Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone. I'd like to call the 02/26/2026 meeting of the Planning Commission to order. And if we could please have roll call.

Thank you, chair. Commissioner Carter?

Here.

Commissioner Sisco is absent. Commissioner Horton?

Here.

Commissioner Pardo?

Here.

Commissioner Sanders?

Here.

Vice Chair Duggan? Here. Chair Weeks? Here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present with the exception of Commissioner Sisco.

Thank you. We have no remote participation under a b two four four nine. We have one set of minutes from February 12. Are there any changes, corrections? Okay.

No changes or corrections on those, so they will be approved as submitted. And then we'll move on to public comment. And I would like to mention that the two items, we have two items that on the agenda today that are being continued to a date certain, and they are the public hearing 11.1, MD market conditional use permit, and item 11.2, the Meadowood Ranch tentative map amendment. So, if you are here to speak on either of those items, now would be the time to make your comments since they are not technically on this agenda. So with that, if anybody has comments that they would like to make on the on items that are not on the agenda today, please make your way to the podium.

You'll have three minutes. And you'll see a timer coming. So

hi, everyone. My name's Anna Diaz, and I am from the Roseland area. I just wanted to give my public comment regarding one of the previous meetings that you guys had regarding the restaurant, Del Valle. I was watching it through Zoom because I was not in town that day. However, I was very, very upset and very, very concerned.

And I'm gonna continue to say I'm very concerned for the future of the planning commission and how you guys are going about things because in all reality, I did hear from like, you know, Pat Cisco and from other people that said that they were at the location themselves that, you know, that they just didn't believe that it would be a right fit for the area. My honest opinion as a long lived Rosen Area resident is that for people that don't live in the area, I don't think it was valid to even think that some of those comments were even made, especially when you do not live in the area. Regardless, that street, my sisters lived off Gardner for several years since I was a Cook student. And regardless, that street's always gonna be busy. There was comments about Santa Rosa City Schools, which is now Cesar Chavez Academy.

And that again was so like a comment that was totally off of topic and honestly didn't even pertain to the project itself. There was also comments from the business owners themselves that some of the people that came to the location to take notes or to observe the location didn't even come inside to say hi, not even go inside to order a taco, just it kind of made them feel uncomfortable and especially with the topic of ice, it made them feel that they were being inspected. So I need you guys to really pay caution especially going to a majority Latino area that when people are not familiar with you and you're looking like you're taking notes or quote unquote looking like a code enforcement officer, at least go inside and say hi. At least introduce yourselves. And if you don't want to introduce yourselves, go inside and order an horchata.

That's all it took because it made the owners themselves feel very uncomfortable. And I said this to you guys in, a personal email as well. So I do wanna give a special thank you to, I believe, commissioner Pardo and to commissioner standards for truly being in united with the owners themselves. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else making public comments? Miss Carmen?

Yes. Thank you. Hello? Yes. Hi. Good evening to the board. Janice Carmen here. And, I want

to make

two comments about the meetings and the scheduling of the meetings. And this is, I'm gonna refer to the last time we had the meeting. There was the finance meeting at 04:00 and then this at 04:30. The mayoral meeting was at six in Qatari. And I've spoken at other meetings about this, but just to put it in the awareness of whoever is doing the calendars to try to do the calendars so that people can make the meetings.

And I try to go to most of the meetings. I'm particularly interested in the planning and the waterways and the things related, design review, etcetera, related to the planning. But it makes it extremely challenging and frustrating. And then today, I went to a waterways meeting and I hadn't been to the waterways meeting in well, went to the last one, which I guess was May. I can't believe it that it was that long ago.

But there was quite a lot of discussion that went around the Terry Saunders was there. He's now on that board as well. Around the meeting agenda for that particular area of the city. And they were talking about meeting at not at will, but something like that. You know, if something came up, they would meet.

And I think it makes it even more challenging for somebody to be part of it when you don't know when the meetings are going to come up. But I think that things that are related to planning and things like the waterways are really important and they should have at least quarterly meetings. And then it's actually running into a third thing. But after I left the meeting this morning, I wanted to go to the zoning meeting. Well, I was actually an hour behind and I didn't even realize it because I still was going to get the meeting arrangements for Tuesdays.

There's at least three, maybe five meetings at 05:00 during the city council meeting. And all I wanted was the half page for the meeting. And I went once to the office, once to the office down there, and I also asked at Waterways if they could help me over there. Nobody could help me. So I still don't have it. And then I got a paper from the planning over here, and it said that I'd have to wait two days. I'd have to apply for these half page that are public announcements of the meetings. And I just wanted to have the backup page for the meeting on Tuesday, which is only two days away. They are open tomorrow but I shouldn't have to come down here just to do that. Thank I don't have email.

That's Thank part of it. But but I'm just saying

it's Thank you. Any other comments on non agenda items? Okay. So with that, I will go ahead and close the public comment period and bring it to item five, commission business. The planning commission is 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 land use matters, 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. So with that, we'll move to commissioner reports. Commissioner Sanders?

Yes. Thank you, chair. We had a great waterways meeting today and I was there too. And I just wanted to kind of report out some of the things that we discussed. We have a new member of the committee committee, Drew Fagent, I believe is how you pronounce his last name. He's from design review and we're really happy to have him. Actually, his first day gave a lot of great input. So way better than I did my first day. So good on him. Glad to have him there.

Vic Libtak is also back as the representative citizen at large. We also elected our chair Art Dyke to continue as the chair and Kevin, doctor Kevin C to be vice chair. A couple of things that are coming up. The Santa Rosa South, the Santa Rosa specific plan community involvement meetings are gonna be happening March 4 at Amarosa, March 5 at Taylor Mountain Elementary School. And you can get those details at the city website.

FEMA is we we talked about this a little while ago, the flood maps that FEMA is redoing. And at this point, we're in the appeal stage of that, which started January 20 and will end April 20 with the final flood map to be released. I believe it was May, don't quote me on that, but it's definitely in 2027. One of the favorite my favorite updates is our cleanups of our creeks and waterways. We had a 130 volunteer cleanups, and they removed 1,200 cubic yards of trash from the creek, which is amazing.

And I we asked for a visual representation of what that looks like. And that's a 120 dumpsters. Or my favorite, it's a football field covered six inches deep. That doesn't include the sidelines. I I asked about the sidelines.

It's not sidelines. It's just a football field. But that's an amazing amount of trash to be pulled out and it's it's it's so great that we have these volunteers that do that every year. Last, the three Earth Day cleanups which are also coming up and you can they didn't have specific dates so please visit the Earth Day website to get those specific dates if you want to participate in these cleanups. They're fantastic events and it's really a great way to to give back. So if frequent our creeks and streams, please consider it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from commissioners? Okay. So with that I'll go ahead and open the public comment on the commissioner reports. If there's anybody who would like to make a comment, please make your way to the podium. Seeing no one rise. And this is on the waterways, the comments made by Mr. Sanders. Okay. So with that we'll move on to department report.

Thank you chair Weeks and members of the Commission. Jessica Jones deputy director of planning. Just a few things here. Just updates on some of the projects that the Commission has heard recently At this week's City Council meeting, the council held a public hearing on an appeal of the Lago Fresca apartment project that the commission took action and approved. That action was upheld by the council at this week's meeting.

