or whatever it is, Sebastopol Road.

Because I could tell you right now, this is a problem. We're not against them expanding their restaurant, but we don't want them dumping traffic from a commercial zone onto a residential street, which is gonna you guys are gonna bottleneck because this is a mess. I mean, you won't even get out of the restaurant. We know that. That's why we're here. You know, you're not gonna get out of the restaurant. You're not gonna be able to get out onto Sebastopol Road. I'm This is really aggravating. It's tough enough now. But to this is just gonna and we're not against them expanding. Just don't dump your traffic out onto Kenmore Lane. Simple. You know, I mean, come up with a depth a better plan than this because, yeah, this is aggravating. You know? Like I said, it's tough enough now.

This is just gonna make matters. You know, good luck getting a fire truck down there. Yeah. I mean, hopefully, neighborhood doesn't go up in flames because we won't get out. That's that's all I got to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? If you would like to make a comment. Please go to either one of the podiums. Okay. I see somebody coming up to the West Podium.

My name is Scott Robinson. I live on Kenmore Lane. I've been there for this will be our twenty fifth year. There's been Mexican restaurant there the entire time. They've like Pepe's, they went down their street and they're still big. So this restaurant here, I've never seen the parking lot full at any one time. So I don't see how a drive through is gonna help that, honestly. The study that the lady was saying about this matches 4th Street is laughable. 4th Street has lights. It's got sidewalks on both sides.

It has marked parking on both sides. It has center divide as far as striping. Kenmore has none of that. It's dark. No marked parking. Nothing. Anything like that at all. Another thing is if this venture fails, what's to say they don't pull in somebody like a coffee place that has backing, and we end up with a lot of traffic. You know, this just compounds. Everybody's saying, deal with it.

We don't need to deal with it. We don't need to have commercial traffic on residential streets. Just going to that just needs to be beaten to whoever needs to listen to it. And she was talking about In N Out. In N Out has decades and 300 stores to study. So comparing the two, no. That's that again, that's laughable. And saying there's 230 feet of roadway where they can get in queue and and going by a 23 foot vehicle, that means they're all touching. So that's 20 that's 10 cars. They're all touching.

That's not gonna happen. And that's saying that they're having a meal prepped every two minutes. Having, you know, been in restaurants alphanone since my teenage years, that doesn't happen, even if you have a reduced menu. Another thing is the noise levels. How are you going to police your customers that wanna be rowdy in a residential area and they turn up their radios?

We have enough of that when the side shows try to start up in FoodMax. And we're making calls to the police saying, get rid of them. We don't need to have that danger as well. So I know I'm getting a little frustrated, I apologize. But, we have problems with the emergency services coming through. And we have a very active fire station down the road. And so, when they're trying to get onto our road or get off of our road, it's very difficult. And if we're trying behind them or in front of them, to get out of the way, it just doesn't happen. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay.

Can you turn on the overhead?

Okay. She'll take care of it for you.

Okay. Can we yes.

Okay. And talk really close to the microphone if you could.

Thank you very much to the commissioners who came out and visited us, looked at the site. And thank you for having this meeting and listening to our issues. I don't know who the woman was who finds it so easy to get onto Sebastopol Road from one of the streets near me. But, for forty years, I have gone in and out. I work out away from the house.

And, it's not it's not as easy as she says. Yesterday afternoon, I was going over to work and there was only one car blocking the intersection. I motioned she she looked at me like and I motioned her to please move forward because there was a full car length. She could have gone forward. She just looked at me like, no.

So, finally, I started honking my horn, which is not a habit of mine. And, she did pull forward so I could get through. This evening on the way here, it was 04:00, 04:15 when I was going through that intersection, and it was blocked. It's impossible to get through. There were three cars ahead of me, and fortunately all of them were turning right.

So, it didn't take a really extended period of time to get through. If somebody's turning left, it can take a long time. Some years ago, before traffic was really bad, I was trying to make a left turn onto Kenmore Lane. And the one one lane, the the centered lane was was blocked. It just fully blocked a lot of the time.

So I kinda tried to get through because I wanted I wanted to get home. And, I started to inch out into the curb lane, and a speeder came through the curb lane, which wasn't blocked, hit my right fender. And, he turned out he was uninsured. So, I've also had the vehicle in front of my house on a weekend morning totaled a van by somebody driving north. He then proceeded to total the van that belonged to my neighbor to the And then he apparently couldn't drive his car anymore.

One of our neighbors, one more house up, saw him. And, he he he was he was heading south. He he just it was a hit and run. He stupidly left his car with his license plate and his registration, so the police were able to contact him. And, he also was uninsured. It was eight a. And he was drunk. There's a lot of cut through traffic.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any other comments? Okay. You might want to lower the podium a little.

