Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

test. Vice Chair, we're all set for 6 p.m.

Good evening. Let's call to order the special planning commission meeting study session of 0427 2026 at 6 p.m. The city doesn't tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. This planning commission meeting is considered a limited public forum which means the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the commission. If a speaker's comments are not related to an agenda item, the preciding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of disagreement with the content of their speech. Location and online meeting details are available on the planning commission agenda. Use the show captions button to view captions on Zoom. Following this study session, the regular planning commission meeting will begin. um approximately at 7 or different timing. Um we will encourage the people to stay tuned and participate in the regular meeting. Uh recording officer, may we please have the roll call?

Commissioner Davis present. Chair Glaciius present. Commissioner Sigura present. Commissioner Cerrone present. Vice Chair Shukla present. Commissioner Pine present. We have six commissioners present and Commissioner Fagonei absent.

Thank you. Um moving on to our first item. Um file number 26-0488. Proposed project related applications on a 4.22 22 acre site, special development permit to construct a mixeduse project consisting of 67 residential unit, 55 town homes and 12 flats and 18,535 ft² of retail. maintain 20 2900 2,900 square ft² Speedy Stacos building and construct new 15,635 ft²tory retail building for a total of 10% commercial uh F tentative map to subdivide one parcel into 17 lots and two common lots location is 911 Dwayne Avenue APN number is 205-12 12001 205-12002 205-12003 and 205-12004. Is there a staff report? Yes, there is. Hi, good evening planning commission. My name is Norin Khiv Lepe. As you probably know, I'm a principal planner and I'm presenting on behalf of Margaret Neto, who is out sick today. To my left is director Trudy Ryan and our new assistant director Matt Van Hoa. This slide provides a project overview. Uh the project as was described by Commissioner Shukla consists of a mixeduse project with 67 residential units and just over 18,500 square ft of commercial. and that includes the existing Speedy's Taco building right at

the corner that will be maintained as well as a new twostory retail building along Dwayne Avenue. The project also includes a tenative map. This slide includes the neighborhood context. Um, as you know, the property is on the corner of East Dwayne Avenue and San Rafale. It's on the north um west corner. It is 4.22 22 um acres in size and the surrounding uses include residential and a neighborhood park to the south which is Wiser Park. Just some background information. Uh the project site is designated as a village mixeduse um site in the general plan as well as being reszoned to village mixed use. So that's a typo in the slides. A maximum of 18 dwelling units is permitted on the site while the applicant is proposing approximately 15.9 dwelling units per acre. U the proposed project also includes demolition of the existing 58,000 square ft of commercial square footage um which currently includes retail restaurants and grocery stores. As previously noted, the standalone Speedy's Taco Building at the corner will be maintained and included as part of the project. The following is a site plan that's proposed. Um the proposal includes four driveway accesses through the site. Two along East Dwayne and two along San Rafale. A total of 216 parking spaces will be distributed throughout the site. Each residential unit will include a two-car garage. Surface parking spaces for guests will be distributed as well throughout the site. Vehicle parking for the existing and proposed commercial uses will be near the corner and it's going to be a newly reconfigured parking lot. The following three slides that I will show are the applicant's architectural

drawings. The applicant is here tonight and we'll go over the architecture in more detail. This view is from Oops, let me go back. This view is from East Wayne. This is the two-story commercial building kind of in the middle of your screen. Uh the building that you see to the left is a portion of the town home building. These are elevations of the town homes. There are two architectural styles that are shown. Here's one, and here's the second. Okay. The applicant is utilizing the retail preservation incentive program adopted by the city council in 2025, which exempts the project from below market rate housing requirements in exchange for a 10% floor area of retail space. Under the retail preservation incentive program, the developer would be entitled to one concession and unlimited waiverss. Recently, it was discovered that staff missed a deadline to send the developer the required notice of items that are inconsistent with the city's objective development standards. As a result, pursuant to SB or um state state bill 330, the project is deemed to be consistent with the city's development standards. staff believes that all of the inconsistencies previously defined as waiverss and concessions would have been waved under the density bonus law or equivalent provisions of the city's retail preservation ordinance. In tonight's presentation, we have labeled these deviations to the development standards. The next seven slides includes a list of deviations from the zoning requirements and objective standards. These de deviations are primarily

related to undergrounding of utilities, setbacks, open space, landscaping, building height, daylight plane, solar shading, parking, and private amenities. The project planner is online and can help answers about specific deviations. The developer commu hosted a a community outreach meeting on April 9th where about 80 residents participated. The following is a a summary of the comments that were received which were primarily focused on the demolition of the existing commercial businesses, lack of grocery store in the neighborhood and project impacts such as privacy and traffic. Staff is requesting feedback tonight on the project design and site planning, design details and deviations. After tonight's study session, staff will review comments that we've received with the applicant. A public hearing date has not yet been set for the project. Once a hearing date has been identified, staff will prepare notices for the hearing. This concludes my presentation. The applicant is here tonight as well and I'm available for questions.

Thank you. We have um questions from my commissioners to the staff. Uh we have first Commissioner Payne, please.

Thank you. Uh thank you for the presentation. Uh, I very much need staff to clarify what they're talking about with this deadline because I had a number of questions regarding regarding the requested uh concessions and waivers. And I frankly at this point I'd like to know whether it's even a productive use of my time to ask these questions because if you're just saying these are now we now have to rubber stamp due to something that the commission had no control over then honestly I don't even know why we're here.

Commissioner Pine, I I'll answer that question. Um the the nature of state law is that there are a number of different steps that are associated with the development application. One of those steps is after an application is determined to be complete, we have a time frame in which to advise the applicant of of um inconsistencies with our regulations. The applicant can choose to wave all of those regardless of us identifying them. Um so although we missed this deadline, the result is likely pretty similar in that they could have all been waved anyway. The purpose tonight is for the planning commission to say, you know, essentially, yeah, while we understand that you can get this waiver or deviation is what I think is a more appropriate title for tonight, um, we just want to understand it and explore whether or not you would be willing to make some modifications. It's very similar to other applications that you re reviewed where we point out the waiverss and concessions um and then the applicant ch can choose to address them or not.

Well, my issue is that I what if the comm is the comm is there are require is that there are required reasons for concessions and waiverss under state law. What if the commission determines that? What if what if like I'm looking at this document and it says page 12 attachment one and it says objective design standards 3.7 pitched roof eve projection 2 required applicant is requesting deviation pitched roof eve projection 1 foot required. The just state justification is that the 1 foot eve is more in keeping with the architectural style for this project. Now the requirement for a concess for a waiver under state law is that it would physically preclude the doc is that would physically preclude the document the the project to be built at the required density and at the at the at the provided density and would require a reduction in units. It doesn't fit the architectural style is not a reduction in units. So I'm unclear why the commission should stamp this what should feel be compelled to grant that waiver for if if it's not for the purpose as defined in state law the municipal code

that that's certainly the commission's prerogative if you choose not to provide comments. Um, I I think it's um helpful to the applicant to hear concerns that the commission may have about have they explored alternatives? Is it really something that's physically precluded? Um, so I do invite you to to have that conversation.

Yeah, I'm just I was just taken aback when I heard that because I I'm not saying that I'm not saying we should be like I'm not saying we should be freelancing. I'm not saying we should be ignoring state law, but like I the there are requirements for the waiverss are not just a comp as much as it feels like it sometimes the waivers are not a complete blank check. Like I'm and like if there's some if something happened at staff level that requires us to grant a blank check, then I really question what we're doing here. So I would just like to know that no, the check is not blank. No, there actually needs to be a justification.

Well, and I would like to add as well, you're right, that staff's discretion and your discretion would have been limited with the waiverss and concessions anyway. It's limited now as well. So, what is helpful to us is if we receive specific comments from the planning commission to see if there's any wiggle room to improve the project. That's the um environment that existed even before a lot of these projects started using the state density bonus law. But I I had a number of questions prepared to applicant about their stated justifications for these waiverss which in in my which I will just give a heads up to the applicant. In most in many cases I found them to be ins to be inadequate as provided and in some cases I found them to be actively and I and some cases I found what what I would view as as potentially as potentially erroneous. So, I would just I would just like to flag that because hopefully these will be revised when it comes back to the public hearing, but I am very much not inclined, but like I'm very much not inclined to be granting something when it's based on clearly when it's not based on the actual rules. Like if you're going to say it precludes like if it precludes units, yeah, that's obviously that's required under SP330. that I would I have a big problem if it's not precluding units or it's not a articulated cost cons for the concession and we're just kind of doing it for some reason. If I I'm I don't want to belabor it, but I do want to add that um we have learned that the objective um standards for multif family are not well suited for a um a townhouse style product and some of the standards some of the deviations if you will um are related to those standards. So, you know, kind of we learned the hard way that it it's a

little more awkward um for this product type. Um we do have um before all these state laws, we do have the um program called deviations with the special development permits where you at at the in that era you had discretion. Um but staff feels a lot of these would have either qualified as deviations or waiverss anyway because they made sense from a design standpoint. But again, we we do invite um planning commission comment,

right? Like there are some waivers here that like we see I think every time we get town home developments, but there are also a number of waivers that we're here that frankly we do not see every time we get ones and those are the ones that I was going to focus on. Again, those are I think properly more for the applicant. But uh the other question I had to staff is this is also attachment one, but there was a on pages three and four that said they were requesting an amendment to the C1 zoning regulations. Is that something we should expect to come to us?

