Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

To order. Looking at the draft minutes of our last meeting on April 23, if anybody would like to make a public comment on the draft minutes of the April 23 Zoning administrator meeting, please approach the podium at this time. Seeing no one, I will close the public comment on the draft minutes and approve those as submitted. Moving on the non agenda public comment. We are now taking public comments on item three, non agenda matters.

This is the time when any person may address matters not listed on the agenda but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the zoning administrator. If you are attending the meeting and would like to make a comment on an item that is not on today's agenda, please approach the podium at this time. Seeing no one, I'll close the non agenda public comment and move on to the statement of purpose. The zoning administrator is appointed by the planning and economic development director and has the responsibility and authority to conduct public meetings and hearings and to act on applications for minor or reduced review authority projects or entitlements. A determination or decision by the zoning administrator may be appealed to the the design review and preservation board, planning commission, or city council as applicable to the decision.

All actions taken by the zoning administrator may be appealed within ten calendar days. If the final day of the appeal period falls on a non business day, the appeal period will be extended to the next business day. There are no zoning administrator reports or consent items so we'll move to our first item which is a public meeting for a fence install at 1750 North Point Parkway. Ken, we have a staff report please.

Good morning. The project in front of you today is North Point Fence Install located at 1750 North Point Parkway and this project requires a minor design review. The applicant is proposing to install a six foot bed and prison fence in a rail parking lot adjacent to Roseland Creek to provide site security and to prevent vehicle theft. Here is an aerial image of our proposed location indicated by the yellow store and as I stated earlier this is adjacent to Roseland Creek which is why this project was presented to the Waterways Advisory Committee in February and they had no comments, no recommendations. They appreciated the project.

Here is a more bird's eye view image of the proposed location. The location is adjacent to industrial uses, the Business Park, and residential uses to the north and south. The zoning lane use destination is Business Park which is consistent with the general plan lane use destination up in Business Park. Here is a creek section of the plan and it's difficult to see but this slide is meant to show the top of bank and how far the proposed fence is from the top of bank. And, since since Rosalind Creek is a channelized waterway pursuant to zoning code section 2,030.04 D three structures may be closer to the top of bank than a distance of two and a half times the depth of bank plus 50 feet.

Here's an image of the proposed fence and the proposed fence has transparent features which allows for eyes on the creek and for people to see inside. And these are pictures of the existing conditions of the site and a picture on the far left. The fence will be placed outside of the curb and outside of the tree. The tree will not be disturbed nor is it proposed to be removed. This project has been found in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and it is categorically exempt pursuant to SEC sections 15 through 3e since this is construction of a small structure and fence.

And no exceptions to categorical exemptions apply to this project. At this time there are no unresolved issues, no public comment has been received, staff analysis has included that all findings can be met, and the applicant has reviewed and accepted all conditions of approval. It is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the zoning administrator approve a resolution for a minor design review to allow six foot better prism fence at 1750 North Point Parkway. And my contact information is at the bottom left of the screen should you have any questions.

Great. Thank you. I have no questions at this time so we'll go to public comment. If you are attending in person and would like to make a comment on this project, please approach the podium at this time. Seeing no one approach the podium, bring it back to the zoning administrator.

Yet it seems like a relatively straightforward fence project. I do appreciate the see through design element that allows light and wind and things of that nature to still pass through the fence while providing security for the property. I appreciate staff bringing this to the Waterways Advisory Committee and reporting out on their support for the project. I agree with staff's findings of approval and the conditions of approval and don't have any additional proposed conditions of approval. So with that, I will approve the project.

Thank you. Please note that this decision is final unless an appeal is filed with the Planning and Economic Development Department within ten calendar days of today's decision. For this item, that date is Tuesday, 05/26/2026. Moving on to our next item is a minor conditional use permit for a medical service doctor office located at 2447 Summerfield Road. Can we have a staff report please?

All right good morning thank you zoning administrator McKay. My name is Hana Mikkelsen. I am the project planner for Bridges Pregnancy Clinic and Care Center located at 2447 Summerfield Road. This project requires a minor conditional use permit the slide says design review but it should be conditional use permit to allow a medical use doctor office in an existing 5,560 square foot building. There are no proposed interior or exterior building modifications as part of the project.