No, I'm good. Okay. My name is Colleen O'Neill. I've lived on Kenmore Lane for forty four years. So, when I moved there, there were no shopping centers there at all. And, it has gotten continuously bad, the traffic on Kenmore Lane. There's a lot of traffic already that is not Kenmore Lane residents, which people have already told you that. But, when people come out of that drive through, I mean, we're talking about it. They're already being a queue of cars there. But, so, they're not gonna get back in that queue because the only way they can get in that queue is in the right hand lane.

And then, they're gonna go they can only go straight down Sebastopol Road. So, they're gonna turn left onto Kenmore Lane. And, if they're wanting to go out to Stony Points, then they're gonna go they have to go left on Gardner at the south end of Kenmore Lane. And, making a left turn on the Stony Point from Gardner is as difficult during rush hours as it is to turn left onto Sebastopol Road from Kenmore Lane. So the traffic is gonna get backed up on Gardner as well.

So it's kind of hard to imagine where all the, you know, these cars are going to go. They might, you know, take a ride on Gardner and go down to Lombardi. But, you know, it's and sometimes, in fact, we do that because we know the traffic is is backed up at the end of Kenmore Lane at Sebastopol Road. So sometimes we, in fact, go, you know, all the way around so that we can get out onto Sebastopol Road. The other thing that struck me about this plan is, I mean, just looking at who who is going to go, you know, pull into this drive through.

So, either gotta have to be coming, you know, from the West End of Sebastopol Road. So, I'm not sure who all that's going to be. I mean, there are a lot of businesses in the Vets Building and Kaiser and bunch of stuff down there. But, in terms of people on the, you know, north end of town, then the East end of town, they either gonna have to go down Sebastopol Road and do a u-turn or make a left turn into that drive through, which means they have to cross three lanes of traffic headed eastbound. So, it's it's really hard to imagine what's gonna happen.

I mean, maybe they're gonna come down Stony Point to Gardner, take a ride on Gardner, and then a ride on Kenmore Lane, and then a ride on Disvestville Road. I mean, it's it's an impossible situation. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Any other comments?

May I have the projector, please?

Okay.

Now

bring it down. There you go.

Pull it tight.

There you go. Good evening. My name is Ken Davis. I am a forty year resident of this Kenmore Lane, and I need to object to the statement that our neighborhood objecting to a crazy drive through is somehow racist and that it needs to be allowed. We love our neighbors. Half our street is Latino. I went down there yesterday. The whole street, we've covered the whole street. Half our neighbor is are Latino, and they object to this too. They have to be at work right now.

So, they're not here. The retired folks are. Could you guys raise your hands possibly if you've read my full report? Ken Davis? No, you can't raise your hands? Okay.

Yeah. Mister Davis, we don't do an interaction.

Okay.

Well My Spell it all out. I surmise that the majority of us have read it because we do that.

You're good. Thank you. I had to ask. We do wish the owners well. Honestly, there are other ways of designing something profitable there.

Do not dump every single customer car onto our little lane that's already congested. I take exception with the WTrans traffic report that didn't even say a peep of one word about Kenmore Lane and the terrible accidents that have happened there. The neighbor's corner fence there on Kenmore Lane gets has rocks there because people have gone through into their yard because making swings into the back driveway. My goodness. There's been a lot of accidents at Kenmore and Sebastopol Road.

20 or more at least I was quoted from the old timers. This is a this this plan, this design is unconscionable. The queue management plan is idiocy. Who can send half of their staff, one of two, out to the street in their cook clothes with their aprons on in direct traffic. They are not police. They're not qualified, and there's gonna be accidents there. We care about your success, Delval. And please don't downplay its effect on our on our community. You know, the drive thru is intended to be fast. It's fast food.

Customers are gonna whip in and whip out. And if they can't get onto Sebastopol Road, they're gonna shoot down fast on Kenmore Lane where we had to have speed bumps put in twenty five years ago. And they still speed on them. Do something else with it. I've got a plan here real quick. If you can sure put the thing back up. Well, alright. There's other plans.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments by the members of the public? Okay. I see someone going to the podium. So you can try if you need to lower the podium, you can do it. It's on the right hand side. Thank you for helping. You.

So I hope this goes through. We're just asking for an opportunity. Honestly, I drive through there like four times a day. I've never been stuck in traffic. I've only seen traffic when school is out.

You know, we're gonna be adding sidewalks and lights. It's gonna be safer for kids. It's gonna be like less contact with people. It's gonna be fast. It's gonna be convenient. There's gonna be more job opportunities. You know, we're just starting off. I really don't think traffic is gonna get as bad as everybody thinks. Normally, the restaurant, there's never really that many people in general and a drive through will just make it go faster.

And,

yeah, all we're asking is for an opportunity, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments by members of the public? Okay. Seeing no one rise, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing on this and bring it back to the commission. I'm gonna start off with a couple of questions that I heard from members of the public.

You know, as we all heard, the majority of the questions had to do with traffic. But I do have a couple regarding the parking on the Kenmore Dogleg, for lack of a better term, and that it will stick out. Can I'm not sure who and staff could address that. Cleve? Yes. No. I'm sorry. He the public hearing was closed, so I'm having asking staff to respond now. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Cleve Verney, deputy director of development services. Hi. My name is Cleve Verney, deputy director of development services. So we're the engineering division for PED.