The site was reszoned uh previously. So that I believe that's an old note. the the C1 zoning district was is essentially what applies because that's what the zoning was when they made their application. So they they kept that in place. The C1 zoning wasn't intended intended for residential, but because the general plan included the residential, the state law said you can you developer around the state um can apply with either the zoning or the general plan designation. So they even though the zoning has changed, it's it's really falls into that grandfather clause.

Right. I was just making sure we weren't going to have like an ordinance on top of this. No applications for changes to the zoning district. Okay. because just if we were getting one, I would also have thoughts on that. So, thank you. Next one is Commissioner Davies, please.

Yeah, it's the same topic. Um, missing a deadline is very is very disappointing. Um, I'd like some more detail on the like what was the deadline? Uh, when did we get it? when do we get back to the applicant? Um, so we can have all that in the record. Um, I echo all of Commissioner Pine's concerns. Uh, we're fully aware of of what our discretion is as planning as the planning commission um, and how our objective design standards have been interacting with town homes. But, uh, yes, guess I'm asking for receipts. Um, yes, we did send a letter. It m missed the 30-day deadline, but we did send a letter that listed all of the um items that staff had identified as um as waiverss in um associated with the project. there are some items that we need to um see whether or not those actually are waiverss or if there's those were really conditions of approval for the project. So, working with our colleagues in other departments, but but we did we did send them the letter that has the entire list.

Okay. And uh maybe this is uh question for the city attorney. Is is there any ambiguity in the phrasing of the state law where it could, you know, difference between a business day and a calendar day or or is it straightforward and and ambiguous?

Well, staff can provide kind of the timeline, but I think given the timeline, there's no ambiguity that the deadline was missed. And so in short um under the permit streamlining act the city has 30 days to provide a determination with respect to the completeness of the application and that can go for several cycles. Um but once the city has made a determination that the application is complete then the city has uh 30 days for uh projects of a certain size to make a determination of consistency of the proposed project with the uh city's standards, rules, policies. etc. And that latter deadline is what was missed.

Okay. And so the consequences then are that uh barring something especially egregious that perhaps threatens health or safety. It we will end up having to accept things as proposed largely.

You're on the right track, Commissioner. Um so uh if the city misses the deadline then the project is deemed consistent with the applicable rules. There is a carveout under the housing accountability act for building code requirements. Um and we would uh believe that by implication also other requirements uh for example public works requirements that are also safety um focused. Okay. Thank you. So um the things that we find hopefully we can be very uh persuasive and uh congenial with the applicant then. Thank you.

Thank you and commissioner Cerrone please.

Thank you um vice chair. Um, so I have a few questions, but as a general comment, while this project might be fine in any other location, we cannot ignore the fact that it is replacing a longtime shopping center that provides fresh food and other amenities to that neighborhood. Uh, this part of Sunnyale will feel the impact for decades. Um uh 40 years ago a decision was made to close Sunnyville High and we're still struggling with the consequences of that decision. Generations of children have found it difficult to participate in after school programs or even get to school on time which affected their ability to get into a good college lowering their potentially lowering their income for life and this is still the case today for some extent. So I think it is uh very important that we take more than a cursory look at this project. Uh our planning commission and staff and city council should take a very close look at this project and fully understand all of its impacts. Uh I don't want anyone to think that we just waved it through the process without uh uh giving it the proper attention. So I want to point to a specific request. If this was an empty lot, and this we talked about this before, but if this was an empty lot and the developer proposed putting in the same retail that exists now, the city would surely look at the impact on vehicle miles traveled. Um, but when the reverse happens, we do not look at it. And yet it's obvious that everyone who is currently using the shopping center on a daily or weekly basis will need to get those same services like fresh food, restaurants or whatever someplace else, someplace

further away. Uh I think it's critical to quantify this as part of our due diligence and can we even meet the findings without this analysis? I don't think it's sufficient to say that it probably falls within some general EIR and climate change is still a real thing. So vehicle miles traveled is an important uh metric. So is it possible for the city to just kind of reverse their normal analysis and and and do this before this comes back to us? Yes, this project was reviewed by our transportation division. I don't have the details for the threshold for a VMT analysis or how much uh how many trips this project would produce, but it was determined by the Department of Public Works that a VMT analysis is not required. But I hear your concern about the larger VMT for the neighborhood and not just for the site, if that's what I heard correctly.

Right. I think you're saying that that they looked at the VMT from again as if it was a green field site, as if it was a in other words, this new development going into a a empty field, but I don't think they looked at the impact of removing this much existing retail. Yeah, we'll get that information. I do know that an environmental analysis is being conducted as well, and there's a section of that analysis. It's it's not completed yet, but there's a section of that analysis on traffic and transportation. So, we will make sure to see um what in that analysis talks about VMT. Okay. I'll make a note of your concern. Thank you.

Good. Um so um so as was already brought up there are a lot of waiverss on this project and uh uh uh with the applicant I'll be requesting uh more detail but can uh staff identify for these waiverss which would be considered subjective versus objective standards. I think it's kind of it's referred kind of off and on different places, but uh if uh you know the next time we see this if that's possible.

Yeah. So the note that you see in the table um differentiates between deviations that are being requested from the zoning standards. So those tend to start with SMC 19 um and then some numbers. um where you see ODS that's the objective design standard. So that's the difference between those two notations in the table.

Okay. And uh I fully concur with Commissioner Pine that that particular EVE requirement is obviously a design choice not um something that should require a waiver without saying whether it's necessarily a good idea or bad idea, but it it just doesn't isn't appropriate at that spot. Um so the um the intent of the vehic center retail preservation uh incentive program uh is intended to kind of mimic the state density uh program but uh substitute to retail for BMR housing which is you know an excellent idea and I commend staff for coming up with a creative approach here. But do we legally have exactly the same constraints with respect to granting waiverss that we have under the you know the uh state density bonus law?

Yes. The way the resolution was phrased is essentially um mimicking the information in the in the state law. That was the intent. and um city um so on another subject, city documents including the loot in 2017 and recently the village center master plan and the urgency ordinance adopted in July 2025 made it clear that one of our key objectives is creating healthy, walkable, livable neighborhoods and retaining neighborhood retail. The urgency ordinance in particular states that there is an immediate threat to public welfare and health if applications are filed to redevelop village center sites without the required retail commercial uh prior to the effective date of the regular ordinance that implements the village master plan. Um so um can we although um uh we understood at the time that because the master plan passed after these were applied it didn't uh directly apply but still the um the all the threat to public welfare and health uh is just as real for this village center as as any other. So, can we uh in the future can we expect a uh staff report that uh addresses that concern that uh you know addresses the immediate threat to public health and welfare and either says it's a a real thing or not a real thing or whatever, but addresses it. It just seems like like all these things I'm bringing up that that to go through the process and and not acknowledge

these things is that there will be a hole in the uh process and this decision making. Yes, this is going to be the first project that likely will come before you for a decision that's utilizing that new program. Um, but yes, it's typical for us to speak on the program that is being utilized and if there's specific findings or an intent for the program, we will speak to that as well. So, I've noted that for the staff report. Okay, great. Um, and uh I think came up a couple times, but what date was the application deemed complete?

I will rely on Margaret Neto's help. Margaret, do you have that date? Sorry. Um, the letter was deemed complete January 15, 2026. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have now. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, we have a Commissioner um, Chair Classius, please.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Um, first wanted to thank the staff for the very thoughtful presentation. Um, and then I wanted to have some questions around uh some of the comments that we received from the public. I feel that the staff's probably best positioned to answer them. And some of the questions that are coming up, and we've seen this before as well, is um what is the staff and city's response to when there is um an introduction of a project like this that conflicts if not contradicts our long-term policies in plans such as enabling fresh food and communities, providing quality neighborhood communities, residents needs, um providing neighborhood serving community centers, and then also uh providing a way for a reduction in folks needing to use automobile to serve their daily needs. So like that that is a a principle and policy that that drives the city versus we have a project like this they're at conflict. How does the city respond?

Like any decision there are many policies and requirements that come into play. Sometimes there are policies that um are consistent, right? They they all align and we recommend approval based on that. Sometimes it's kind of a a plus and a minus um game that we have to play, right? Does the project generally uh comply with all of the policies? That's something that we have to consider in our decision- making. A part of what makes it, I guess, more of a complicated decision is the state laws and um the understanding and the common knowledge that that also impacts staff's discretion and your discretion as well. Um so it's all part of what we need to consider in a project evaluation. Um in the staff report that will be prepared. We will have a recommendation. Um we will also outline deviations whatever we call it waiverss, concessions, deviations. We'll outline that. Um also we have an analysis of the project's conformance with general plan and zoning standards and policies. That's typically in the findings as an attachment. And so you'll see staff's analysis there as well.

All right. Thank you. And then also just wanted to say that I don't think while it's unfortunate that we missed the deadline uh for the waiverss and concession, I don't think that's at all why people are here today. And I don't think that's the voices that we're hearing. I think it simply just really has to do with the way that the space is being reused, not what the next project would look like. Thank you.

Thank you, Sher. Uh I have a question. I I would like to know the history of the project because when was the first time when applicant applied for this development and um how many designs they submitted or I mean we didn't get anything in presentation uh it would have been nice to know that uh what happened who was responsible like who was guiding them in the from the staff uh because we knew that this project has certain demands and I was just uh would like to know that information for me and for public too.