Here you can see the project site. It's located in an area that's developed with both institutional and medical uses and the project site is accessible either via a driveway off Hoenn Avenue as well as a driveway off Summerfield Road. This slide is showing the existing conditions. The yellow arrow is pointing out the existing building and once again there's no exterior modifications proposed or interior. The project's general plan land use designation is public institutional which is consistent with its zoning, PI, public and institutional.

The PI zoning district requires a minor conditional use permit for the use which is medical use doctor office. And I'm going to read it also implements a couple general plan policies which I'll read. The first one is general plan policy six-1.2 to ensure that all Santa Rosa residents can easily access primary health care facilities and medical services, and the second policy is two-5.1 to create a business friendly, diverse and sustainable economy through expansion, retention and support of existing business. And the Bridges pregnancy clinic is an existing business that's been in Santa Rosa for I think a couple decades. All right, here you can see the site plan on the left.

The existing building is in purple and then the 28 parking spaces required by the zoning code for the use are in green. On the right is the floor plan which shows the layout, a variety of rooms that will support both administration, operations, patient care and the administrative requirements at the clinic. Additionally the clinic will operate Monday through Friday from nine a. M. To five p.

M. With limited evening and weekend appointments. There will be up to eight staff and volunteers and it will serve up to 29 patients per day. The project has been found to be categorically exempt under the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines section 15,301 because the project involves no new construction, additions, expansions or enlargement of the building and it's also exempt under section 15,303 because the project involves the conversion of an existing structure from one use to another with only minor modifications. Sorry, all right going back.

There are no unresolved issues as a result of staff review. The applicant has reviewed and accepted all conditions of approval. Staff analysis has concluded all required findings can be met and additionally there were no public comments received for this project. Therefore it is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the zoning administrator approve a minor conditional use permit to allow a doctor office at 2447 Summerfield Road. My contact information is on the bottom left of the screen. This concludes my presentation. The applicant team is here if the zoning administrator has any questions. Thank you.

Great, thank you. Would the applicant like to make any comments at this time? Okay, thank you. Let's go to public comment. If you're attending in person and would like to make a comment on this item, please approach the podium at this time.

Okay. Seeing none, I'll close the public comment. Yeah, this is a nice re occupancy of an existing building with a relatively similar type of operating characteristic. I think this is a great service to have in the city of Santa Rosa. It's nice to see that you're relocating in town.

And the surrounding area seems very well suited for this type of use. And the conditions of approval seem acceptable and I don't have any proposed additional conditions of approval and can also make the findings as drafted by staff. So with that, I approve the project. Thank you. Please note this decision is final unless an appeal is filed with the Planning and Economic Development Department within ten calendar days of today's decision.

For this item, that date is Tuesday, 05/26/2026. Thank you. Moving on to our third public meeting, a minor conditional use permit and design review for a veterinary hospital fencing and associated site improvements at 1111 Petaluma Hill Road and 564 Barham Avenue. Can we have a staff report please?

Thank you, Zoning Administrator McKay. My name is Suzanne Hartman and I am the project planner for the veterinary care hospital located at or proposed to be located at 1111 Petaluma Hill Road and 564 Barham Avenue. The applicant is proposing to operate a veterinary hospital with extended hours of operation as well as proposing some various exterior modifications to the site including some landscaping, fencing, and reconfiguring the parking lot. I drew a little red outline of the two parcels there which have been conditioned to be merged. Right now there is a single family dwelling on the 564 Barham Avenue address which is proposed to be demolished.

This is the aerial view of the sites. The general plan land use designation is retail and business services and the zoning district is general commercial, otherwise known as CG. The CG zoning district is applied to areas appropriate for a range of retail and service land uses that primarily serve residents and businesses throughout the city. The CG zoning district is consistent with the retail and business services land use classification of the general plan. This is the proposed site plan.