Pulling up the project plans right now so we can take a look at what was proposed. So in regards to the perpendicular parking, they're showing a 17 foot parking space and then a few feet and then there's a valley gutter. And then, so if you see where the proposed curb line is, there's going to be 26 feet clear and then that allows for another six feet after. So on the southern side of Kenmore Lane for parking. So 26 feet clear and then another six feet. Are you able to zoom in at all to that?

So the question about if you have a truck, know, how would that work?

So the what it's striped for now or what it's proposed to be stripe for for that perpendicular parking is for 17 foot long vehicle. If you have a vehicle that's longer than that there there's still a few more feet until where that curb line is showing. So there's still going to be 26 feet clear.

So while we have mister Gurney here, do you have anybody have questions of him before commissioner Carter?

Does the city have any information on the nature of the easement for the use of the Rite Aid parking lot?

So what was shown on the plans and what's provided in the title report is showing an easement along the property. So accessing from Sebastopol Road, we would need to actually pull up the document from I believe it's 1981 to see who the easement was in favor for if on the Rite Aid property. So we'd have to do a little more digging if someone could actually come off of Stony Point Road go through Rite Aid and then access the property.

But but we're assuming at this point it's only on the driveway. It doesn't extend to the east into the parking lot or

That's what's showing on the plans. Correct. Thank you.

Other questions? Vice chair. Yeah.

I just want to make make sure I understood what you were saying about the parking the perpendicular parking spaces. So they're striped for a 17 foot long vehicle and would that allow for how how much width do you allow for for a parked car to curb say eight feet or

So the the width of that perpendicular space or

No.

No. If if there was a parked car opposite on the south.

On the south side. So typical for our minor street standard, it would be an eight foot width parking lane. So this is proposing a six foot parking lane for a neighborhood street standard. So with that you have 24 feet. So it's But we all know these

are cars that narrow or is that the six foot wide cars that a near

A six foot parking space would be very narrow. Eight foot is what's our standard currently is.

Right. So I'm just thinking if somebody came in with one of these huge vehicles and tried to back up and there was a car opposite, would that be a problem?

There would still be 24 feet clear then.

Right. But if the vehicle itself was approaching 20 feet they were backing into this area where there was another car opposite on parked perpendicular to the parking spot.

They saw so they have 24 feet to back up. That doesn't include where that parked car is. That is 24 feet of clear space. So two travel lanes in each direction.

Right. But I'm saying if you've got a almost 20 foot long vehicle and you're backing into a 24 foot space, it's going to create a maneuverability issue to get out of that spot.

It's it's adequate turning space.

Okay. Yep. Thanks.

Other questions? As long as you're here. A question for me about fire truck access and also other like delivery trucks and mail and garbage truck with the parking that we were just talking about and then the parking on the South side in front of the houses, how would that work and is there enough space?

So the development itself fire truck would access from Spouseville Road or Kenmore. They wouldn't go down this dogleg for this development itself. For those properties to the south, if there was any sort of emergency, there's still that 24 foot clear that a fire truck can still access. That still gives them enough room in case, let's say someone's leaving the drive through and they're stalled in one of those travel lanes, a fire truck can still make it through there because that's still twelve twelve and twelve. So space for one car to be stopped and space for a truck to make it through.

In regards to a fire truck or delivery vehicle leaving that east to west portion of Kenmore Lane, likely a fire truck's gonna back out. There there's no turnaround there and that's how they've been operating going down Kenmore Lane. Those perpendicular parking spaces, if no one's occupying them, then that gives more maneuverability. But typically, this with how Kenmore Lanes are already operating, a vehicle would still just go down and then back up if it's larger like a Amazon vehicle or or fire truck.

Okay. Other questions of mister Gurney while he's here. Chair. Yeah. I mean, it's I was gonna send him back to his seat if he doesn't. If we don't have anything else for him. Okay. Let's go ahead commissioner Sanders. What once

Well, my question is about do we have any data about traffic accidents in that area?

I would defer to Terina.

Here comes miss Wilson.

Thank

you. Thank you, mister Gurney.

Good evening. I'm Torina Wilson. I'm the city's transportation planner. I am in the traffic engineering division. So I've been doing review of most iterations of this project. So I did pull collision data here. So we at this point, all of our collision data is based on police reports. So one thing that is I guess slightly unfortunate is if any type of collision happens and police is not called, it is not reported. So these are police record collisions. So I have data from the last thirteen years.

There were a total of 17 collisions between what we're all calling the Dog Lake Of Kenmore and the northern boundary of Sebastopol Road. I went through each of those collisions to try to figure out what the cause was, if it's because there's difficulty of someone coming off of Kenmore or maybe it's just a car on car collision that's on Sebastopol Road, doesn't have anything to do with Kenmore. I found that seven of the 17 involve either a movement from or onto Kenmore which leads me to be able to make the conclusion that seven of those 17 could be something that could happen in the future just with any type of movement that is coming on and off the site. And then there's an additional 10, but those are things like I mentioned. So it's a car on car collision on Sebastopol Road.