Great. That's a great segue. The planning the sorry the applicant has prepared a presentation that shows the evolution of the project and so you'll you'll see how the project has evolved then and um there are some dates that we'll be able to share there as well. But that is more from the like that is just the one change of design but like is it many many designs? Yes. Yeah. the the project as originally um submitted to staff was all residential and so two years ago, three years ago. Yes. And I would um rely on Margaret to to provide some of the dates for this but that was one of the original designs that we saw

because I I would think that it somehow it has come to this point at this is at the last minute. we have such a big public so many people have these questions and uh um so I just don't know whether we whether we didn't do a good job to answer them uh whoever was guiding the applicant working with them um so like making them clear what's going to happen because we are not making them successful here the way we are conducting business that's what I feel because I don't know the guid uh the the whole timeline and would like to know more in detail and uh in the next time please like um submit there should be a slide where where the I would like to know that um in future you know because this is um uh I'm just guessing that like okay

um I I'll just generally summarize that the original application did not include the corner parcel um staff had a conversation with the developer who then bought the corner parcel to asssure that that could stay commercial and then added another building for commercial and then after the retail incentive program um modified the application yet again to um increase the amount of commercial retail space. So essentially three different applications over a period of several years. Um but they can they can give you those dates. Yeah, I thank you for explaining but I I think for certain projects like that I wish that um that they even applicant has to come three times and they modify little and then they again have to be modify again little bit extra addition instead of like telling them up front what may happen. But anyway, this is just

yeah I know we say this a lot and it pains me to have to say it. Um but there are state laws that um preclude us from doing certain things. Yes, I I completely understand that this a private property and they have all rights to do what they want to do. Uh and but city has some or policies and as my commissioner members said that I think anyway I think I'm just going to like to know it's more information and fact can support the project. So I would um next time please. Thank you so much. And we could include a background section of the staff report as well to summarize what Trudy just mentioned about the evolution of the project.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. So the I don't see any hands from anybody has a question from our colleagues. No. Okay. So now is there an applicant report? Yeah, please you have 10 minutes to present your and then you will have another five minutes to for the questions when people ask.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Um, good evening. My name is Paul Muer. I'm a principal planner with Wood Rogers. I've been working with Nicholas Gara who's the property owner for the past four years on this project. I don't know. Um, do I have control of the PowerPoint or do I know which button to push? Norin, do you know which one to You can. Okay.

Uh, point of order. On a point of order, can we refund the applicant the time spent? They did. But thank you. Yes. We'll start now.

Um, I do have a couple slides. It might be information that people already know, but I I wanted everyone to know at least our story of how did we get here. Um, as everyone's probably aware, the shopping center was built in 1959. It's located along a two-lane collector street with not a lot of traffic. Uh, as the center stands right now, it's 43% vacant with six of the 14 storefronts empty. Uh, next, please. It also has a lot of local competition. The slide up on the screen shows the project site in the middle with uh two circles, a onem radius and a two-m radius which show that within two miles there are 11 uh grocery stores and within one mile there are three smaller kind of local grocery stores. So that's another thing that the site is contending with. Next slide, please. And so that situation or the the way that the shopping center is performing right now really informed our first proposal and or submittal number one uh that didn't have retail because the the site has a lot of things uh a lot of challenges and uh you know our team decided that that was the best approach. Now, we soon learned, uh, next slide, please, how important retail was. Uh, Nick spent a lot of time with city staff. Uh, they urged him to, you know, consider retail seriously with this development, which

is why Nick went out and bought the Speedy's Taco Parcel. It's a successful business. They have a lease and they want to stay and and that was the intent from the beginning. Uh next please. And those discussions continued and as a team uh our team with the city's team kept trying to make the the the blend or the balance of retail to residential as good as we could and as good as we could given Nick's experience with the site over the past 10 years. And so we added a 2400 square foot building next to Speedy's Tacos. Uh it's a mixeduse building. It had two affordable um uh one not studios up top with a cafe or coffee shop on the first floor. Uh next, please. And then this is the submittal that we're talking about tonight with the 15,635 foot building next to Speedy's Tacos. Um, and so I think it does show an evolution of the project uh from not believing in retail to, you know, really stretching ourselves and trying to figure out how we can make as many people happy with this project as possible. Next, please. And this is just the site plan again, but this is the version the version that was submitted to the city. Next, please. Um, the rest I mean there are 14 residential buildings proposed, four different building types, three different color schemes. Next, please. And then the town home buildings are composed of both flats and

town homes. The flats are units one and two and the town homes are units three and four. Next, please. This is the floor plan of the 1500 635 foot building. Next, please. And here are the elevations. The north elevation faces into the project. The east elevation faces toward Speedy's Tacos. The south elevation toward Dwayne Avenue. And the west elevation toward the town homes that are proposed. Next, please. And then here are renderings. Both of them are the large uh retail building facing East Wayne Avenue. Next, please. And this is a rendering of the entire frontage of East Wayne Avenue, the our the entirety of our project as it sits along that street. Next, please. And then the landscape plan shows the system of POS that are all connected through pathways with dining area, barbecue, benches, seating, and landscaping. Next, I wanted to keep it short and sweet. We don't have a lot of time, but if I didn't uh hit on anything, I'm here to answer questions and Nick and Chris Anderson are both here and they can answer questions as well.

Okay, thank you. Um I'll now ask for questions from my colleagues. Let me show you. Thank you. Thank you to the applicant. Uh could we go back to the the slide that had the uh Dwayne rendering? That's the full rendering.

Thank you. Uh just to just for my own sanity because this is very very kind of at a very head-on level. Uh, am I uh I'm seeing the the building that's like second from the right. That's the townhouse building, right? Like there's there's a because on the plans there's a street that there's like an internal little street that goes there in between the commercial buildings, but you can't really see it on this rendering. Yeah. So, you're asking if they're Yeah. Just a sanity check on my from

Yeah. Well, and I understand the confusion. This rendering does leave out some detail that would help orient someone to what's going on here. Um, for example, the windows along the sides of the town homes along Dwayne, a distinction between Speedy's Tacos and the town homes behind it. So, it kind of all blurs together a little bit. Yeah, I was going to say if we could get an when this comes back if we get could get an elevation where it's a little where the angles it's just angled a little because I will say one of my frustrations when I was reviewing this over the weekend was that in the materials that were provided to us we did not get elevations either from Dwayne or just from the really anything detailed on the new commercial building. So I'm kind of reacting to that on the fly here. Uh but am I correct in understanding that the essentially the ent the pedestrian and entry for the commercial building would be from Dwayne. It would not be from the parking lot or am I misunderstanding that?

The way I'm reading the two elevations is that there's access from both sides. Okay, that that's actually a better answer, but uh at least in my personal opinion, but uh my question but my followup to that would also be have what would be kind of the anticipated uh commercial use for this build commercial use or uses for this building? like what kind of tenant do you kind of and I know this I know this is a very speculative question but kind of what kind of tenant or kinds of tenants would you envision in being interested in the space?

Well, I can speak to what we've talked about so far as being one potential and then I think what you're alluding to is that you really have to test the market and see who's interested in locating at this location. Um but for this building at this moment we've talked about a daycare.

Thank you. Uh okay so some other questions I had and these are going to be all over the place but uh you talked about uh the uh the vacancy rate at this and and to staff I don't need the elevations for this but to staff but to you talked about the vacancy rate. Do you have any information about like the timing of these vacancies? Like is it recently the case that these that that there's been a relatively high vacancy rate at this property or is or is it more long-standing? I I think Nicholas Gar should address that. He's very familiar with the center and kind of the unfolding of

from our from the commission perspective. This is shared applicant time. So any of you can speak to it. Hi, good evening. My name's Nick Garrett. U as far as the retail goes, what what the intent is is to try to relocate the existing tenants that are there. So, some of the restaurants and we had uh Western Grocery, which was on the is in the site presently, uh they've mentioned that they would like 3,000 square ft on the bottom floor. And on the upstairs, um we would try to get the the dental uh person that's that's on the premises presently. We'd like to relocate there also. we'd like to put them on the second floor.

Okay, that is actually really helpful. So, thank you for that answer. Yeah. And and as far as the vacancies, they've been ongoing. Uh unfortunately, we just heard from Metro that um they're not there's there's just not enough business there to to And as far as the rent structure, I've kept the same rent, not the triple nets over the 10-year period. However, it's just very difficult for them to survive.

Thank you. Okay. Uh qu uh my next question of uh just so this is just some stuff I had with the stuff I saw going through the design. First of all, uh this I'll start with attachment two page A1. Uh the solar study, the solar access study we got on that's on page A1 in of attachment 2 appears to be with the older design with the smaller commercial building. Uh is there doesn't have to be tonight, but is there a seller study with the updated design?

There isn't at the moment, but there will be. what what we were looking at um we were moving quickly to try and get this site plan updated with the larger building uh get it uh into city staff and that was something that was overlooked. So we were looking mostly around the edges to see what the solar impact was going to be to existing homes and um we will change it to show the new configuration the retail.

Thank you. Yeah, I don't anticipate that it would really have an impact on the neighboring on the neighboring homes given the locations, but it just it is something that stood out to me when I was reviewing this. Uh, also, uh, this is on attachment three, page C8, the preliminary parking plan. Uh,

there are a bunch of spaces that are listed as EV capable. What does that mean precisely? I I would be guessing at that. Our engineers set that up. I don't know if someone else has a I imagine they're wired to be able to be a EV charging parking spot, but they aren't they aren't built that way.