So I just want to give you an update on that. We also have an appeal pending for the Pura Vida community care facility project that the commission approved. That is scheduled for the March 24 city council meeting. And then we just recently received an appeal of the Del Valle Drive thru that the commission denied. We do not yet have a date for that for council but we'll certainly update you once we do. That's it.

Thank you. Any questions of staff on that? Okay. So with that I will go ahead and open the public comments on department report. If you have any comments you'd like to make on what Ms. Jones just said, please make your way to the podium. Seeing no one rise, we'll go ahead and close that. And we will move on to number nine, consent items. We have none, we have no

report. Sorry,

Chair, we're gonna go first into item seven, statements of extension, then our first scheduled study session item.

Gosh, I skipped right over that. I'm sorry. Sorry. Statement of abstentions or recusals? Anybody? Okay. Now we go on to study session. I'm not used to us having a study session, so. Thank you, Madeleine. So study session 8.1, South Santa Rosa specific plan study file. It's a citywide ST 23 dash zero zero four, and Connor McKay will be giving us our presentation.

Great. Thank you, Chair Weeks and members of the Planning Commission. As mentioned, my name is Connor McKay. I'm a senior planner. I'm very excited to be presenting this study session on the land use and circulation alternatives report associated with the South Santa Rosa specific plan.

So we'll discuss what a specific plan is and kind of where we've come and what we've heard from our community in terms of feedback and opportunities and issues with the South Santa Rosa Pacific plan. I think it's been quite some time or this might be the first time that we've presented to the commission on the South Santa Rosa specific plan, so I wanted to give some additional background on the plan itself. And then we'll go right into the each of the alternatives that are included in the report that was included as attachment one of your packet. And then we'll kind of go into next steps and facilitate a discussion about each alternative. So, in terms of what a specific plan is, so specific plans are a long range planning document for a very specifically defined area.

So while a general plan establishes city wide vision and policies, specific plans would zoom in on a defined geographic area and that can be areas of the city or areas of unincorporated county, which is the case for this and we'll get into that in later slides. So specific plans address land use, so what kinds of housing, jobs, shops, services, where should those go and at what intensity or density. Also addresses circulation and transportation issues. So how do people move into, out of, and within the specific plan area and what types of transportation do they use? Do they walk, bike, use a scooter, take public transportation, or do they drive?

And what kind of issues do folks using those different modes of transportation face? Also, they address the infrastructure that is needed to support both existing development and future development that would be associated with the future build out of the specific plan itself. Finally, they address public facilities such as parks, open space, and things such as pathways as well. So as mentioned, the specific plan area includes both city and county areas. As you can see on each of these maps, it's somewhat more clear in the smaller diagram.

Believe it or not, the black outline is existing city limits and the red outline is the specific plan area boundary. And then the left diagram is kind of a zoom in where you can see what streets the boundaries follow. So, it's a very large specific plan area. 500 acres of the 1,900 acres are in city limits and the remaining 1,400 are in the county. As the slides mentions, it includes the Moreland neighborhood, but it also includes portions of South Park.

I also wanted to come and make a note here that the specific plan area includes a broad mosaic of different neighborhoods. So the outreach that we've conducted has been very intentional and specific and tries to avoid kind of conglomerating the entire specific plan area as kind of one population or one neighborhood. And then the boundary also follows the same boundary as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission or MTC's priority development area, which is why which is the group that funded the preparation of the specific plan via grant. Also, the boundary follows the city's sphere of influence. So I won't get into each of these statistics in great detail, but I think kind of some takeaways of the demographic information of the plan area is that it is a younger and lower income population when compared with the city and both the county at large.

There is a high percentage of Latino and foreign born residents and residents that are either bilingual or only speak a non English language. Again, I won't get into the specifics here on this slide, but the takeaways here for the housing profile is that the household sizes are generally larger than both the city and the county at large and the single family detached housing type is the vast majority of the housing types in the plan area. Another interesting tidbit here is that the mobile homes come in second at 17.5% of residential unit types in the plan area, which is quite high given the given the percentage of that in the city. And then, we discuss overcrowding and percentage of income spent on housing. So the California Department of Housing and Community Development or HCD defines overcrowding as more than one person per room.

And they don't define a room as bedroom, they define room as any room that is not a kitchen or a bathroom. So that is good to kind of reference when you're looking at these statistics. They also define severe overcrowding as that ratio being 1.5 persons per room. So, as you see on the slide, 9.5% of our units are overcrowded and 2.1% are severely overcrowded, is much higher than the city average of 3.8%. Also, the overpaying kind of follows a similar line as the overcrowding.

HCD says that if you are spending more than 30% of your income, are overpaying for your housing. 60% of the residents in the plan area are overpaying and 28% of those are severely overpaying by paying more than 50% of their income on their housing. And those figures are also higher than both the city and the county. Okay. So as part of the initial phase of this specific plan process, we conducted a lot of community outreach to understand people's lived experiences in the plan area.

A lot of us were quite familiar and spent a lot of time in the plan area, but we wanted to hear from the people in the ground on the ground. So we conducted a series of workshops in October 2024. We distributed a survey that solicited feedback about different opportunities and issues that folks were experiencing, both residents and shoppers and people that may visit for a variety of reasons. We also attended existing community pop up events such as the Cinco de Mayo celebration on Sebastopol Road, the harvest festival at Bayer Farm. We actually went to that one twice.

We were at the Vince Harper South Park Day and Night Festival, and we helped with a Sonoma County Regional Parks cleanup at Andy Lopez Unity Park. There's a lot of different topics on the slide, but what we've heard is that, like I mentioned, there's a lot of disparate experiences in different neighborhoods in the plan area. Some folks might feel happy about the state of their sidewalks, some might not have sidewalks at all. A lot of most of the areas are quite underserved by pedestrian and transit services and just circulation and transportation is a big topic area for improvement. Particularly, particularly East West connectivity issues between Moreland and the Sanders Avenue corridor.

There's not a lot of commercial, retail, and services on the West Side Of 101 in the specific plan area, and folks find it very hard to travel eastward even in a car, let alone feeling safe enough to use any other form of transportation to meet their daily shopping and service needs. There's also a lack of medical facilities throughout the plan area, so folks are having to drive great distances to go to doctor's appointments or other types of medical needs as well. And there's lack of parks and open space. There's I think just three parks in the plan area. So there's Andy Lopez, Unity Park, and the Harvest Harvest Park on the East Side.

And then I mentioned there's a lack of grocery stores on the West Side. So in Moreland, like I said, they have to travel East Of 101 to the Santa Rosa Avenue corridor for their grocery needs. This slide shows existing land uses. Commercial uses are concentrated along the Santa Rosa Avenue corridor. The industrial uses in the plan area are quite extensive and those are to the West of Moreland, the West of Antelope as Unity Park, as well as the southwest portion of the plan area and the southern boundary towards the Runner Park city limits.

Moreland has the kind of higher highest concentration of residential development and that is single family residential. And we also have some mobile home parks along San Rosa Avenue. I'd also like to note that the portions of this map that don't have a color are vacant. They also kind of have that hatching pattern, so that will be important as we're talking about underutilized sites in the following slides. So, as the commission is aware, we just adopted the general plan 2050 update in June.