It's folks who broadside or rear end to one another, so it doesn't have to do with an in or out movement from Kenmore. And then I did pull the overall crash rate just based on average daily traffic. That's one mechanism we have to figure out, okay, is this a location within the city where there's a disproportionately high amount of collisions? And I did find that the crash rates at the location of Kenmore And Sebastopol Road is below the statewide average. And so this leads us in traffic engineering to be able to believe that even though there are some collisions here, this is not a location in the city where there's a disproportionate amount of collisions that occur.

Thank you.

Vice chair? I have one more just for staff. I don't know if who's the person to answer this question. But when a location like this has a queue management program that's part of the conditions of approval, how is that enforced? Like, let's say you have a bad actor who's not paying attention and not, you know, not watching his cars back up into Sebastopol Road and it's, you know, high peak time of travel and what's the recourse? Does it have to be a neighborhood complaint or

how is this managed? Yes. So when there are conditions of approval that are being violated that is treated as a code violation. And our code enforcement division operates on a complaints basis. So if there was a complaint received that they were not operating by their queue management plan as conditioned, then code enforcement would go out and investigate. And if they find that to be true, there would be citations and violations given to the applicant and ultimately that can lead to revocation

of the permit. Thank you.

Okay. Any other Commissioner Horton?

Thank you. Just a few questions about the the traffic. So this is probably a a dumb question, but the one entrance is off of Sebastopol Road. I mean, why doesn't the other the exit also feed into Sebastopol Road and avoid Kenmore?

So that was an idea before this final site plan was submitted. That was an idea that was floated to staff by the applicant. And it wasn't that it would exit onto Sebastopol, but it would exit onto the North South part of Kenmore Lane instead of the East West part. And Rob Sprinkle, who was the traffic engineer who reviewed the project, did not support that. And his comment was that traffic wouldn't be comfortable with the driveway existing directly onto the North South portion of Kenmore Lane because it's too close with the with the intersection with Sebastopol Road and it would provide an extremely tight right turn onto a busy arterial street.

We typically try to keep driveways as far as possible from intersections, especially commercial driveways.

So just to make sure I got it right, if the and I know this wasn't the option. If the exit were to go directly onto Spaspel Road, the concern would be that it's right next to the Kenmore Road turn and so you got these two turns within like two feet of each other.

Yeah. So something that we look at in traffic engineering is conflict points and the number of conflict points. So think of your standard intersection. Right? Any movement that is happening introduces a potential conflict point that could be vehicle on vehicle, vehicle on pedestrian, what have you.

So when we see development come in and they're proposing new driveways, that is of a major concern for us. We wanna make sure if there is ingress or egress at any location, either new or increased, so an existing driveway where more people will be going in and out, we have to look at that very carefully because we do not want to create a situation where we have more conflict points. A second to that is in any way possible, we will reduce the number of conflict points on our arterial roadways. Those are locations roads, people are going a little bit faster. Neighborhood streets, typically what we see is people are going a little bit slower, movements are a little bit more calculated, and so traffic engineering for the large part does not support new driveways on arterials if there is a logical workaround that would not result in any adverse safety impacts.

So for this project, a entrance into and also exit on Sebastopol Road was something that we couldn't support knowing the number of driveways that are right there already, the average daily traffic, the speed of vehicles, and then the proximity to the intersection with Stony Point.

Thank you. And then my other question was so and let me know if I have this right. So it sounds like WTrans did not look at the traffic impact on Kenmore, just Vastable Road. Does the city have any assessment of the traffic impact on Kenmore and and what that's gonna look like?

Yeah. So this one's a kind of complicated to answer but also not just because I do this as a job twenty four seven, it feels like. So in our traffic reports, I think there's a misconception that we're looking at quality of life and how many people will be introduced to a roadway, and we are looking at how many people would be introduced to a roadway because expansion of a use. But our limitations and this comes from state policy, federal law, tons of regulations is safety. We are only allowed to look at development through the lens of safety and try to understand, okay, this new development that's gonna go in, is it going to create an adverse safety impact?

Which means that when we have a development like this, we do look at average daily traffic. So we do know internally what average daily traffic is on Kenmore Lane. Again, I'm able to pull collision data and all of that. We do that every time we have a development come in, so we did that for this one as well. However, within a traffic analysis, you only have to look at actual safety impacts.

And so a consultant like WTrans will get hired by an applicant. They will do a thorough analysis in a situation like this because most of the movements would be coming either off of or out into Sebastopol Road. That was where the traffic analysis was then have to be focused. So I hope that that answers that question of why it's a little bit more focused towards Sebastopol Road.