Right. Because my follow-up question to that would be my concern with the parking around the retail building is that I'm seeing one accessible space. I'm seeing two van accessible space. So that's not really relevant to I think mo and I'm seeing 18 compact spaces. I'm seeing 15 EV charging stations and I'm seeing 14 EV capable spaces. I don't drive a compact vehicle. I don't drive an EV. So, my question is basically where do I park? Oh, I could get the parking plan and take a look. Yeah,

I don't have it with me. Yeah, just because my the way I'm reading this, I'm just concerned because there's just all these compact parking spots and I'm like and then like it feels like almost the rest of them are EV or EV spots and I'm just like okay, but I I would like to be able to park here and if it's all compact or EV that I'm just going to have to try to squish into a compact space and that feels that feels like a good way to ding somebody's door. Uh so other stuff I some other technical questions um regarding the I'm just going to call them concessions and waiverss because that's what I'm used to staff and I think from the previous discussion we can deal with the precise technical term for this project at a later date. Uh I had a few things when I was looking at what we got in attachment one. There are a few things I wanted to flag. Uh on the justifications first of all uh first of all just generally I am not happy when I see a lot of justifications that are cut paste. I generally when I'm seeing requests for concessions and wipers, what we're looking for is an actual justification that would preclude the site from being developed and not just kind of an assertion that it would happen. Like I you can look at any number of previous staff reports on the planning commission on previous planning commission agendas, but we usually get some actual this would preclude and here's how like that's just something I would generally be expecting to see in an application. The three I wanted to flag as of specific concern that I saw was first of all utility undergrounding

it got the copy paste would physically preclude etc etc. My understanding was that it was being proposed as a concession which would normally be about costs. Is that am I on the right track here? Yeah, it will be a concession. Okay, that was uh not shown correctly.

I would again when this I would want it to be stated correctly. The other one is uh for the solar shading. There's language here saying the deviation does not create adverse impacts to adjacent property circulation or site operations. I haven't I'm not now I'm not saying it's a particularized health and safety risk which is the sta denial standard but I have concern about seeing it there because if there's a solar shading exceedence in a neighboring property I would consider that to be an adverse impact. might not be to the effect where we could deny the waiver, but I I think it's fairly inarguably an adverse impact.

Yeah. I I'm just going to say we feel the same way. And between now and the next time we all get together, we're going to see if there's something we can do about that.

Okay. Yeah. It's just when I see it saying does not create an adverse impact in my in the documents I'm getting, it makes me concerned that it was not reviewed or proof read as closely as I would have hoped it to have been. So that was just the other one I and I flag the story would be uh objective would be the one on page 12 which is about the Eve projection. uh it's supposed to architectural style which is something we could consider as a deviation but I don't think it would be considered to be a waveable but if the and I mean you can make it hey you're free to make a case that it is but like if that's the stated justification I wouldn't understand it as something that we would be required to wave under technically it's not state law technically it's the state it's city ordinance but it's basically mirroring state uh because it's if it doesn't physically preclude the construction blah blah blah.

Yeah, I I I don't disagree with that. Okay. I think um and again I'm not like I'm not we're talking about we're talking about pitched e projection. Like that's it's not something I'm morally opposed to granting a deviation for. It's just I just like trying to get I just try like being clear about this is a waiver required by state law. This is a deviation that we're granting because it makes the project better.

Yeah, I understand. Uh the other so I'll just the other thing is I had a the other thing I would like I I was frustrated that we didn't get for the submission honestly was uh uh was the uh landscaping was the landscaping plan first of all because I always like trying to convince or convince applicants that they should be that they should be maximizing their use drought of drought tolerant native species and a lot of times we get applications that don't have that many of them. I always like to try to convince the applicant to do more. So please do as many drought toler drought tolerant native species as possible. Uh but the other one is that there are some waiverss requested require requiring the what's that uh the the lands about the l about solar shading requirements about that well sorry not so it is shading requirements but it's uh but like uh parking area shading requirement mutual code 19.46.120 46 to120 uh land uh landscaping frontage 1931 07 04 040 Charlie uh that kind of thing and I'm and my my concern with my concern with all of those is basically just urban heat island effect which is always just when you've got that exposed concrete it's makes the entire it's not eco-friendly it makes the entire area warmer etc. So I it's hard for me to comment on this that project in detail because we didn't get a landscaping sheet. So it's hard for me to kind of look at it. But I would just encourage you to if pos to the extent possible find ways to decrease that heat island effect as much as possible.

Okay.

Okay. That's all I had for now. But again, I would really stress that when we do when this does come back for public hearing, I do really really want specific justifications for the concessions and waivers instead of just kind of the generic this this merits a waiver kind of thing because that doesn't that doesn't really tell me whether I whether or not it should it it does pre physically preclude the thing. So that's and again I'm again I'm open to granting I'm open to deviations for architect for architectural improvement. I'm just trying to make sure everything's all the all the eyes are dotted the tees are crossed. Uh that is that's all I had but I would just close by saying by also just say just encouraging the developer the applicant to listen to community feedback and um before I turn off my mic I just want to say that I do appreciate all of the concerns we've heard from members of the public on this project and I have been reviewing that fairly closely. I I've been I I'm focusing my time tonight on kind of the more technical aspects, but in the interest of not having a what's supposed to be a 1-hour study session take too long, but I it the greater policy concerns are definitely something we will be I know I'll be looking at and the entire commission will be looking at the public hearing. So, thank you. Stick around. You'll have your moment to you'll have you'll have your time to speak as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Sir,

thank you. Uh, so I just want to second uh, Commissioner Pine's uh, comments about the waiverss. Normally um, what we expect to see uh, is uh, for waivers project specific justifications showing that compliance will result in loss of housing units or some similar claim. uh not just a uh a cut and paste of a generic statement that just you know without explanation claims that it somehow does that. So uh uh and I guess that was my understanding of the law too but at least I would certainly like to see that um uh in there as actual specific justifications. Um some of the buildings uh like especially buildings 10 to 14 and maybe some of the others the flats I don't know seems like could have been designed with an extra story and which would in potentially could increase the density or at least might command a higher price. Are there constraints like anything the city is doing that prevent prevented that or is it just a question of what pencils out?

It's there aren't any city standards or policies that prevent the fourstory town home. Um I I think the reason why we didn't consider it is that it's just not that common in the market right now. What what we chose was um the town home uh flats combination that has been successful in a lot of uh different cities in the Bay Area. Okay. Um on the commercial uh building um how do you get to the second floor? Is there an elevator?

I don't think that's been worked out yet. the the commercial building um in an effort to get this submitted uh to the city as quickly as possible. There are details that are left out of that building right now and so we haven't determined and I think whether or not there's an elevator would depend on who the end user is. Uh, I guess I was wondering, for example, could uh a um let's say a two-story grocery store uh go into that space and you would definitely have to have an elevator for

definitely or any any sort of twotory um you know business or whatever would need an elevator I think perhaps. Yeah. So that has not been determined I guess. Not yet.

Okay. And um there was uh some discussion, we heard it from the uh owner about letting existing existing tenants move into the new commercial building, but the rents would be much higher in that building. Is that right? Yeah. Uh, yes. The rents would be closer to market rents, but they're aware of that. So, it would be the the tenants that are actually looking to relocate or the stronger ones in the group. Um, that's why they're they're still there would be Tijana and California Momo. Um, and we're hoping the dental knows the the rents. So, they're well aware that we can't uh give them the existing rents and hopefully it'll it'll work out.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Cernney. Uh next one is uh Commissioner Sigura, please.

Thank you. So, obviously I have the same concern as my colleagues. However, I have a few other concerns as well. Uh when you guys going with overhead power and there are so many units um that can affect um the way that the neighborhood looks because for such a large amount of units normally you go with underground transformers um and that's going to take a big impact on the look of the neighborhood. Um my question is also for staff. Did we take that in consideration that when we have a commercial building and so many units, we're going to need a lot of power and to take the power lines and overhead going to uh reflect and affect the way that the neighborhood looks.

You're correct. Um the city does have a requirement to underground and the the purpose of that is to reduce the visual clutter of a street. So on a typical project we would notify the applicant that that's a requirement um with state law. You've seen some projects where they have requested a concession for it based on the cost to underground. Um and that was something that the applicant identified early on. Okay. So just want to make sure that we're aware of it. I I I want to mention that um all of the on-site um connections will be underground. So all of the connections to the new buildings will be underground. So

it's only the existing boundary line that has connections to the adjacent single family homes on north that that would not be undergrounded. So how many power lines are we looking at that would not be underground? It's it's along that north boundary. I'm I'm I'm guessing. I don't know. All the poles that you see existing today, the applicant is proposing to keep them above ground. What Trudy is referring to is some of the connection lines that you often see feeding from those poles. Some of those will be undergrounded, but the poles themselves will will still be there as proposed by the applicant and those will be on the neighborhood, right? On the streets.

No, it's at the rear of the property. So at the rear of the property there is existing boundary line that provides service to the residents to the north. Gotcha. Now uh also building one and two uh obviously the buildings are taller than uh um the the requirements. Um, how is that affecting the neighbor the neighbors uh that are close to those buildings as far as uh uh shade and whatnot? If these people would want to put solar on their house, would the height of these buildings going to affect that or not? Did there was any study done?