The green areas is where the landscaping is. This is the applicant's proposed landscape plan with more detail within the attachments that were provided with the agenda. These are the two proposed fences. So the fence on top there, the solid fence is going to be on the side as a parameter fence between what's currently 564 Barham and 652 Barham. And then the fence that's shown on the bottom there that's more open, that's the fence that's going to be along Barham Avenue.

And just to kind of give a context, there is a fence existing there along Barham so that's where it's being replaced with the open fencing. And for the building modification, really the only change that they're proposing is replacing the awning that's existing there. The project has been found to be categorically exempt from both sections 15,303 as well as 15,301 which I forgot to add onto the slide. Because the proposed site improvements are accessory to the existing development and because the proposed project consists of minor site and building improvements to an existing developed property including the parking lot reconfiguration, replacement of the awning, installation of the fencing, and some new landscaping which represent minor alterations to an existing facility with no expansion of the use. Use.

Additionally, the project is eligible for a statutory exemption for section fifteen thousand one eighty three. This section of CEQA provides the projects consistent with the development density and policies established by an adopted general plan for which an EIR was certified and shall not require additional environmental review. It was certified by council on 06/03/2025. No public comments were received for this project and staff concluded that all the findings can be met. So it is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the zoning administrator approved two resolutions for minor conditional use permit for the veterinary hospital and minor design review for the site improvements.

Thank you. Oh, and this concludes my presentation. The applicants are here in person if you do have any questions for them.

Great, thank you. Would the applicant like to make any comments or presentation at this time? Okay, thank you. With that, let's go to public comment. If you're attending in person and would like to make a comment on this project, please approach the podium at this time. And we'll start over here on the West Lecture.

Yes, I'm sorry, I'm partially deaf or legally deaf, so I'm having a little difficulty with the system. My deafness is in the high range. I can hear in the low range. It's and I've had quiet enjoyment of my property next door. And one of the issues when I saw the people coming up with a plan was the noise of having a animal hospital next to me.

And the research I've done has shown that it can be very, very noisy to real high levels. And I said they need to do something to mitigate the noise. There are two residents next door to this. One's an in law and one's my home. If there's no improvement to the building, there's no soundproofing.

There's no lowering the ceiling to produce a soundproof area. There's no soundproofing of the doors. There's no soundproofing of the kennels and so forth. I don't understand. This doesn't look like a setup for the hospital, all the work that needs to be done in order to have it be a environment that is good for the animals as well as the humans nearby.

So I do have some real issues with this whole plan being next to me. It's not like a store or a business that's there nine to five. It is a thing that's going to really bring a lot of pain to me if it's allowed to proceed the way it looks.

Thank you.

That that is, also true for me. I live next door. I understand that the zoning is a little inconsistent for, 1119 Petaluma Hill Road, but there are two residents that both live there. I'm also, interested to know if there's any plans to improve the fencing in between my home, and the hospital. I have a dog, and I'm a little concerned about having the fence that's currently there in case an animal gets loose or something else happens.

On the twenty four hours? Yeah.

There there's also, my understanding is that businesses are not allowed to be open twenty four hours in our zoning, so I echo my mother's question on this.

Thank you. Would anybody else wish to make a public comment at this time? I'll allow the applicant to respond once public comments are done. Anybody else with public comments on this? Okay. Then I'll close public comment and then I'll allow staff and the applicant to respond to issues raised. If you'd approach the podium,

While they're going to the podium, I'll add that there is a condition of approval that I'll just read out here that operations shall be conducted in a manner that does not create noise disturbances to the surrounding properties. So there is a noise ordinance with the city that they do have to comply with and would be in violation if that if the use is not compliant with those noise with those regulations that are listed within the noise ordinance. And as for these hours of operation, uses can request extended hours of operation outside of the general business hours which I believe are from six a. To seven p. M.

Through approval of those extended hours which is something that the applicant is requesting today and is decided upon the zoning administrator. Thank you.

Great, thank you. Yeah, if you'd like to respond to public comments as well, please. You.

Yeah, hi, I'm Diane Roberts. I'll be one of the veterinarians there. This is Heidi McLean. We're the building owners as well. So maybe a a little bit of confusion about the project. We are planning an extensive remodel of the interior of the building.