Thank you. Yeah. I guess I'm sort of if I may. I I guess what I'm sort of trying to understand is, as you say, theoretically, most of the people exiting will go on to Spassval Road. But it it seems that, you know, out of 34 cars an hour, some portion could, you know, lead to increased traffic on Kenmore. And certainly on that dog leg part, I mean, 100% of it's the dog leg part. Right? So, like, is there I mean, you know, I think we heard comments this is this dark road with no sidewalks. I I am struggling to think there would be no additional negative safety impact from that, but, you know, maybe you can speak to that.

Sure. And thanks for clarifying that. That makes more sense what you're trying to get to. So sometimes when we have a proposed development, we because we know human behavior can make an educated guess. Okay. Yeah. Someone might leave the driveway and they would wanna turn down onto Kenmore. That that could make sense. If there were not speed bumps there, that would be something that we would look at in traffic engineering. We would say, okay.

There might be an increase in the number of vehicles that might wanna use Kenmore as a cut through, and so can we look at any traffic calming measures to put on Kenmore to help make sure that the additional vehicles are not driving too fast? There are speed bumps there, so there is a traffic calming measure in place. So there were no additional recommendations at this point, But then I wanna point out that is the safety component. So, yes, we know logically that any development within the city would introduce new trips to any of our number of roadways, and I just wanna highlight the fact that we only look at safety. We're looking at making sure that we're not gonna result in any additional collisions or some sort of adverse safety impact.

So the fact that there are speed bumps there meant that there were no additional recommendations on Kenmore.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sanders.

Are there other do you have a list of other drive thrus that exit onto a residential street?

No. But I could provide you one.

They do exist though.

Probably. Most of our new ones like I'm thinking San Rosa Avenue, Mendocino, all of the ones that I've reviewed recently have been on arterials. There's no situation in which that I'm aware of that a drive through empties customers onto a private road. There's really no restricting that we can do for any business using a public road that's within the public right of way. So whether or not there's residential uses nearby does not impact what happens on a residential street as long as the our street standards are followed to make sure, you know, that there's access for emergency services and you know, all the things that need to happen within our right of way.

And since you brought up emergency services, do we have any one from fire who can speak to getting a an engine or a truck down that road during peak hours?

I don't think that we do but I can answer a question. So I pulled up when mister Gurney was talking about fire access. The last page of the WTrans traffic report actually shows a schematic of a fire truck entering into that dog leg. I don't know if Nora has a copy she can share. And then on top of the so as she's bringing that up, the fire department does review all development plans that come in the same way the traffic engineering and development services does. That's not the right one. It's this one.

So the last page?

Is that what you said?

It's the last page. Yeah. At least of the one I printed, unless I printed it wrong which is possible. There we go. Okay. So this is the length of a Sonoma County fire truck, and this is a it's what's called a template. So this is what traffic engineers use to determine, you know, to scale here is a proposed development. Would this truck so we have fire trucks, we have buses, we also have different schematics for different lengths of semi trucks as well. We can place them on top of any site plan to figure out does this actually work? Can the turning movements operate?

So the what this one's showing is that a fire truck can pull in. They can back into driveway of the restaurant if they need to, and then they can pull out onto Kenmore Lane. I will say also sometimes what happens is a fire truck will pull in and then they will back out. There's usually a maximum amount where they start to not feel comfortable doing that anymore. This length, this dock leg of Kenmore Lane does not exceed that amount. So a fire truck could back up, but what this report is showing you is that they also have an alternative option which is pulling backwards into the driveway.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. So with this, I think what we'll do is I'd like somebody to we'll we'll we'll start with making some comments and then see how we're going with the resolution that's provided by staff and see where we need to go then. Does that work miss Crocker?

Well, if someone could enter the resolution and then you can have your comments and discussion as how we usually proceed.

Okay. Thank you. Would somebody like to enter the resolution? Okay. Is there anybody who'd like to do that?

Yes. Okay. Commissioner Sanders.

Move resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Santa Rosa making findings and determinations and approving a conditional use permit for drive through retail sales for the property located at 2002000. Sebastian will roll file number CUP23Dash041NO83D. I second it.

Thank you. And is there a second?

I second.

Oh, thank you. So that was moved by by commissioner Sanders, seconded by commissioner Pardo. Let's go ahead and start, with commissioner Sisco for comments.

Okay. First of all, I I know there was a comment in some of the written material that we got about drive thrus and us being against them and all of that. So I just want to first start with I'm not against drive thrus, approved many. I've also not approved at least a few. I I think it sounds like it's a wonderful business.

That's not an issue. The business is not the issue. The issue is the site for me of how they choose to expand this. And I don't know that I can say it much better than the public already has but I'm gonna try. The the Sebastopol Road ingress, it's impossible to enter with a left hand turn if you're going west.

That's in, you know, I wish the most success for any business that comes in front of us but that's a limiting factor. Westbound patrons, if they're really determined are probably going to have to take a very circuitous route described by one of the individuals here either going through the Rite Aid parking lot which, you know, there's nobody there now but that doesn't mean that there won't be and then that would be conflicted or go all the way up to Gardner, come down Kenmore and try to make a right hand turn onto Sebastopol Road. That doesn't seem very realistic to me. If if you're if even if you're coming east, that intersection is very very backed up. And so even before anybody gets to the queue, there's a line in in order to enter that that space on the right.