Yeah. So, as acknowledged by the applicant, there was a old solar study that was provided that is wrong. That is based on a previous design. The applicant has not provided a complete solar shading analysis yet. So, we have yet to see that. The applicant did express that they may be requesting a waiver from that requirement. You see that in their project description letter, but that's why we're not ready to take the project to a public hearing for a decision yet. So, we want to see all of that before a decision is made

and they're working on on other people's lives as well and and actually um impact their investments. Um I think um as far as the balconies goes um I understand that they're going to be smaller than the stand out loud. That's right. How big are they? I have to get my plan set and take a look.

Okay. Um Yeah, please.

While the applicant is getting um more information from you, I want to correct what I said. I was aware of the rear um boundary lines um but Nor just pulled up the street view and there are some along the Dwayne frontage as well. So the powers will be on the pole going down and then go underground. Correct.

Okay. I'm going to have to get back to you on that. There aren't dimensions on the balconies and the plan set. Okay. Um the reason I was asking because there is some real estate impact on that and it's I think an important information. So if we can get that in the future that will be great.

Yep. We'll do. And my last question is um I know you guys are asking to be um about almost five feet higher or taller than the requirements and I was wondering if there is any way without impacting the cost obviously because I understand that everything has to do and or associated with cost if there is if you guys thought about alternatives of actually um getting lower um by alternative different alternative of of construction.

We have and especially along the edge of the property where as you mentioned um you know we don't want to cast any big any bigger of shadows than necessary onto the neighbors. And so one of the first things that we would look at is the the roof design, the building height and see what we can do. but also to revisit why uh why our buildings are 39 feet tall instead of the 35 that's required and come back and if if it needs to stay if we believe that architecturally it needs to stay stay the same height we'd like to be able to come back and explain to you why

but then where we're able to lower the the height and the roof especially around the perimeter where people's houses are where we'll get back to you on that too and show where we're able to make those modifications. And I assume you are going with wood construction, right? Yes.

Yeah. Um just a suggestion. And I know it's kind of going to bring up the cost maybe uh to think that at least uh building one and two uh on some of the areas like to go to use steel construction you should do your tradeoffs because uh maybe on those you would be able to lower the height um will those have impact actually on the neighbors. Okay. That's all. Sorry. Thank you. We have uh Commissioner Davies, please. Uh

thank you, Vice Chair. To the applicants, uh thank you for your patience tonight. I know this is taking a bit longer than scheduled. Um and we're not close to the end yet. Uh so so following up on my fellow commissioners, um I guess uh what we've called out as best practice for uh when there are deviations or waiverss and and concessions when they're justified, we usually see it in the form of uh of doing this would result in us having to reduce this number of units or something like that or um we have to get this concession because it applies it applies to these two units uh these two units and and so if we complied we couldn't build those two units. Uh so just hopefully that'll make it a little bit easier going forward um on on the form so you don't have just a complete blank slate. Um I'm going to save some of the aesthetic feedback until after we hear all the rest of the public comment. Um, but I had some questions. Uh, as much as the applicants are willing to share, uh, I guess about the economic life of this, uh, of the shopping center, uh, it really stood out to me when you said, I believe six of the 14, uh, units are currently vacant. Um, I I don't live in the neighborhood. Um, but there used to be an Armenian restaurant I would go every now and then, Tijana, and so on. I don't actually recall the the center being full. Um, and then I believe he said that he's frozen triple net for 10 years. Um, I grew up with small businesses. Um, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, snack distribution. Uh, to hear that TripleNet has been frozen for

10 years, what like whoa, that's a that's a big deal. So if you could share some color on on like what the financial have been like as much as you as much as you're comfortable sharing. Uh on the whole thing what I said was the rents have been frozen for 10 years. Oh okay. Not not the triple net. So uh because the taxes have gone up in insurance. However uh the rents have remained the same. Okay. So, you've kept them frozen and and we still have a high vacancy rate even with the

Well, yeah, they like some of them are due to retirement also. Uh the hair hair uh studio just closed up and uh previously the barber was there. He closed up. The liquor store couldn't make it there. Um the uh the I should say the Mexican the the names escaping me but I did not renew their lease. The uh it was a a nightclub basically a nightclub. Oh okay.

So that we and we didn't re refill that spot. That's been a few years actually. Probably three to four years that they've been gone. So it it's it has been over time. Um but uh just the rent we and to be quite honest, we haven't uh done a to try to reposition. We've had some new tenants come in. I brought some tenants from Murphy Avenue um to try to fill some spots, but we we haven't been successful. Okay. And you have been trying to fill the

Yeah. in in in this last little stretch, uh we we have not been trying to fill we we haven't had a demand, but um the when once we chose to try to develop the property, we didn't uh refill the spots. Yeah. You wouldn't want a long lease to right impinge upon your plans. Do you have any idea of of what your rents are compared to other areas in the city right now? Uh, I would say on that on the main spots it's probably I'm not sure on the grocery store on what big grocery stores pay,

but on the main spots I would say were uh less than half, maybe leaning towards a third of what they're paying. Okay. Thank you. Um, yeah, I just uh I'd like you to get like I guess a full hearing, get everything you want into the public record. Um uh obviously this is getting a lot of scrutiny uh from the public which we we welcome. Um I like the creativity. Um but I want to make sure that everybody has the applicants as well uh has a has a fair opportunity to get all of the information they like into the into the public record. Um

yeah, I'll have you you get five minutes at the end. I'll have uh I guess some aesthetic questions at that point, but thank Thank you. Thank you. Um we have a commissioner um Chair Glacius, please.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Um so, first to the applicant, I wanted to say thank you, um for being here. Thank you for wanting to invest in Sunnyville. Um I think that that's very important and it's how the community grows and evolves. Um, also I want to remind everyone that's here, um, that when an applicant shows up at a study session, it's them demonstrating a desire for partnership. Um, it's them lending an ear. Um, and it's probably going to feel, um, there's competing interests that become very evident and that's kind of the intention of this. So, I think that even if it doesn't feel great, it's actually achieving its purpose. Um, my first question is actually for the city staff. Um, and given that it's zoned commercial, what is the minimum floor area ratio required when building in uh a commercial zone?

The city doesn't have a minimum floor area ratio for um all square footage on a lot. We have we have um a minimum commercial floor area in order to utilize the incentive program which is a 10%. We don't have an overall F.

Okay. So, I guess the 10% is actually what I was what I was looking for. So thank you for that. Um but the reason why I say that is um earlier in the applicant's presentation there was a discussion about how this has evolved but as I understand right now what what it has evolved too is that the current proposed uh commercial area ratio or floor area ratio is is 10%. So it's actually the very bare minimum of what would be required to qualify for the incentive that is being used. And um some of the commissioners fellow commissioners have asked you know why not build more residential. If you build more residential, then you'll also have to build more commercial as well. So, something to consider. Um,

Glacious, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Um, the the commercial incentive program um offers an incentive if you have a 5% F that it reduces your below market rate um obligation um to 50% of what it would otherwise be and at 10% then it removes that obligation.

All right. Thank you. Um the t the app can also mention the fact that there's a 43% vacancy rate in on the site and that is um it's unfortunate to hear that. I mean it's probably speaks to some of the economic viability. Um however what what I'm seeing is it looks like that we're probably cutting out too much by if you have 57% that's viable and that's in the the ballpark of 30,000 square ft and now what we're going to be ultimately left with in that space is 18,000 ft². So it's like it's it's effectively a reduction almost a 50% of what's of what prerun numbers would be currently considered viable. So that's something that that I think is partially why what we're seeing here is that we have a room that's quite frankly more full uh than I've probably seen in multiple years. We have um a a community that's more engaged in this pro project because it's not necessarily feeling balanced. And uh that's you know I I appreciate you being here but I I do want to be clear that that's part of the message that that's coming back is the sense that this is not feeling balanced and it's not necessarily feeling fair. Um the other question I had was um when asked uh who or what type of tenants you imagine being there. You said originally I heard it was a daycare and that was the the one answer, but then I heard that there's also two other tenants you currently have that would be considering to uh occupy a new space in the commercial. That is that correct?

Correct. Okay. So then so then there's at this point potentially a daycare, potentially some grocery aspect as well and potentially a restaurant. I would think multiple restaurants. If

you could speak at the the mic so that folks online can hear. Yeah, presently it it would be multiple restaurants. In other words, the stronger California Momos expected a desire uh to lease space and so has Tijana. Um and uh the Thai Basil is going to retire. Uh so that's basically it. There's one other one, the kebab uh restaurant. He's expressed a desire. The problem is is on the ground floor, which I envision the grocery and the restaurants, we have a little over uh our basically 8,000 square ft. So, the the more restaurants I put there, um it limits the grocery store. So, I'm trying to work something out with with the existing restaurants to pull everyone over there. I'm even going to talk to the karate person. and I think he could go upstairs. Um, we're we're we're just trying to balance, but presently we don't have a project. We can't do leases cuz um we're, you know, we don't have a a building to lease presently. So,

understood. Um, it it sounds um optimistic though that there is quite a bit of interest in that space. So, that that it does sound like there's economic viability, which is which is good to hear. Well, if if there's economic viability, if they could pay the rent, I mean, there's a big risk involved there. I mean, and and you may not think so, but on our side, we we think we took a big risk doing a 10% commercial space. Understood.