The general plan land use designations largely follow the existing land use pattern in the area. I want to make a note that they're not on this slide, but there are community and neighborhood parks envisioned in kind of the southeast and southwest portion of the specific plan area, And there's also a transit hub envisioned at the intersection of Todd Creek and Santa Rosa Avenue. So the specific location of those is kind of flexible as we work through the specific plan process, but the general plan does a division those to be present in the plan area. I mentioned the vacant sites. So we conducted an analysis of opportunity sites which are identified as a function of the scale of existing development and assessed land value.

So we're thinking that these are sites that could be reasonably you can reasonably conclude that they would be developed as a result of land use of change land use designation changes associated with a specific plan. Okay. So getting into the alternatives themselves. So the land use and circulation alternatives report takes the feedback that we received about people's experiences in the plan area and presents distinct approaches to addressing those issues. Feedback on these alternatives will will inform the creation of a preferred alternative which would serve as the foundation for the land use changes associated with the adoption of the specific plan.

So our first alternative is a mixed use corridor. So this alternative reimagines the central and southern portion of the south of the Santa Rosa Avenue corridor as a walkable mixed use hub with higher density residential and higher density of employment centers along Santa Rosa Avenue. The retail components of the mixed use areas would also be supported by medium and low density residential development to the east with enhanced connection via new through streets. The southern portion of the mixed use corridor would incorporate the transit hub at the intersection of Todd Road and Santa Rosa Avenue as I mentioned, And, it would connect to the West side of 101 and Moreland via an improved 101 crossing at Todd Road. You'll see some components of each alternative are prevalent throughout and I think that is kind of just a testament to the consistent feedback we received about connectivity and use of green space and increasing the open space areas in general.

So you'll see on this slide that the there's a greenway connection kind of following along that Todd Creek area, and we really see that as an opportunity to connect people throughout the plan area, keeping them off streets and onto a nicely improved creek pathway. And that creek pathway would eventually extend to the smart pathway as well. So either going north or south down to the Roanoke Park smart station, which is two miles to the south of that point identified on this map. Another thing you'll see across a lot of the alternatives is that we are mostly maintaining our industrial areas. This is to preserve our existing economic base and to avoid introducing new conflicts between existing industrial uses and new residential and development.

Our second alternative is called city centered growth. So this alternative focuses new residential densities surrounding the Santa Rosa Marketplace or where the Costco is located. You'll see those two orange sites on the northern portion of this of the specific plan area are are kind of straddling that Costco shopping center. This is this has also has similar low density East of the San Jose Avenue to support retail that already exists on the San Jose Avenue corridor, but does not include any intensification of that retail or introduction of additional residential density. This also increases the residential density in Moreland and proposes a new commercial center to serve daily needs of residents and folks using Andy Lopez Unity Park.

Our third and final alternative is called centers. This alternative contains aspects of each of the first two alternatives at but at a smaller and more distributed scale. There's increased residential density on this alternative south of the Costco shopping center and between the two mixed use commercial centers surrounding the transit hub at Todd And Santa Rosa Avenue. Each of those are, like I said, reduced intensity and residential density than the previous two alternatives. This also includes a new commercial center near Andy Lopez Unity Park supported by a smaller block of medium density housing as opposed to the larger area proposed for a higher density in the previous alternative.

So as you'll see, there all all of these alternatives would according to our kind of rough calculations would add 9,500 to 10,000 new residential units. And you'll notice here the industrial square footage reflected on the right side of the slide just reflects that we are maintaining as I mentioned a lot of the existing industrial spaces on the West Side Of Moreland and on the South side of the specific plan area. Don't wanna get too deep into this. I just this is a good opportunity to share that the specific plan will also include the preparation of an environmental impact report that will analyze the broad variety of environmental topic areas pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act and a traffic a full traffic analysis would also be prepared as a result of that. Okay.

So going into our next steps, we do have a survey on the return the alternatives report open right now. My next slide will have a QR code that folks watching on Zoom or on YouTube or in the crowd can scan and get to kind of dive into the report and the survey that we've prepared. As commissioner Sanders noted, we do have work shops scheduled for March 4 and March 5, is Wednesday and Thursday of next week from six to 07:30. Wednesday is Amaros Academy and Thursday is Taylor Mountain Elementary. And we will also be holding a virtual option on Zoom on March 11 to hopefully accommodate folks that where a virtual option is better for their needs.

And then sometime in spring, we'll draft a preferred alternative that will incorporate all the feedback that we received on each of these alternatives That will likely include a synthesis of all each of aspects of each of these that we hear that are the kind of the favorite portions of each alternative. And then once we have that prepared, we'll hit the streets again and make sure that we got it right. We'll do a lot of community outreach and workshops and presentations and pop ups as we've been doing throughout this process. Finally, we'll have a public review of the draft's specific plan itself in 2026 and the associated draft environmental impact report. So, as I mentioned, I have a few helpful QR codes that folks can scan or the contact information for the specific plan and our phone numbers both in English and Spanish options on this screen.

But that kind of concludes my presentation. I'm looking forward to fielding questions and facilitating an exciting discussion on this project.

Thank you. So I have a couple of questions if I When can will the city council see this for the first time?

So the city council will be will hold a study session at the city council on March 24.

Okay. And if you already said that, I apologize. And then the public workshop on Zoom on the March 11, what time? Same times?

05:30.

Okay. Okay. So I think that's all I have for right now, but I'll pass it on to my fellow commissioners for questions before we open the public comment. Commissioner Carter.

Thank you. Because I had a question kind of related to the schedule. Given the fact that I understand all the planning areas within the sphere of influence for Santa Rosa and it becomes our planning responsibility given the fact that much of the land is Unincorporated County is there any County involvement in the approval process for this Yeah.

Thanks. Specific plan? Thanks for the question. Yeah. So the county has been serving as a partner in this process. We are the city is the lead on the on the process itself, but we do meet with them. We coordinate with them regularly. Ultimately, the goal is to have the board of supervisors adopt the plan as well. So, the same land use regulations would apply whether you're in the city or the county. And annexation, as I should have mentioned in my presentation as well, is not part this process.

So as with not The Roseland specific plan preparation included a city initiated annexation. There is no city initiated annexation as a result of this project. So annexation would come as a on as development is proposed. So yes, the the to answer your question get back to your question. The county has been a partner in this process.

And their approval would normally come after the city is done with it.

Yes. We are tentatively planning a study session with the Board of Supervisors this summer. And I do have the director of permit Sonoma here, Scott Orr, if you do have questions for the county themselves. Thank you.

We'll go. Commissioner Sanders. And then

Just really quickly for the March community meetings, will there be like childcare, will there be you know resources for families so they can show up and actually focus?

So we're working on getting some refreshments and we are coordinating childcare. I'm not a 100% sure on that yet, but we have made inquiries to that end.

Thank you.

Vice chair.

And just piggybacking on that question. Translation services will they be available at all the workshops.

Yes

Okay, and also just a question of the plan area itself on the Southeastern part Is that part of the urban growth boundary is the do they match up the extent of the plan area in the urban growth boundary?

Yes, the urban growth boundary and the sphere of influence and the specific plan boundary are all the same.

Okay. Thank you

Any other questions I think probably after the public comments we may have some more. So with that, I will go ahead and open the public comments on this item. If you are here and you would like to make a comment, please make your way to either one of the podiums, and you'll have three minutes, and we'll go ahead and start over here.