And that it's just a really difficult place. It this particular site plan, it seriously impacts existing issues on Kenmore Lane. They're already having trouble getting out, making a left to go east and this compounds that that issue. The queuing plan, in my opinion, is very unrealistic and inadequate. You know, we we want the businesses to succeed.

And one of the troubling sentences in here, and actually mister Navarro echoed it, it's sort of like, if it gets backed up and they, you know, pull the chain across, then the patrons, the potential patrons are going further up Sebastopol Road where there are very similar businesses. And it's to me, it's it's a very very limiting factor of the success of this business. And I think it not only complicates Kenmore Lane but I think it complicates that intersection of Sebastopol Road and Stony Point Road. It's just difficult to access. And the parking, you know, I yeah.

It sounds like it's maybe doable but is it a nuisance? I don't know. I just think that that that this really really is impacting not just Kenmore Lane but potentially, you know, the the traffic on Sebastopol Road and Stony Point Road. And again, I don't have any issues with a drive thru or this particular business but I can't make the findings that would would make this okay to approve. And one of the findings that we have to make is, and this is where, you know, the traffic engineer was saying they don't they don't assess for safety or quality of life.

Well, we do and that's one of our findings is that granting the permit would not constitute a nuisance or be injurious or detrimental to the public interest, health, safety, convenience or welfare or materially injurious to persons, property or improvements. And I'm not gonna be able to make that finding based on, you know, the materials submitted and what I've heard here tonight. And so I'm not I'm not gonna be able to make the findings c, d, or e and I can give more information on that if others want that. But I think that, you know, staff originally in fact indicated that there was potential noise nuisance and that's why they want to restrict the hours. Again, it's a limiting factor on how successful this business can be but it acknowledges that there's a nuisance factor to the neighborhood.

So, you know, that's there too. But just to me it seems like if you're if you say, oh well, if it's too successful, it'll be unsuccessful because it's impossible to really navigate and people will go elsewhere. I'm not comfortable with that. So I'm not gonna be voting yes on this tonight.

Thank you. And now we'll go to this side. Commissioner Carter.

First of all, I'd like to thank the applicant for all the time and effort they put into this and to the staff for working with the applicant. A lot of creative thought it went into this and you really tried to make it work. But I think what we have is a traffic report that says well we can make it work, but I don't think it works in the best way. I don't think if you wanted to design a site for a drive in you would put it in this location and in this shape and because of that I don't think I can make the finding d especially that the site is physically suitable for the type and intensity of the use being proposed. I would like to thank Commissioner Cisco for talking about the possibility of a constituting a nuisance in approving this.

I think if the management report was more substantial or the queue management plan was more substantial and it included a report that didn't require neighbors to have to report that it's not working, we could consider that it wouldn't be a nuisance. But I think the plan we have now doesn't assure us of that. And because of those two things, I'm not gonna be able to support the application.

Thank you. Commissioner Sanders?

So yes. There are a couple of things that are concerning about the queue management for me. But I think this is a perfect example of not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. While this is not a perfect scenario, I've yet to sit at this dais and really assess any program or any project that is absolutely perfect. With that said, I I feel I need to say this just so that everyone in here knows about Terry Sanders.

I don't make decisions based on some future political potential. That is not what I do. I've never done it, not once. And I will not be bullied into taking a position that I have not considered a lot. So just understand that.

My support of the project though, before you start waving too much, my support of the project though, again, we're talking about a local business and part of our general plan says that we are wanting to support our local businesses. And as my dear high school buddy here mentioned in a very eloquent way, you know, I'd like to give them an opportunity to be a good neighbor. And you will be watched. You have neighbors who will be watching. And I'm looking forward to seeing a little bit more thought being put into the queue management plan because right now, you know, you're gonna have someone hustling because I think you guys are gonna be successful.

And with that success, they're gonna come some learning opportunities, some bumpy roads. But I I say again, I never wanna let the perfect become the enemy of what's good for our community and especially in Roseland. So I will be voting yes.

Thank you. And we'll move over here to vice chair Duggan.

Okay. I also cannot make findings c d and e that commissioner Cisco articulated. And to what's already been said, with all due respect to commissioner Sanders' position, as I guess your high school friend mentioned, to give them a chance and maybe they succeed, maybe they won't succeed, a conditional use permit runs with the land. If they're not successful and we've granted a conditional use permit and they fold up shop and decide to quit business, anybody who comes in there and purchases that property has a conditional use permit for a drive through. So if this particular business doesn't create the nuisance that we think it might, a future one could.

So I'm not I'm not comfortable with okaying it on that basis. And also, the fact that Kenmore Road Kenmore Lane is quite a quiet old country lane. There's no consistent sidewalk or gutter. People who walk there, walk their dogs, kids walking are in the middle of the street. And I'm not comfortable putting cut through traffic on a narrow road that has no sidewalk. So I cannot support this request.