Thank you. Um and so kind my closing comment was uh earlier I had asked the city staff how they respond to when we have projects that seem to conflict with uh overarching guidance and policy and they their response was that they try and look at the pros and cons and balance it. And what I would say um first off I want to reiterate my appreciation for the applicant being willing to proactively bring this before the community to receive feedback and to be willing to to respond to feedback. I would say that the feedback overwhelmingly I know that my colleagues have mentioned uh discussion of wanting more uh detail around the waiverss and concessions. Quite frankly they care about that. I don't. What I care about is um if you are willing to re-engage uh more with respect to on the commercial side uh listening to the neighbors input. Um I think that that's that that's what would get me uh in more support and would feel like the compromise is being met a little bit more in the middle. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Um, we have Commissioner Payne, please.

Thank you. Just a quick procedural question for the vice chair. Uh, does the applicant have five minutes at the end here or is that just for public hearings because this is a study session? Yes, the applicant my after the public comments, uh, applicant will have five minutes. Okay. I just wanted to be clear on that because I think we've done it. No, ways at various points over the years. Not not saying recently, just at various points over the years. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh I have I have a few questions. First of all, thank you for the presentation and working with the community and uh working with the staff for so many years. So I kind of applauded for that one. Uh I have a question about the BMR units you have. you have like four units uh as a below market rate. Commissioner Shukla, the commercial retail incentive program removes the requirement for BMR units. So there are none. Okay. So I see it on the plan. That's their earlier plans. Yes.

So that is their earlier. So it's mixed up. Okay. So that makes sense. They don't need to provide it. I get it. So Oh, okay. I have another question too. It's about um when you made this retail um is that like you um it's finalized that you have a separate spaces and you are going to because you're going to sell the houses and you're going to uh own the retail space and manage them. Is that correct? Yeah, I think I heard you right. Yeah, we're our intent is to sell the residential component and um we would keep the commercial component and lease that out and manage it.

Why am I I'm saying that? Because on um there were commercial stores like that on El Camino and it was not functioning well actually. um they are empty the upstairs offices and all because I think people just don't like to go but I have a suggestions that is that possible that like you the whole thing can be a just one grocery store like for example is that like too late or is that still in possibility to uh en like have a anchor like some kind of grocery outlet or some smaller that they can function the whole building as um retail.

Um yeah, I mean I think the bottom floor it I mean we're we're open. I just we presently with our plan. We've been at this a long time and to be quite honest with you, I'm tired. Um we've been at it. We the city's been pushing us for retail. We keep coming back. We gave in and then we we keep changing our plan that costs considerable amount of money to to change all this. Um, we could, uh, potentially make a larger store if there was a demand. Um, it's just difficult because I have the other tenants that, um, if they want to stay there, either I need to relocate them to another spot in Sunnybell or um, you know, try to work it out. So

yeah because I'm I'm saying that because what I uh what I gathered all the discussions and the your meetings I feel that most of the residents are upset about the losing the grocery store like cheaper not the cheaper but little more reasonable level grocery store that's the major I think I hear and um uh it would be because you are dividing it and making a two stories and I think it may work and you are trying to bring the tenants back but only two are like suggest may have confirmed to come back but rest of them are not. So I just think that uh sometimes you know sometimes the one big grocery store could just work and you have less management and um because it's a large area large space and maybe if somebody then they can just do their remodel they do according to them you can do the construction and I don't know I'm just suggesting if it's not late and if you this may pass and maybe you want to because I feel that most of the residents have problem because they are losing the their um grocery stores. They don't they come directly walking and driving there and then they go to so that's what that's the major thing because otherwise the building is very old. It's made in 1959 or 50. So it definitely needs upgrade and redevelopment and I'm I'm glad you are working with the residents but

I just wanted to comment this if you I know you haven't thought about it but uh we have a one of the place where the small grocery outlet um on the on the Matilda and the I think the new development with the apartments and it's works very good the parking is you know what I'm talking about near the train track. Uh it's a grocery outlet, right? Grocery outlet is at Fair Oaks and Tasman.

Yes, Fairs and all. So, it's a very small store. I would say it's similar size probably. Maybe it's a that is a little bit bigger, but if you can make a deal with them or something that would solve a lot of problems with residents but that's my general feeling. But I thank you for uh working with the city with all the neighbors and you know and hopefully um we'll get to it somewhere. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't have any other question.

Oh, we have a question. Um yes. Um, vice chair, I just wanted to note that it's not normally our practice during study sessions to provide applicants with an opportunity for closing comments during study sessions. Um, normally after we hear from in person and remote speakers, that's when the special meeting would be adjourned. I just wanted to note that. Um, so so so it's like just um we start. So you would open it up for public comment at this point if there's no further uh questions or comments from commissioners and then once that concludes normally the study session would be adjourned.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um so so I think we have no questions. Uh do we need um do we need any recess or something? Sure. Sure. Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, vice chair. So, just a a few things. Um the rendering you had of the of Dwayne, um the retail looked pretty nice, pretty inviting. Uh but the other buildings that were facing Dwayne, the faces of them were were rather stark and kind of broomless. Um, perhaps it's a perhaps it's just a lack of detail in the rendering. Um, but no windows. Um, and uh, uh, yeah, if we could make that somehow a little more inviting and warm, that that would be much appreciated. Absolutely. Okay.

Okay. Um, on the heat island, uh, impact, uh, parking is obviously, especially with blacktop is always a heat island. Um, our a lot of our schools have uh solar panels in their parking lots. Uh, that makes it much nicer. Also, it's a good place to put chargers and uh and so on. I know that it does carry some cost, but it it does generally pay for itself. Um, or also uh just a choice of pavement that's that's reflective also helps with that as well. And then um my own little personal thing is that houses are never even new homes are never s adequately wired for networking uh for for reasonable networking. This is Silicon Valley. We invented networking and so on. So, um, if you could find a way to, um, to to wire all of the units, um, at least for high-grade copper, something like Cat 7, which is the same cost as Cat 5, uh, uh, or preferably like a dual fiber and and copper. Uh, that's my my own little thing. And normally, uh, Commissioner Fagonei brings this up or Commissioner Cerrone. Um but uh with the demographics of Sunnyville and the country as a whole, it's really important that the stairways uh can be retrofitted with lifts. Um we're we're not as mobile. We're as a society, we're not as young as we were and not nearly as mobile either. I was just getting scoped yesterday myself. So, so, so that's just uh some aesthetic feedback. If you could keep those things in mind, um I think uh well, there's probably small investments that will probably bring a return as well, make things sell faster.

Okay. Right. Thank you.

Thank you. I will go ahead and open the public comment on the specific item. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial star 9 on telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members on the public participating in person first followed by remote participant. Speakers will have 2 minutes to speak. Sorry we have many many speakers and we have also a lot of people on virtual so I'm trying to cut down uh because we have a regular meeting so going to restrict the comments your speech to 2 minutes I would appreciate it thank you so we'll so we'll start with Agnes It grew up in San Francisco. Each neighborhood was defined by their stores and restaurants. This is what I expected the village centers would do for Sunnyvale when I read about them almost four years ago. Retail stores would create gathering places for each village center representing the ethnic diversity of its neighborhood. The transformation I expected is not coming to fruition as evidenced by the suggested changes to Village Center 5, currently known as the Fair Oaks Plaza. I attended a community meeting with the property owner on April 9th. I do appreciate Nick Era's interest in participating in this meeting because he must have known the community did not support his proposal and were not shy when expressing their opinions. I'm

concerned the proposed development will result in a loss of approximately 70% of the current retail space. These family-run businesses will lose their income and their employees their jobs. The gentrification of this site will result in neighbors no longer having a variety of restaurants or a grocery store within walking distance of their home. And the current community feel and numerous gathering spaces will be permanently wiped out. Why can't Nick revise the plans to put housing on top of retail along with separate retail buildings to preserve more of the space? I know char changing the existing plans will cost Nick more money, but the cost to the community and future generations far exceeds the cost to Nick. Please suggest that before this project returns to you that the owner includes more retail in his final plans regardless of state law and municipal code. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Himmansu, please. Okay. Hi. Um, so, um, sorry, I'm gonna back up a little bit. This is not about opposing housing. Uh, it is about whether North Sunnyville should lose essential grocery access in an area that already has limited retail options. And many low-income residents, seniors, disabled, uh, residents, um, renters, workers, and families. Um, so staff's presentation shows a proposal would lose approximately 70%. That's way too much. The total retail allocation needs to be increased and the grocery space needs to be more meaningful, needs to be ground floor and workable. I also want to address that applicants claim that the plaza is now 30% vacant. That should not be used to suggest the plaza is no longer needed. Much of that vacancy is recent and tied to redevelopment uncertainty. The city the city should not allow uncertainty created by redevelopment to become the justification for eliminating the retail the residents rely on. A two-story retail building should not be treated as equivalent to today's groundf flooror grocery serving retail. Grocery stores need four usable floor area, loading, storage, refrigeration, parking, clear customer access. There's also no clear confirmation information on how the second story would function. The street side rendering also appears misleading because the retail component looks much larger and more prominent than it actually is. In reality, the proposed retail is far smaller than the rendering suggests. Uh, Sunnyville's village master center plan is based on walkability. Neighborhood serving retail and reducing car dependency, but walkability only matters if there are places to walk to. North Sunnyville does not need to walk doesn't need walkability in nowhere. I ask the commission to push for real alternatives. And um I think we also I also ask uh that we direct the staff and the