Thank you. My name is Fred Allebach, and my primary recommendation here would be to send this alternative report back to the drawing board so that they present a full cost accounting triple bottom line base set of alternatives that includes the social costs of the project. Overall, that would mean sustainable growth frame that would acknowledge their environmental costs and social inequity of business as usual development. And those things are usually elided and hope that an invisible hand will deliver the benefits through a project like this. But this this this is basically a modern urban renewal project.

And urban renewal is known for displacement of low income communities. And this project area has got tons of low income communities. So I think that the absence of any accounting for that in the presentation so far is serious omission. So let's see. So I gave you a comment, a piece of my comments.

I'm a little nervous now because I've studied this for like a month and I only get three minutes to talk to you guys. So I don't think that people in the survey can make an informed choice unless they see the consequences of what these alternatives are for potential displacement. And in my paper that I gave you today, I made some specific alternatives recommendations, particularly in Morland, to make a hybrid set of alternatives. So you put a commercial center there, Robles Avenue Crossing, let's see, and then make sure that connects with the greenway. And then let's see.

Also with the commercial centers, I think that it's not enough to just have a commercial center, but the city should have an intentional recruiting of anchor tenants that will actually serve the people and not just be walkable in name only. So that for example in Moreland that there would be a Hispanic market there or a grocery outlet to serve the lower income people in the plan area. Now, would also suggest that the comment period is supposed to last six weeks, but the Spanish alternative survey only came out today. So I think that the Spanish translation outreach, it should extend another six weeks from today rather than six weeks from the original start. And let's see.

Sorry, three minutes isn't really enough to address a plan like this, but I hope you had a chance to read my comments that I sent in and my little sheet here. So thanks very much.

Thank you. And we'll go to Mr. Alvarez.

Eddie Alvarez, city council member, but I come to you, reserving my comments with my purpose of only, translating, Concepcion's statement. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Concepcion Dominguez. I am a resident of Moreland here in the South Santa Rosa. While you revisit the plan and view the plan, I want to share with you the important priorities for our community.

First of all, a lot of folks in Moorland want to advance the integration with the city of Santa Rosa. Our goal or long term goal in our life is that we are here, we work here, we study here, we buy and purchase here, and we use the services here in the city of Santa Rosa. We want to have access, equitable access, to the services and infrastructure and investments similar to that of the city of Santa Rosa. Secondly, we need better connections to the streetways and highways such as The US 101. Currently, there is simply a wall that separates us from the rest of the city.

A lot of us depend on this mode of transportation to visit stores, to work, to access the services. But traversing these roads is difficult and sometimes dangerous, especially for the pedestrians, elderly, and familiar families without modes of transportation such as vehicles. Moorland wants to be more connected with the city of San Rosa, its opportunities, so we ask you that you prioritize us becoming part of this plan. Thank you for your time. And I also want to share with you the mural that is still not in Andy's Park.

He's our he was our neighbor. He was our child, and we find it very offensive that this mural has not been constructed. I do not know who to speak with to make this happen, but I'm hoping that it could be done sooner than later. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

you. Mister Alvarez, can you help with the button for the Thank you.

I'm sorry. A little tall then.

Thank you. Yes. Good.

Thank you.

Let me

know when it's raining.

Thank you.

That's good. That's good. Okay. Thank you. My name is Irene Rosario. I have been in the lived in the Moreland area for over forty years. I belong to a community group that's called the Moreland Neighborhood Action Team, and we're trying to develop a sense of community and inform our our neighbors and just work together building community. With that said, I want as you consider the South Santa Rosa plan, I want to share priorities that are critical to our community's future. A stronger physical connection with the rest of the city and planning that moves more than forward to long term integration with the city of Santa Rosa. As the previous people have said, we buy in Santa Rosa.

We shop in Santa Rosa. Everything happens around Santa Rosa. I I I'm not only a forty year resident resident in Moorland, I'm a life I'm a native of Santa Rosa. My kids are natives and my grandchildren are natives. With that said, we understand that annexation is not in itself. We understand that annexation itself is outside the scope of this plan. However, many Moreland residents see annexation as a long term goal because our daily lives, we're already there. We're already doing it. We're already Santa Rosans. We encourage the city and the county to use this planning process to lay the groundwork for the future through coordinated infrastructure service planning and investment that brings our community closer in alignment with the city.

In the near term, as part of part of this plan, our most urgent request is better East West connectivity. I feel like we're the red headed stepchild. You're creating an East West wall. We need to change that because we're all part of the community. The freeway currently divides us, as you know, and that's part of the problem.

There's lacking in bus services. We A lot of times, our street is used as a bypass for the freeway. We need a better connection to the other side of the street, meaning the highway, freeway. We ask that specific plan prioritizes safer and more direct pedestrian crossing, bicycle transit, vehicle connections across the freeway. Improving these things would expand access and opportunities, support local economic act activity, and help Moreland residents stay connected to the resources they rely on every day.

And again, we are a working class community. You know, we are just striving like everybody else, and we consider ourselves Santa Rosans. So please consider all of these comments as you move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and do the West podium, and there's a button on the side of the podium, on the right hand side of the podium if you wanna lower it. And you have to speak really closely into the microphone so we can hear you.

Good afternoon chair and members of the council. My name is Esther Lemos and I've been a resident of Moreland for fifty five years. So I've seen the progress that changes that's happened there from from my house flooding from the creek that passes through my house to having to wear high boots to take my kids to school. And and I know now it has changed. There's more it's more like it used to be rural, more open space.

Now it's more like a little town there. They build houses and a beautiful park. And I know my the last speaker spoke on all the different needs that we have. And there's also a need if you gone through Corby and and go over across Bellevue, you've seen a mount that's right by the freeway. When I purchased that house fifty five years ago, they said that that was gonna be a crossing over the freeway and that's fifty five years later, it hasn't happened.

But, we do need a lot of infrastructure, and we are really in agreement and happy that we can annex our area to city Of Santa Rosa. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll go to the East Podium.

Yes. Okay. I see the three minutes. My name is David Harris. I'm a long time resident of Santa Rosa.

I'm having moved to Washington Street, which most people don't know in Santa Rosa because it got wiped out by 101 down by where the old general hospital was and Saint Rose Church. But I had been in Berlin as a student in 1970, and my immediate reaction was Highway 101 in Santa Rosa is a Berlin Wall that we have to contend with. And the Berlin Wall has come down, but 101, and you're hearing from these previous speakers, we are doing a very poor job of addressing the barrier that it presents, particularly to alternative transportation. I have been serving for four months now on Sonoma County Transportation Climate Authorities Citizens Advisory Committee, and they are in the process of doing a revision on the plan 2050. And in the whole alternative planning section, there's not a mention of a 101 over crossing.

I participated a couple years ago when the city was doing what was then called the bicycle pedestrian long term plan. And I put red dots on one zero one for over crossings, but it has not made its way to the comprehensive transportation plan. So I am very concerned that we're making these pleas and it is not getting through the system. And it's really quite exasperating that in that section there south between Todd Road, I mean, we have had a big improvement with the Hearne over crossing. But Todd Road and Earl Street is the one pedestrian over crossing.