Thank you. And we'll go to commissioner Pardo.

Thank you, staff and thank you to the applicants and to the public for making you guys' comment. I do agree with some of my colleagues and some of the comments that the public has made. But Kenmore Lane is not a private road. If any of us wanted to make a drive there, we could make a drive there and does not constitute for us to say that cars, more cars driving in a in in a public road will constitute for us to reject the project especially for small business. There's Dutch Bros in Mendocino, there's Dutch Bros by my neighborhood in Coffey Park on Hopper that has a lot of car issues.

Not sure if it came into the planning commission. I wasn't at the time. But I am a freedom guy and Ken Moore is lane is a public road and we can all get access to it. So the basis of more cars coming to that road for it to be rejected and disturb people's peace. Unfortunately, Southwest Santa Rosa is not a ranch land anymore and it's gonna continue to be developed. So with that, can make all the required findings and then approve with this project.

Okay. And now commissioner Horton.

Thank you so much to the staff and the applicant and the public and everyone who came out. And I actually I hope it I hope it's alright. I just wanted to echo my comment or my colleague, commissioner Sanders, comments about not being bullied and I just wanna say he's a person of the utmost integrity and I really appreciate him taking a stand. So thank you. So I I think I'll keep it really brief.

I think a lot of other commissioners already said this. I am very very supportive of the project, but ultimately find myself unable to make the finding that this is not injurious to public safety or a nuisance. Right? To have 34 cars an hour spilling out onto this quiet dog leg cul de sac and then onto a road with no street lights or sidewalks or what have you. So I think everyone else said it pretty well. That's where where my head is.

Thank you. And I also would like to say I will not be bullied. Never have, never will. I cannot make all the required findings especially those findings c, d, and e. I think that, you know, our role is to make sure that we approve projects that are physically suitable for certain land.

And I cannot find so that goes to finding d especially. I cannot find that this addition of a drive thru for the restaurant is consistent with the is physically suitable for that density and intensity of the use being proposed. So with that, I think we will take a vote. Okay? So it was moved by commissioner Sanders, seconded by commissioner Pardo.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter? No. Commissioner Cisco? No. Commissioner Horton? No. Commissioner Pardo?

Yes.

Commissioner Sanders?

Yes.

Vice chair Duggan? No. Chair Weeks?

No. So that fails with two in favor and five opposed. And I think now what we need to do is take a break to discuss what type of a resolution we would bring forward. Is that correct, miss Crocker?

Well, I think what we would need is some more direction. So at this point, I would suggest if it's the will of the commission to make a motion to deny the project, You could make a motion to deny the project and then second that motion. Then what we would ask for is we don't have a prepared resolution of denial before you but we would be willing to go and type that up if everyone's willing to wait for us. But what we would ask if we get the motion in the second is for you all to provide us some additional information. You were indicating most of you couldn't make findings c, d, and e.

Some of you just e. And what we would request is to go through and get comments from those of you that are not able to make those findings and give us additional information as to why you can't make those findings. Then we will take a recess and we will convene in a conference room and we will go ahead and type up to the best of our abilities what we've heard from you this evening. We will come back and then we will place on the overhead for you what we have drafted as a resolution of denial and then you can make comments on that. And then subsequently if we get it right or we can fix it up then you can make a you would then done it, vote on that motion.

Sorry. Because you've already put the motion out there. Stumbling a little bit. My apologies.

So the fact that we denied the resolution, do we still need to do another vote right now about

I'd like to just get is if there's a motion to deny so that and then we get a second then I will ask for comments from you, then we will take a recess and then we'll come back with a proposed resolution. At this point, we don't have anything for you to vote on.

And during that comment period is when we would provide you with the information that you will need to Correct. Make the resolution. Okay.

Yes. So for those of you who were specifically speaking to finding c d and e or some of you just finding e whichever ones that you were not able to make, please give us information so that we can fill in the findings of denial as to why you can't make those.

Okay. So is there a motion to deny the project?

I move to deny the project.

And the second?

I'll second.

Okay. So that was moved by commissioner Cisco and seconded by vice chair Duggan. So we'll start with commissioner Cisco for comments.

I

was unable to make the findings for I have the numbers so but it's c d and e, I think. And for c, I would say the operating characteristics are incompatible with the existing neighborhood due to noise impacts which staff acknowledges by wanting to reduce operating hours and existing issues further impacting a neighborhood street and Sebastopol Road. For number d, the site is physically unsuitable unsuitable for the type density and intensity of use due to access issues, constraints, and then e, that it would constitute a nuisance for inadequate flow of ingress. Egress impacts not only to the neighborhood but further impacting Sebastopol Road, Stony Point Intersection and the community. Something like that.

What was the last one on e?

That it it would constitute a nuisance for inadequate flow of ingress, egress impacts not only to the neighborhood but further impacting Sebastopol Road, Stony Point Intersection in the community.