applicant to increase the retail allocation and provide a specific grocery replacement and design alternatives before the project dances. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we have a Deanna Gonzalez please. Thank you.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Danna Gonzalez. I am the chair of the San Miguel Neighborhood Association. I'm here um as a lifelong resident of uh the neighborhood. Uh let me clearly state that I understand the California crisis of housing. I'm not against that. I support thoughtful housing developments, meaning that people have a place to go to shop, be in a livable, viable c uh area that they can uh actually uh achieve what the the villages were designed to do. This is not this is not achieving that. And I'm I'm disappointed in the the the applicant uh missing or excuse me the city missing the deadline. Um it just is not fair to the neighborhood and now we have they can't make any changes to this plan because of state law and and I'm really as someone was saying I'm tired we're the residents are tired of these back and forth uh and blaming the state for everything. Um, I do want to say that the uh loss of Plaza is a a a big loss to the neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhood that has grown in the last 10 years. There are multiple uh PL uh housing projects there that people have moved in. The traffic is enor is increased and we have evidence of that as well. Um, this is not just about development. It's about equity and access and preserving the health and welfare of our neighbors and our communities. I strongly urge the planning commission to re-evaluate this project and work with the city and staff here as well as the developer to ensure additional retail space is prioritized

and maintained for our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. We have the next one is Lenora Ad. Thank you very much. In 1962, the reason my mother bought in this neighborhood was because there was a market around the corner from our home. My grandmother could walk there. It gave my grandmother independence. soon there won't be as Diana put no place to walk to and taking that away is a disservice to the whole neighborhood is she also noted it has grown so much we're going to have more town houses built over on Dine from what I understand if that's going to be that many more people that are going to ask for and need a grocery store and I will be one of the first ones to admit the bar was never the best thing that was ever put in there all these years, but it still is a place for gathering and this is what we need. We everybody talks about community by doing what's happening now. It's taking away a lot of our community. People go there and meet, they're walking to and fro. They meet a neighbor, they chat, they get things, you know, they accomplish such wonderful things. And from the meeting we had earlier in the month, there was also an issue about some contamination that's been around in the area for quite a while and I think that should be revisited as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh we have Joseph. You're trying to pronounce it. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you.

Um the current proposed project is it's completely inappropriate for the site. I think everyone knows there are major issues here that really need to be addressed. Um there's significant traffic impacts to an already extremely congested commute area, but obviously the top of the list here is neighborhood retail. I mean the site is currently 32% ground level retail. Um, by my count in my two decades living in the neighborhood, more than two decades, it's been about 90% occupied and of of viable retail space with grocery, restaurants, legacy small businesses serving our community and the surrounding community has undergone a complete transformation over a course of about a decade. We've quadrupled our housing units, uh, almost no opposition from rec from residents. So, we need to be perfectly clear. This isn't some, you know, NIMBI versus YBI political argument about opposing or supporting housing. Um, what this is really about is a proposal that would reduce retail space on the site to only 10% with really only 5% of that being ground floor and severely impacting neighborhood livability. So, the recent outreach meeting, um, the owner flatly stated, "I'm in this for the money." Um, it got a big route from the crowd. PE were obviously upset, but personally I appreciate the honesty because it really allows us to frame this discussion around the competing wants and needs here. As a commission and city of leadership, you have an obligation. You don't have an obligation to ensure the most lucrative development for the owner, but you definitely have an obligation to make decisions based on the long-term well-being of the community and the city overall. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a Mohei.

Good evening. My name is Mohei and I have been living in this neighborhood for 30 years. Uh we have been shopping in this neighborhood in this Ferox Plaza with this. We are never against this new development. No, this is we want this to have a new development. So this area would look much nicer. But it should be sensible. It should be sustainable. What we are seeing is they are building the houses more than retail. That will make it a food desert. We have disabled, we have seniors who actually walk to this uh plaza and they do the shopping. That would not be there. Plus the traffic. If you will add 67 houses, homes, if in our neighborhood at least we have three, four cars easily. Some have five, some have six. If you multiply it would be about 300 cars would be added. Before we used to have on DN two lanes on each side. Because of the bike lanes, we have only one lane this way and one lane that way. My wife when she goes to the to her job in the morning especially in front of the king's academy it becomes like a bottleneck. If she does not leave my h home if she does not leave my home by 6:45 or 7 she would not be able to make it on time. She has to detour it. So our request and when the property is not maintained and marketed no one would come to rent it. I have seen so many properties if you take Tasman and Ferox the new construction all full. So why it's not possible to fill this

but when we don't have intention to fill it we will not and we'll present it that you know we need to tear it down and build it. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Um the next one is Phil Harvey please. Thank you, commissioners.

Excuse me. I want to add on to Moheit's concern about the traffic. Um, in fact, I'm surprised that a traffic study is not planned. Um, I have actually measured personally measured the cars um on Dwayne in front of uh or at the corner of San Pedro uh which is about one block from Fair Oaks Plaza and about a quarter mile from Kings Academy. Um and that Kings Academy does get very highly congested um and create some pretty extreme bottlenecks on Dwayne uh which really causes a lot of issues uh for all of local residents. Um I currently only have one of the uh measurements uh that I can I can share today. Um, on April 6, that's at the in the hour of 700 a.m. I recorded 864 cars on Dwayne during that hour. And that includes uh standstill traffic um on both directions multiple times um and cars illegally using the bike lane uh to to drive almost full speed or speed limit um to make a double lane of of traffic. So, you know, really very unsafe for bikes uh as well as it's just not very safe for anyone walking as well. So, I would like to hear actually from the traffic department on what they currently expect for peak trips uh as well as the current the total number of trips per day on Dwayne and how much they expect these values to increase with this development. Uh thank you very much.

Thank you. We have Susan Miller, please. Vice Chair. Oh, yes. Uh, thank you. Uh, just to the previous commenter, uh, could you please, uh, when you have a chance, could you share that? Could you like email the your findings to the commission? I think it would be helpful to have in writing before this comes back for a public hearing. Thank you.

Hi. Um, first I want to say thank you to the commissioners for your time and for the commissioner who brought up the school of closure. that was a question of equity for this um neighborhood that still stands and um brings history to this decision here. Um when I first saw heard about the village centers, I thought what a great idea, you know, a little revitalization and you showed us all pictures of of eeries and grocery stores amongst all the other images. Um but that's not what's happening here with respect to the property owner and his years of work. This is not a good idea. It does not reflect nor respect the identity of our neighborhood nor the history that we've had to deal with in terms of inequity. The library is over here. Everything is over here or it's in Santa Clara. I have I question this idea about a daycare center when a grocery store is really needed. Um, I question because we have tons of housing that's going up and has gone up on Dwayne Avenue and beyond and there's no place for people to shop. Actually, uh, Commino Medical just bought a building over there, so there'll be traffic with that. And then in terms of the vacancy, um, I think part of that is due to um, the closure of Londa Bar. Thank god that was closed, but there were issues with that uh space that were never have never been addressed. And that's why I think that vacancy rate is that way. And so I would really urge you to look closely at this and please listen to North Sunnyville. We all had to come down across town just to be here.

Thank you. Um Um, Arthur Henry, please.

Let the games begin. Hi, I'm not against the project. I think it's an interesting idea. I'd like to see retail expanded a little bit more, but I understand his um effort to make a profit. Um, right now it's just a giant big parking lot and a very much neglected store that's 1959. It's very neglected. But what I'm more concerned about is I'm looking at the EPA MA map and there was a dry cleaning store there. Um, and it's contaminated. It's a class site for cleaning and there's a huge plume. You can look on the website for EPA. Luckily, my house is not in the plume, but I want to make sure that asbestous abatement is addressed because 1959, I have asbestous in my house. All my pipings, it's in good shape. But when they tear this thing down, there's going to be a lot of asbestous released. And I like to also focus on the underground contamination because there's a hot spot right in the middle of the mall where there was a dry clear where they just poured the waste on the ground. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, we have um, Datasha Walker. I hope I I said right correctly. Thank you.

Sorry, it's a German spelling in my name. Um, I've only lived in uh, Sunnyville and been here for about five years come this August. and we moved here because we have a daughter with autism and California has a wonderful uh robust support system for her that we did not have in Texas where I'm from. So, by trade, I am a a teacher and um I just want to say there's also a problem with the the ADA access that I kept repeatedly listening for and wasn't hearing a whole lot about. Um, currently I am an IHSS provider for my daughter and I'm also highly involved with the community on that. I'm on the advisory board for the county for IHSS and um work with some of the board of supervisors with that and I can tell you that ADA access has been ignored for a long time by many of us who live a really wonderful life you know so we don't realize until the day comes where we are affected by that and we do have an aging population the um the tsunami the silver tsunami as they call it is is coming there's a care crisis But anyhow, um that was one of the things that I really wanted to address here. Also, um the neighborhood elementary school, I haven't heard anybody talk about the numbers and the impact from the housing that are going to happen for the elementary school as well, especially with a whole another housing development coming. So, this is something else that really needs to be taken under consideration along with everything that they were talking about too, especially, you know, if you really do some things to a place, you know, to dress it up and make it look nice, you'll have renters

and it'll be great if you just maintain the property. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone else want to speak on this item before uh we hear from remote speakers? I don't see any hints. So, remove speakers are warned to limit their comments to the agenda item being considered. Speakers who are ruled out of order will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Um, and the title of this I would just want to remind you it's um it's a uh application on 4.22 22 acre site to construct a mixeduse project consisting of 67 residential units and 18,000 535 square ft of retail um uh retail for a total of 10% commercial F and the address is 911 Dwayne Avenue um rec recording officer do we have any remote speakers wishing to speak on this

yes we Courtney Jansen will hear from you first.