And look at the rest of it. The one over crossing at Hearne is combined automobile vehicle and alternative transportation. But there needs to be at least two more alternative transportation over crossings. And of course, in that section also, the rail becomes more of a barrier to East West movement than it is in central and farther north in Santa Rosa. But there are more streets across the rail in Santa Rosa farther north than there are in South Santa Rosa.

So I wanna mention also the the alternatives for east alternative transportation across 101 and the rail, both. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ferron?

Chair Weeks and members of the Planning Commission, my name is Gregory Ferron. I'm not here to speak to any specific part of the plan, but in fact the process of adopting the plan. Plans are hard to get citizens engaged in. I've got decades of work trying to get individual citizens to come and talk about what they believe when a city city or a county or any other governmental body tries to, you know, present it to them. I wanna recommend something that I thought you were doing in the downtown specific area plan.

And in fact, I've pushed the county into trying to adopt in its now adoption of a 166 page integrated plan for all of the health services. And that is trying to put the plan in a way on the website in which citizens can actually comment on the plan itself. We have taken up your challenge, which you did when you did the specific area plan, to allow people not to necessarily have to come to a meeting or send an email or try to figure out a way of getting a right person the right information, but actually put their comments on the plan. Adobe Acrobat and others all have that capability. And your IT department certainly has the ability to be able to allow people to do what I'm suggesting.

But it is, in my experience, been the best way to get people to actually tell you what's what they like and what they don't like about your specific plan. Line by line, place by place. So I recommend that for this. It's maybe too late. But going forward, we've all gotta do a better job of engaging our citizens in giving us their advice. And a lot more people can write on a web page with their laptop or their cell phone than come to a meeting. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Ms. Carmen?

Thank you, chair. Thanks to Greg Puarin and Alvarez and the woman that spoke to before him. And a recurring theme with the building here is traffic, safety, danger related to the building that's the buildings that end up on the property. And you've probably heard me talk before about the illegal project across the street from me that got by the city and the the trees were all cut down. Now, I'm familiar with the Hearne Avenue.

I've I've driven all around there. I'm a very long time resident of Santa Rosa and familiar with a lot of places for a lot of different reasons. And the roads still are not taken care of. And Highway 12 to Maria Carrillo was supposed to be taken care of. I found out about that when I went to a bicycle and pedestrian meeting that that was on the agenda to get done.

And then there were two more times that I heard something about it, but it's still not been done. And that was way back, I don't know, September I think it was that I went to that meeting. And that was the only time I went to that meeting and I couldn't believe it that I find out about it then. But it hasn't happened. And instead of building, building, building and increasing the traffic, increasing the transportation challenges, we really need to look at getting these roads up to so that the roads will support, the infrastructure will support, the safety will be there before before we start building and and bringing all these other people in.

And there's a lot of excuses. There's a a lot of antagonism toward the city because of the traffic. And it continues. It's just it's gone so everybody's deaf to it. There are the roads are terrible in most places. And small areas with a former person here, small areas were being chosen to be taken care of. And they were. But we need to do the whole thing. We need to get our roads done before we start building more. And the other thing is the ground collapses when you cut down all the trees. And there's other issues around that. And they're related to the roads. So, I hope you think about that. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Diaz?

Good afternoon commissioners and members of the community. My name is Anna Diaz and I am from Roseland. I just wanted to mention that as we continue with these updates, just to be more considerate of having an interpreter present and more bilingual services, meaning the presentation. I did see online that there wasn't a Spanish version, so I don't know if one will be posted later, but that would be really beneficial for those who are maybe on Zoom or not present so they could look at it later. But going back to what some of the people before me had spoken is that these areas that are in this presentation is majority Hispanic slash Latino.

And I really do think that as you guys take a moment to continue with these presentations and these meetings going forward that you guys really do take into account what the people of these areas are saying as lived residents of these areas. And I think that's just about it. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other comments on this item? Okay. So with that, I will go ahead and close the public comments on this item and bring it back to the commission. I'm gonna start off with a couple of questions that I heard from the audience, and then if you would, my fellow commissioners, weigh in if I've missed something, which I'm sure I probably have missed something. There was a lot of talk about annexation, and I know annexation's not a part of this. Could you talk about the process of annexation?

Yeah. So I'll take a first crack at it. It might need some reinforcements here. So there's kind of two different pathways that we see annexation in the city. One would be brought about by a property owner, you know, neighborhood group or developer and they would submit a development application through the city and a separate process through the local agency formation commission or LAFCO would be to actually file the annexation documents and receive that approval.

So that would be kind of one way. And then the other way is a city initiated annexation. And like I mentioned in my presentation, in my response to commissioner Carter's question, The Roseland specific plan process did include a city initiated annexation. And as I mentioned as well that that is not the case in this effort. I don't know if you all have anything else to say about that. Okay. Cool.

Okay. I know that the city has recently embarked on an aggressive economic development plan to and has talked to a lot of major retailers. Has there been interest in this area from major retailers? Because there was Mr. Albeck talked about anchor tenants. So can you shed a little bit of light on that if you have it if not?

Thanks for the question chair. We're not aware of any specific interest from tenants at this point in time. We have been working with our economic development team in planning and economic development through this process and so we will continue that conversation with them just to better understand if they had any conversations with potential tenants.

I've also had specific conversations with property owners in the specific plan area that represent, well that own industrial properties and had conversations about their experiences with tenants, maybe not major retailers, but tenants that come in with an interest in operating at their site and maybe the county or city land use designation doesn't allow that type of use. And so I'm taking kind of the I'm taking those on a case by case basis and seeing if we can introduce land use changes to those properties that both fit the overall vision of the of the specific plan area and facilitate greater economic output.

Thank

you. Amazon distribution center to help our budget perhaps. Mister Aubach also talked about the Spanish alternative survey that it was only up recently and could that be extended to have the full length?

Yeah. So earlier this week we did publish summary of the alternatives report and a survey translated into Spanish. And we do intend on keeping the both surveys open until mid April. So, Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Comment about Andy's Unity Park. I believe that's in the county. Is that correct? That is So if people were interested in Talking to somebody at the county about the mural. They should contact County parks. Is that correct?

Yes We certainly hear that feedback and we can relay it to the appropriate folks and coordinate with the county on that.

Okay. A lot of talk about the connection of how it went on one over crossing or lack thereof and which I'm sure you have heard in before.

Yeah. So as I noted in my presentation, we did hear a lot of feedback about just general transportation circulation issues, particularly the East West connection. Each alternative does introduce different approaches, either a new over crossing at Bellevue, a new over crossing at Robles, and also improved over crossings at existing freeway interchanges.

Chairweeks, sorry to interrupt. We seem to be having some trouble with our streaming of the meeting, so we need to take a short little break. Oh, it's back up. Okay. Okay. Never mind.

Thank you. There's somebody watching? Which is a good thing. Mister Fearon talked about a citizen comment on the website on the plan. I know you do have a section where you can make comments, but are you getting a lot of those comments? And I believe he was probably talking about specifically like on the page of Yeah. The

we have received comments through a variety of means as I described in my presentation and we did do what he was describing with the general plan update where somebody who was looking at our website could open the document and comment on it as if it was a Google Doc or Microsoft Word document where you could see other people's comments and I do certainly see the benefit of that and we can definitely look into making that possible for different documents moving forward. Certainly not too late to do that.