Yeah. With

so that'll be the building will be completely redone inside with sound stuff. We'll be redoing the fence between the properties to make sure you guys are safe and there's no issues with pets going back and forth. We're not we have run veterinary practices in the Bay Area Area before and so we're very aware of the noise concerns. We deal just with sick pets. We don't see general practice as much and so we're not boarding healthy pets that are barking or having that would be outside.

So I don't think we've never had issues with noise before and we certainly would want to work with you if anything like that came up. Right now we're hoping our hours would be eight to eight and then we'd be finishing up probably appointments at like six or seven at night and then getting out of there. Our hope is to actually improve the security of that whole neighborhood. We've been securing that building for the last year, and it's challenging for sure. And so we hope that actually kind of uplifts the whole neighborhood. And that's sort of our goal.

Our goal really is to yeah, we're a specialty hospital. Diane and I are veterinary specialists. Okay. The mic, please. Oh, I'm sorry. Diane and I are veterinary specialists. So we only deal with sick patients. So if your veterinarian can't help you, they send your pet to us. So we deal with diabetics and cancer patients. And we've owned four practices in the Bay Area. And we purchased these properties. We've already made properties better. We're maintaining them. We're trying to keep people that are unhoused away from the property and keeping it safer for you in the back. Believe you said that was much safer with us now.

Yeah. Well, I mean our goal really is to bring a locally owned specialty practice into Santa Rosa that they don't have. Our goal is to help that neighborhood hopefully flourish. We want to actually be the best neighbor you've ever had. There will be extensive remodeling of inside the hospital.

It's gonna be a state of the art hospital with CT units and surgery suites and a massive landscaping around it to make it as pretty as possible. And we don't want noise. We work inside the hospital so we don't want noise as well. We want wellness to ourselves at work and our employees, and we want to make that neighborhood as good as possible. So we are going to hopefully be a cornerstone for that neighborhood where we start to you know have that neighborhood flourish and we're good neighbors to you but we very much you know we've been working on this project now for about thirteen months and we're very much hoping to try to get going with this project so we we understand the concerns of a veterinary hospital but we promise that won't be what will happen.

And I know you don't know us but it's true.

Thank you, appreciate it. Just to clarify, so the extended hours of operation approval would allow you to operate as proposed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Is that the plan? Okay. Okay, so just speaking into the mic.

So they are intending to operate twenty four hours a day, seven days a week at some point in the future. So that is why they're seeking this approval now. Okay, thank you. I think that's helpful to hear about the renovation of the interior. I was concerned about noise in the proximity of the actual housing units to the south to this property.

But I think with the extensive renovation work that is shown on the plans and in the project description and the improved fence construction that separates 1119 with 1111 and 1115. I think that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable about that. And then you have the landscaping and just kind of the overall improvements to the building I think will be a welcomed addition and enhancement to that area. I see like a car lot and stuff to the west, so I think this will be hopefully a kickstart that block of the city into a more improved environment for everybody involved. And I think as conditioned also here responding to and kind of sharing the concerns about noise, I think as conditioned, if there are ever any noise issues and I think as been demonstrated by the applicant in their comments, they do intend to be good neighbors.

But if there are any issues about noise, then there is recourse there and it seems like the applicant is open to some suggestions and modifications as necessary to both comply with the noise ordinance from a legal perspective but also just being a good neighbor. I think with that my concerns about the noise have kind of been resolved and I don't have any further conditions of approval. I think it's a well conditioned project and agree with staff's findings for approval, so I will approve the project.

Sonya Minsteria McKay, I also just wanted to add that condition that I mentioned. I just am now noticing it's only in one of the resolutions, so I'm just wanting to add that it will be added to the other resolution where it is missing.

Okay, sounds good. So yeah, with the modified resolution, I will approve both resolutions. Thank you. So please note that this approval is final unless an appeal is filed with the Planning and Economic Development Department within ten calendar days of today's decision. For this item, that date is Tuesday, 05/26/2026. And that concludes our business for this meeting. So the meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.