Vice chair? Do you have anything?

I don't have anything to add to that. I'm in agreement with all of commissioner Sisko's points.

Commissioner Carter?

I'm gonna stick with my simple first answer that I can't make the finding d that the site is physically suitable.

Okay. Commissioner Horton.

Thank you. Yeah. I agree with everything commissioner Sisco said except let the record show, I guess, that I I'm not I agree with the fine I actually agree with the staff's proposed finding about the noise. That's not a concern for me. But everything else, I agree.

K. Commissioner Sanders?

Not quite sure what to say here.

I don't know either what Yeah. What to say.

I support the project.

So I

guess I I nothing to add.

K. Commissioner Pardo? I could find the required findings. Okay. Okay.

So does that work for what you need or do you need more and do you need more information from us?

I think we've got enough to get us going here. So we will go back and type this up and we'll as miss Crocker mentioned, we will project it on the screen so you all can take a look at it and see if there's anything that you want to add.

Okay. So now we need we need to vote on this. Correct?

No. Not until we have a resolution before you. So at this point we would request a short recess so that we can go up and put the this together. Then we'll project it on the screen once everybody is comfortable with the language, then we will take a vote.

But we had a motion to deny the project.

Correct. But there's currently no resolution to vote on, so we just we're moving a motion to facilitate discussion so that we could then engage you for additional information. Okay. Then when we come back we will actually have a resolution before you to put to a vote. At this point there isn't anything to vote on.

Okay.

Thank you.

You can tell we don't deny stuff. We're taking a break for what did you say? 15? You wanna come back at 07:00 or

Yeah. We'll do fifteen minutes. I'm sorry? Fifteen minutes should be Okay. Adequate. So

seven we'll take a break until 7PM. Staff is on their way coming back, so just wanted to let you know. Commissioner Pardo is not here. Can we start anyway? Or okay.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we are gonna start the commission meeting again and was informed that we need to do a roll call. I think commissioner court commissioner Pardo will be with us in just a second. But in the meantime, miss Brown.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter?

Here.

Commissioner Cisco? Here. Commissioner Horton?

Here.

Commissioner Pardo?

Here. Here.

Thank you. Commissioner Sanders?

Here.

Vice chair Duggan?

Here.

And chair Weeks?

Here.

Thank you. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present after recess.

Okay. So now you will read it to us and then project it or project it and read it to us?

We will project it and then read it to you. And then you can let us know if there's anything that you would like to add or change. Okay.

And I'll I'll just be reading the the findings to you. So c, the design, location, size, and operating characteristics of the proposed activity would not be compatible with existing and future land uses in the vicinity due to noise impacts as well as traffic impacts that further exacerbate existing adverse traffic conditions on Kenmore Lane and Sebastopol Road. And d, the site is physically unsuitable for the type, density, and intensity of the use being proposed due to inadequate ingress and egress and physical constraints that prevent adequate access to the site and operation of a queuing plan. And e, granting the permit would constitute a nuisance and be injurious or detrimental to the public interest, health, safety, convenience, or welfare in the project vicinity due to inadequate ingress and egress resulting in impacts to the intersection of Stony Point Road and Sebastopol Road, the neighborhood, and the community at large?

Okay. So we'll start with commissioner or are there any so we're gonna start with commissioner Horton, but I so I was I could just open up and say, are there any comments from anybody? Does this seem what we were looking for? Commissioner Horton?

Thank you. I I can make all the required findings and declarations and we'll support the resolution.

Commissioner Carter, is it is this what we were looking for?

I think it captures what we raised as issues and I can make the findings for denial.

Commissioner Cisco?

Yeah, I think it captures what we've been talking about and I can make the findings for denial.

Commissioner Doug or vice chair Duggan.

I can also make the the required findings for denial.

Okay. Now, commissioner since commissioner Pardo and commissioner Sanders voted yes on the project, they would vote no on this. Is that correct?

That would be correct if

that is their

If they're their will. Desire. Okay. So I can make all the required findings and I think you guys did a good job. So process wise, do we enter a new resolution?

There's been a a motion and a second. Okay. And now we have read and acknowledged the the motion that's now before you, the resolution that's before you. So at this point, there is a motion on the floor and it is the resolution to deny the project.

K.

So a vote in favor is denying the project. A vote against is not. Okay.

So with that, we'll have the vote.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter?

Aye.

Commissioner Sisco? Aye. Commissioner Horton? Aye. Commissioner Pardo?

No.

Commissioner Sanders? No. Vice chair Duggan?

Aye. Chair Weeks?

Aye.

Let the record reflect that that vote passes with five ayes.

Great. So now I should just have one. So with that, it passes with five ayes, two nos. Please note this action is final unless an appeal is filed with the city clerk's office within ten calendar days of today's decision pursuant to zoning code section 20 dash 62 dot zero three zero. And with that, we'll adjourn the planning commission meeting. Thank you everybody.