And then Miss Diaz's comments about Spanish translation, and I know you had said that at the meetings you do have Spanish translations and if somebody and I know at the council meeting you can listen in via Zoom on to the Spanish channel. Is that still correct?

That is correct for council meetings.

Mhmm.

I do not believe it is the case for Planning Commission meetings.

Okay. So that is perhaps something we could look into when this comes back to us.

Yes. So we typically for the Planning Commission, we do not provide Spanish translation unless it is requested. We did not receive a request for translation at today's meeting, but we can certainly do that for future meetings related to the specific plan now that we've gotten that comment. But yes, we do provide translation at all of the workshops and to the extent that we can translate documents for the project we do that as well.

Thank you. So those are the questions I had so let me, okay Commissioner Sanders.

I just have one question. It was mentioned about an accounting for potential displacement. I found that interesting. Is there a metric by which we can measure that? Is that something that's been considered at all?

I don't know that there's a specific metric that I would feel confident pointing towards in that regard. I will say kind of to that point, we did prepare I just had it open an anti displacement and anti homelessness strategy as part of the existing conditions report effort of this project, and it kind of outlined potential policy concepts that we could incorporate into the specific plan that would specifically reduce or prevent displacement or gentrification. And that is available on our website as well.

And is that being talked about at the meetings, like the March meetings, will we will that subject be something that we're talking to residents about?

Yeah, certainly. I think we would take feedback kind of on all aspects of the plan, but I think the purpose of the workshop next week is to discuss the land use alternatives and we will have future outreach events and discussions about specific policies associated with a specific plan and that would probably be the more appropriate time to deliberate on different strategies to reduce displacement and gentrification.

Thank you. And my last question, what's going on with the mural at the park? Is there

As something I mentioned, that's the county.

Oh that, okay. You did say that. I'm sorry. Thank you.

We did certainly hear that feedback and can, we'll look into that.

Okay. Any other questions? Commissioner Horton?

Thank you. I I have a comment. Is now time? Okay. Go ahead. Thank you so much.

Questions, comments?

Perfect. Well, thank you to the staff and consultants for your great work and thank you to everyone in the public who came out. So I really just had one comment. I was very pleased with what I saw in these different alternatives. And I think my big takeaway, and especially after hearing the feedback from the public that there's this real desire for more infrastructure and more kinda smart development on a larger scale.

I think my comment is I'd hope that there'd be like a fourth alternative or a sort of synthesis that could look at doing kind of a combination of all three. Because when you think about it, like that northern part that could look at the downtown oriented development, that's farther from the sort of southern, like, you know, Robles area than we are from the JC right now. I mean, it's it's really it's two different areas. And then as we heard, obviously, Moorland is sort of its own thing too. And so if we want the kind of economic growth in this area, which I think we want, I think we heard the the public wants this, that can then support the level of, you know, over crossings, retail, retail, all the other good stuff that we want.

What I'd wanna see is kind of this, like, ambitious alternative number four or maybe you could just sort of mix and match different components where we have a downtown oriented development in the northern part of Santa Rosa Ave. We have this mixed use corridor and development in the southern part and then we have a sort of Moreland focused strategy as well. And we can really kind of take it to the next level and and get, I think, a lot more exciting results rather than this sort of and I'm not saying this critically, but this kinda self imposed sort of scarcity of we've gotta choose one. So love it and would just like to even see it go further. Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for that. Appreciate that. So as I mentioned in my presentation as well, we this kind of forum is to get that type of feedback on what portions of each alternative that the commission and the public likes. And as we get feedback from the commission, the community, and the workshops and such, we will synthesize everybody's best, everybody's favorite kind of aspects of each alternative and create the preferred alternative that would then serve as the basis for land use changes associated with the specific plan. So that like specific type of feedback about what you liked about the alternatives, that is actually what we would love to hear from the commission. Thank you.

Thank you. Mister Pardo?

Question to Jessica. You mentioned that people can request for a Spanish translator. Where can they make that request?

So there's information on the notices that go out as well as on our agenda on how people can request that translation. Again for this particular project now that we've had that request, we will go ahead and do that for meetings moving forward with the Planning Commission, but that contact information is on the notices in on our agenda.

Okay. And the city pays for that I'm assuming?

Yes.

Okay. Is it expensive?

I'm not sure what the cost is but generally speaking. Yes.

I think. You.

Any other vice chair?

This is just sort of popped in my head, so it's not fully formed. But if we go ahead and sort of intensify the housing density and you know propose a commercial center and such in the Moreland neighborhood and Don't go ahead with annexation even if the county buys into this plan like How is that gonna happen that improvements get made and water connections and sewer and all that happens without annexing that that neighborhood into the city.

Yeah. So the specific plan would be adopted by both City Council and the Board of Supervisors that would change the land use regulations to accommodate increased residential density in a commercial center in Moreland in theory in this hypothetical situation. Then in theory, a developer could come along and say, look at this new site for a commercial center. There's a population here that obviously needs more daily needs in their neighborhood. And then they would propose that development project and that would go through either the county, or it would go through the the the county in this case and they would then annex and go through the utility connection process as is required by the LAFCO, the local agency formation commission.

Is that correct? Please forgive me if I'm mistaken.

Yes, I think you know the idea of having both the city and the county adopt the plan is that any development that would happen in the county prior to annexation would be consistent with the vision that is identified in this document. There has been discussion and there's going to be continuing discussion about potential future annexation in this area. The information that we provided to the council the last time this was provided indicated a pretty high cost of providing services and infrastructure and maintenance to the entire area. And so it was not feasible at that time, but I we expect that those conversations will continue moving forward.

Yeah, I think what I'm getting at is if specific parcels are redeveloped with higher density housing and they get what this what we would require for improvements that that would not extend to the housing that's actually right there now like water connections and sewer connections and and curbs and sidewalks and all the improvements that would go along with being part of the city. So it would just be more a piecemeal fashion.

Yeah. So until annexation occurs and until you know if and when annexation does occur and there is funding for improvements infrastructure improvements areas where there is existing development, you're correct would not have improvements to the street or existing infrastructure that's out there.

Thank you.

Have you do you know of an instant incident in in whatever that where the city would approve the plan but the county wouldn't?

So as Mr. McKay mentioned we are working alongside in partnership with the county. So I think this is a process that I would not expect there to be an issue with that. You know certainly if there are issues that come up when this goes before the Board of Supervisors, we would look into what those might be and work together to address them so that we can have a project that ultimately is adopted by both.

Great, thank you. Commissioner Horton.

Thank you. I just had a follow-up to the vice chair's question and sorry if I'm just like completely missing the point, let me know. But I think what I'm struggling with having heard you ask that question in your response is, like, if we're considering annexation in the future, which I I think is a good idea to consider that, like, certain things like the sidewalk let let's say a new high density housing development goes in on a specific block or whatever. Right? And that's good.

Like, certain things like the sidewalk, they can do it there. And then, obviously, even if there's not sidewalks on the adjacent streets, you you know, we can look at that down the road. But other things, like, if they're running a new waterline, like, we shooting ourselves in the foot if they're digging up the street to do the new waterline and they're just bypassing a whole block because that's not required because we haven't annexed yet. But then we have to if annexation happens two years later, we have to go in and dig up the street again and do all those other water connections, and it's like we we kinda missed a chance to to save money there. Right? So, again, maybe maybe that's off base, but let me know if that's something you're thinking about based on that question.

So I would also say that if and when this area is annexed, the city, it's unlikely to be coming in and putting in water lines right away. You know that typically is done with new development or as needed. Know if there's you know issues or you know it's old and needs to be replaced then it gets prioritized with other infrastructure projects throughout the city. So you know certainly something that you know we will be looking at as this process moves forward. So your comment is noted. So thank you.

Thank you.

Carter?

Yeah, a couple of real quick questions and then some follow-up recommendations for how to proceed. First of all, as I drive in the area it has and look around the area, I ride my bike out there a lot too, has a distinctively, parts of it have a distinctively rural feel. And I'm aware of some what appear to be agricultural activities there. I don't see any reference to that in the existing conditions and I don't see any reference to that in the alternative land uses. Do we anticipate that any agricultural use that's out there is just incidental and we're not going to accommodate any of that in the plan?

Do you want to? We'll go with that question for now.

Yeah, so I think existing agricultural operations would likely continue. We're not gonna tell anybody to stop doing what they want to do. I will say the general plan 2050 update did designate all of the areas within this specific plan area as there's no agricultural designation and we would bring forward designations that were established by the general plan to that end. I don't anticipate including any agricultural designations as part of the specific plan.

The other thing that I was made aware of through the existing conditions report is a distinct lack of public services in the plan area. I note there's a couple of elementary schools and an academy. I need to jump ahead to my recommendation which is to do as many centers and as many connections and as much higher density housing as you can in the plan area. But with those centers I think we need to look at how we're gonna accommodate public facilities and public services. We've already acknowledged that there's a lack of that out there.

If it can occur in the commercially designated areas so be it. But we don't see any sort of public facilities, institutional land use designation out there and I wonder how we're gonna accommodate the public services needs of the community without that. With respect to the connections, I really do believe all of the connections are needed. We've heard from the community that they need more connections back to the East which means Robles and Bellevue ought to go through. It looks like looking at Robles that would be a real challenge whether it's the lack of redevelopment opportunity or the right of way looks extremely narrow there.

It just looks challenging, but I think that should be an aspirational connection, but the Bellevue connection is really important. You got a high school on the West Side. You got parks in the middle of the plan area that need access. So the Bellevue connection I totally support. The Hearne improvements look great.

I hope to see something similar at Todd Road. And I don't know if we ever do this but it would be great to have an implementation plan for this. I would love to see the infrastructure happen not with projects but before projects and so that the people that are out there now with substandard infrastructure have some hope of improvement. So those are my suggestions and I'm happy to talk further if you like.

Commissioner Sanders?

Also, there's not very much mention of the creeks in the area and access connectivity to those, Colgan Creek particularly. So if that can be addressed that'd be great. Sorry. If I if I can continue. With with an with an emphasis on you know eyes on the creek, know, making them safe, well lit well maintained.

Vice chair. Mr. Pardo. I don't have I love all of the comments we've heard so far and I second all of those and I just want to mention that if we add a lot of housing on the south end of the project area, I think we're really gonna have to address safety on Santa Rosa Avenue. So many people have experienced what happens to me every time I come from the South on the highway where traffic pretty much crawls to a stop right beyond golf course and you get off and drive up Santa Rosa Avenue.

And I think unless there's a way to keep that from happening in the future, we're gonna have to have mechanisms for slowing down traffic and making all sorts of any and all safe crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists that we can because it's it's just a speedway on the South End and I don't think it's fair to put new houses and new people down there if there's not a safe way to get around. I've also second all their comments, and I have no none other to add.

Any other comments? Okay. So I would also second the comments of my fellow commissioners. And I guess that's it. So do you have what you need, Connor, at least for now?

Yeah. I'd say so. Thank you so much, commissioner.

Okay. So with that, I will close this item unless there's any other comments. Okay. And we'll move on to the rest of the agenda. We have no consent items, no report items.

We have two items that are being continued to the 03/12/2026 planning commission meeting, and they they are 11.1 public hearing for MD market conditional use permit 1478 Grenville Road CUP 24 Dash 027 And 11.2 also public hearing Meadowood Ranch tentative map amendment planning record 2875 Dutton Meadow PLN 25 Dash 0563. And then we'll move on to the final item, a public hearing. Zoning code amendment pertaining to massage ordinance and mister Kirk.

Thank you. Good evening, chair Weeks and vice chair Dugan and members of the commission. I'm I'm pleased to present to you tonight. This will hopefully be a brief presentation. My name is Luke Kirk.

I'm the, excuse me, I'm the plan review coordinator for the city and I'm here tonight to talk about some amendments we're making or proposing to the city's massage ordinance. So, as you may recall, it was about a year ago, we came through and we discussed some amendments with you and ultimately with the city council to modernize our massage establishment ordinance and enhance public safety. One of the fundamental parts of that ordinance was the ability to have criminal background checks for owners and employees that were not otherwise certified by Camtek, which is the state certifying agency. We discovered as we implemented that our expectation that we were going to be able to piggyback off of the police department's live scan process was just not going to work for a variety of reasons. The DOJ wasn't really happy about it and and so the alternative, in the meantime, we we moved forward and I can I can talk later if you like and and officer DeBaca can talk later if you like about how we've been progressing with this new ordinance?

But we we came up with a stop gap measure to be able to continue moving forward while we started working on these amendments. Our solution is to make minor amendments to the existing ordinance that will make the Department of Justice and the FBI happy, so that then we can get our own live scan account for lack of a better term, so that code enforcement will be able to do those criminal background checks which involve the use of fingerprinting. The amendments as proposed will support what the DOJ requires and also it gave us an opportunity because with any ordinance after its first year, you find things that need fine tuning. And so, we're taking advantage of this need to do an amendment and moving forward to some additional minor amendments. So, to go into detail, we're adding some definitions.

We're defining owner, ownership, partner and partnership. Ironically, these were the main requests of the DOJ in making the ordinance fit their needs. We added clarifying language pertaining to lease agreements. We added clarifying language pertaining to how zoning clearances work when there are cooperative business arrangements. In other words, if you have a shared space with 10 different practitioners, we don't want each one of them to have to pay for a zoning clearance when one will do the job for that space.

We've added clarifying resolution, language pertaining to registration renewal, and also to general operational requirements. So, the analysis of this is that we're going to align the city code with the FBI's p l ninety two five forty four criteria. This is a public law, a federal prerequisite for sharing criminal records with local governments which is exactly what we want to do. It formalizes the link between background checks and permit eligibility so that we can frankly deny permits to those that are bad actors, to those that have criminal convictions or are gross violators as defined in our ordinance. We want to continue to establish transparent objective criteria for the approval and denial of establishment permits and these amendments take that a step further.

It makes it even better. And we're adding specific health and safety requirements concerning the storage and use of liquids, creams and preparations. This was actually something that was historically in our massage ordinance and it just fell through the cracks when we did this update with the new comprehensive ordinance and officer Devock actually identified it as something we needed to bring back. So, we're we're including that in as well. So, our recommendation, I told you this would be quick, is that you recommend to the city council that they introduce an ordinance amending this massage ordinance and and then we can move forward with them.

They can approve a resolution that we would then give to the Department of Justice and be able to move forward with having this background check capability. With that, that concludes my very quick report and I'm open to any questions you may have.

Thank you. I do have one question. So then staff will be trained to use the live scan machine?

It's actually Is that correct? It actually requires very little of us. What we would do is send an applicant to a live scan station. They're scattered all over the place. For example, when I applied for a position here with the city, I believe I went to a UPS store and in the back they had a live scan machine and I had my fingerprints taken. As a live scan operator, they send them off to the Department of Justice and all we get at the end is a report. So, it's a very simple process for us. It just gives us a Okay. Background

I I was thought you said that you would have the live scan machine?

No, no. Okay. We're just have to be licensed to transact that information.

Oh, got it. Okay. And then, if you could give us just a quick kinda status how it's going with the

Absolutely. I'm I'm gonna turn you over to the expert officer Daniela DeBaca.

Good evening. So we've we've been Is that

better? Okay. We've

actually had some very good results. Right now, we have 80 applications that have been submitted in total. And that was beginning, I'd say around March or so at the very earliest. And the deadline to file an application was October 18. We have actually received or continued to receive applications.

Kind of trickling in now but there was a very heavy push around that deadline time. So now we have 80 applications. Of those 80, we have 38 that have been approved and the remaining 42 are in various stages of the review process. And right now we have one application that is in the process of denial. We have surprisingly only four applications for mobile massage and and those have all been approved.

And, that's very good results actually in the fact that we have very very limited staffing to actually progress in a lot of this review. However, we've had very good outcome and connections, communications with the the variety of massage businesses.

Is there still a discussion among all the cities and the chiefs about having this city or county wide, the ordinance county wide so if somebody doesn't go from here to city to city?

My understanding at the time that the ordinance was adopted was that our chief of police was going to speak with the other chiefs in the county. And, I've certainly made it known with the other code enforcement agencies in the county. I don't know if anyone has adopted yet, but I know that a lot of people are looking to this ordinance and again, it's a good ordinance. The staff did a great job on it and it's gonna it's gonna accomplish our needs especially once we get it tightened up with these last remaining amendments.

Thank you. Are there any other questions? Okay. Commissioner Carter.

Yeah. Do these amendments affect the schedule or the status of any applications that have been approved or in process now?

No, not at all. Thank you.

Mr. Sanders.

I'm looking at this on page four. It says add specific health and safety requirements for the use and storage of liquids creams and preparations. Does it also talk about the types of liquids, creams and preparations?

It's all encompassing. Oh, okay. So, yeah yeah. If it's in there, we wanna know what it is and we wanna know how it's being used.

Now is it legal for them to use like these really high THC type of lotions in their practice?

That's not something our ordinance contemplates. If it's I'm I'm gonna hazard a guess and I may defer to Ashley, but I would say if it's legal elsewhere, it's probably legal in this instance. But our ordinance didn't anticipate that type of question.

Yeah. Of course that's where my brain goes. And then lastly, know we we just did the sign part of it, no neon signs. What I'm noticing because for whatever reason I'm surrounded by them, there there are other lights that may not necessarily be the sign light, but there's also a lot of bright other string neon lights. Does that ordinance address that? Is that is that you know, sort of not playing within the intent of the neon sign.

I believe the ordinance talked about the outlining of buildings or windows with with with blinking lights or moving lights. Let me just check really quickly.

And I apologize if that's out of the scope of what we're talking about right now, but it just sort of came to my mind.

Yeah. I'm gonna Officer DeBaca says that she believes that's correct, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the expert's opinion. So we have some ability. It's gonna be a case by case determination. You know, we're not trying, we we were not trying to rewrite the sign code when we did this. It was very targeted in its in its intent. But it's certainly something if if you find that once we get, I know there's some still out there, once we get those under control, if we're still having issues we can always revisit that.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Just out of curiosity, how's it gone on the enforcement side as far as shutting down bad actors?

Currently we're focused on on getting all of these certificates issued. So we're we are very well aware of the bad actors that are there. We continue to receive complaints and we add all of the the very valuable information to our cases. If there's not already an open case, then we open one accordingly. However, because of the bad actors, it takes a very large amount of time and coordination, not only enforcement, but we also work very closely with police, FBI, Verity, any other agencies that that may be related to to an incident.

So, right now what we're trying to do is actually focus on getting and implementing the the ordinance for the certifications first and then salting in the enforcement measures for the bad actors. And, we do come across them in between, so that's why it's kind of needed to have a little bit of salting in little by little.

I would just like to add to that that for obvious reasons we don't want to talk too much about what's happening with our investigations and with the police department's investigations. Just know that they're happening.

Okay.

Any other questions before I open the public hearing? Okay, so with that, I will go ahead and open the public hearing on this item. If you are in the chambers and wish to make comment, please make your way to the podium. You'll have three minutes once the countdown timer is set. Ms. Carmen?

Thank you, chair. I wonder what the difference of this, and I was present before when they came with their presentation, I don't know, city council or possibly gotten awarded the county. But this is my thing. I I see this as a possible violation of privacy. And I'm a licensed cosmetologist.

I've been in the alternative healing for my own body for over thirty years. And I've never had a problem. Well, shouldn't say I never had a problem. The only time I had a problem was with a school that had massage. But I had the same massage therapist also for almost twenty years. And I know that it could be changing. Like you said, there's bad actors. But I wonder what is the difference between this and a regular scan that they do? I also took the notary twice even though I never worked in it. I passed it.

I got the booklet, everything. I just never became a notary because I figured somebody could sue you if something happened. And I didn't ever want to be in that position. But I have had to do these other things as well. And I just wonder what is the difference?

Because you can get those tests done and you can check on people if there is a red flag. But I also see a possibility of an inroad into other vocations and things where they're live checking and looking at possible criminal activity and expanding this to something I'm not saying they. I'm saying the process becoming a wider and a violation of privacy. Anyway, that's what I think.

Thank you. Are there any other members of the public? Okay. With that, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission. Mister Kirk, I forgot to ask you when is this gonna be going to counsel?

It will be going on March 10.

Okay. Thank you. So with that are there any other questions? And if somebody would like to enter the resolution?

Move a resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Santa Rosa making findings and determinations and recommending to the City Council amendments to chapter 20 through 49 entitled massage Regulation and massage establishment registration and a week reading.

Thank you. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay. So that was moved by commissioner Sanders, seconded by vice chair Doug, and let's start with mister Horton.

Thank you, chair. I can make all the required findings. I support this and just thank the staff for their great work and keep it up.

Commissioner Sanders?

Thank you, mister Kirk. Always always top shelf, and I can make all the findings and we'll support.

Commissioner Carter?

I can also support the resolution and make all the necessary findings.

Thank you. Commissioner Pardo?

I can to also make the required financing and approval with this.

Thank you. Chair Duggan. I can make all the required findings.

And I also can make all the required findings and thank you for the good work. So with that, if we could have the vote please.

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Carter.

Aye.

Commissioner Horton. Aye. Commissioner Pardo.

Aye.

Commissioner Sanders.

Aye.

Vice Chair Duggan.

Aye.

Chair Weeks.

Aye. Let the record reflect that that passes with six ayes.

Great. Thank you. And so with that, I will go ahead and adjourn tonight's meeting of the Planning Commission. Thank you.