Oh goodness. I I wasn't expecting to go first. Okay. Um my name is Courtney Jansen and I uh live in Lakewood, but I have been following this process along for quite some time. Uh tonight I am speaking obviously on my own behalf. Um I'm hoping I have time to make two points. The first one is I know that the land owner is tired of this process. We the residents are tired too. The thing is that all of this resident push back is 100% predictable. Reading off of the city's own village center master plan website, quote, "In 2017, the loot was updated to align with the city's horizon 2035 document." The loot included the village centers. The intent is to encourage intensification of underutilized shopping centers near existing transit. It also strives to provide better neighborhood serving commercial uses and more housing opportunities. End quote. That was 9 years ago and I realized the state law has been a problem, but the intent of this property has been clear. And yet, I remember when scenario one was presented, and it completely ignored this intent. Residents raised concerns back then about lack of retail and how the property did not align with the village center concept. And yet rather than making a good-faith effort to address these concerns, the land owner instead chose to purchase an existing retail space to quote unquote count as retail. I love Speedy's Tacos, mind you, but scenario 2 is not a good faith effort on behalf of the developer. And so when you hear complaints about how this process is being very long, I understand that, but please do not let that push you forward. It's super important that this be done correctly. And then the second point that I will make is that I'm worried that these 67 housing units are insufficient for Sunnyville to achieve our goals. I know our plan was like 12,000 units. I don't know where we are, but I don't think we're on track for that completely. But 67 units on a very prime parcel of land just feels like a

complete waste of space and is going to make us uh even more unable to achieve the housing plans we need to do and address our unhoused residents. Thank you. Thank you, Courtney. Next we'll hear from Maria T. Buen Rostro. Thank you.

Good evening. Are you able to hear me now? We can hear you.

Thank you. Uh Maria Bendrostro, uh resident of San for more than 30 years. Uh my neighbor is Theauana. I'm actually behind The Huana. Uh the purpose of my contribution today is first to address and hope that everyone is listening who is city staff and to basically say that I appreciate uh the commission commissioner's questions very specifically in relationship to failures to have reports presented prepared. Um, in my 45 years in nonprofits, I know one of my responsibilities has always been to serve the people that I am working with and to make sure that everything that is necessary to serve the community uh is prepared. Otherwise, I would I would not be employed. Um, my first focus is going to be on the individuals that are going to be going to be lacking the resources, which is primarily food. There's two things that people cannot live without. water and food. Uh working with Sunny Bell Community Services, the our populations have a lot of seniors and a lot of individuals who are not able to even come to our our business. So, we have home deliveries. How many individuals are going to be impacted if we do not have uh a a large enough facility, a retail store to have the prices and the location to be able to purchase. In addition to that, we have services that need to be provided and and it's it's ironic that we are calling this a village center. We you are we already have a village living in in North S Sunnyvale and we need to be able to reach our v have our voices heard, listen to the commissioner's questions

and be prepared to respond so that they can represent us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Liza S. Uh, good evening. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Um, my name is Liza Smullen and I am a 14-year resident of Sunnyvale. Uh, and I actually live across the street from this proposed development. And uh when we grew our family, we actually moved into a bigger town home in the exact same complex because right across the street there's great places to go for dinner, a grocery store if we need it. Lots of things on offer. Maybe if our kid wants to do taekwond do later, that's right there. There's a whole lot on offer. So, no, it doesn't look the best, but there are a lot of amenities there, and that's one of the reasons that we stayed here. Um I'd like to echo a lot of the um former speakers who have been reminding the city council of their own vision. The village center plan calls for a walkable neighborhood with service nodes uh with food access. So again I think a lot of our concerns are uh reduced access to food particularly in North Sunnyvale particularly in a walkable radius. So, it's not that useful to say, "Hey, there's a grocery store if you just drive 2 miles away." Because, first of all, it's a 2-m radius. That's not the way the car drives. And second of all, that's not necessarily accessible to everyone.

Um, and if we're looking at a village center um, and we're turning it into town homes, a private town home sidewalk is not a welcoming community space. So, it's taking an area that is currently very welcoming with a full frontage. There's a big parking lot. There's places to gather inside metro city outside on the sidewalk. It's more of a village center now than uh the proposed plan has. Um the backs of town homes are not going to be that welcoming. Um, I'd just like to mention there's a lot of housing that's already been added here and more housing coming. And I would like to see this not repeat the thing of Redwood Place Apartments where they have a small uh exalted cafe with uh exorbitant pricing. That's not what we want. We need a real grocery store. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Natash. Hello. Can you hear me? We can hear you.

Yeah. Uh so thanks everyone. Uh I just want to add uh you have here a lot of people tonight saying traffic is bad. I just want to make two different points which are very practical and the I face every day. First is uh retail and residential generate traffic at opposite time of the day. Right now Plaza produces near zero traffic at 7:00 a.m. The restaurants are not open. The parking lot is empty. It's a natural pressure relief value on Duan during peak commute. Replace that with housing and you're adding hundreds of new vehicle trip during the single worst hour of the day. Every morning 7 to 8 or 9:00 a.m. And anyone who drives dur no there is no room for that. Second is uh this pla plaza works because everything is close together. My kid go to taekondo here while they are in the class. I walk over and get my grocery shopping done. One trip, no extra driving. That's exactly how a neighborhood retail center should function. You take that away and now I'm making two separate car trips to two different location and so is every other family doing the same thing. Multiply that across the neighborhood and you are generating more traffic, not less. We don't need less retail here. We need more of it. I I will close with a direct question. Uh we please uh reconsider all these neighbors request to have more retail space, more grocery store and I will appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Zenab Me.

Hello. We can hear you. Okay. Um

um so good evening. Um I wanted to speak about the redevelopment of the Ferro Plaza. I understand that housing is important and that our city needs more homes, but I'm also concerned that in the process we're losing the retail spaces that our community highly depends on because everywhere we look, just more housing is being made. But where are those stores? Where uh where are the grocery stores, the restaurants, the everyday services that families actually need? Perox Plaza isn't just a shopping center. It's a large grocery store. Um, it has produce, meat, like diverse communities coming there. They support small familyowned restaurants, businesses that people rely on regularly. Even if the new project includes some retail and it's on the ground floor, it won't replace what we have now. The PL will be smaller, rents will be higher, and many of those businesses won't be able to afford to come back. And also there will be demolation and the construction which will force them to close and leave the community without access. So what happens to the small businesses that we're supposed to support and what happens to the families who rely on these um affordable groceries and affordable necessities? So instead of making all these changes, we should be creating a housing at the cost of making North Sunnyville a food desert. So, I really hope the council seriously considers this space development.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Kenita Watson.

Uh, hello. Can you hear me? We can hear you.

Okay. I was concerned about the retail as well. There was a map drawn that said that oh well there are this number of uh stores within one or two miles. Well, that may be as the crow flies, but it doesn't take into account the fact that there's a freeway going almost through the middle of it. And there are lots of people who wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the freeway to go to these uh stores that are supposedly there. And so I think that it's important to keep and maybe even to enlarge the grocery store that we have and the retail having the uh restaurants and other amenities that are there are very important. I don't think that having a town home complex, even though residents are important, we should not put them in at the expense of having the services that we have come to rely on for so long. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Steven Meyer. Hello. Good evening, planning commissioners. Um, I'm really impressed by the turnout. Uh, it's really great these citizens are showing up and speaking out. Uh, but the challenge is uh planning commissions pretty much your hands are tied by state housing rules. So, you don't really have much uh say on this matter. And it really goes back to city council. This whole village concept, village center concept is a complete absolute failure. Uh because any mixed use housing can be built up to 100% residential. So um you guys your hands are tied but you can give feedback to city council. And the reality on the ground is that the city council needs to really move on retail. They need to acquire properties just like they do with housing. You know, they acquire properties and they fund housing. City council needs to acquire properties and fund retail. They also need to actually take real actions on transportation safety. Everyone thinks they're going to drive around in their own single driver cars. You know, that is just complete denial. We need transportation options which will actually allow housing growth, which means that everyone can't drive their own cars anymore. That's just in the past. So, we need actual real action on transportation options like shuttles, like cycling safety, like real cycling safety. None of these class 3B Cheryl garbage stuff that puts cyclists at risk. We need real cycling safety. We need people to get out of cars and into shuttles. And we need action on retail. We need real action on retail. We need, you

know, so there's a great turnout tonight. All you guys vote. So you need to actually vote for people that will build the retail that you need and it needs to be something that you vote on. Thank you very much. Good night.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Rose Gregorio. Hi, my name is Rose. Uh, I'm um an advocate for the Enhouse, but I am speaking about the developers project. Um, I'm concerned about the people who will lose their jobs because of this project. I just finished helping a family with a 2year-old daughter and an 11year-old son who are living in their small car. dad that lost her job and got evicted. Um if this is this um an organization was able to put them in a motel for a week, but tomorrow they're going to be going back on the street in the small car. If you continue, this developer will continue building this project they have in Fairs Plaza, I'm sure employees will lose their jobs. And I hope this developers will not push them and will not push them like the way like this and house family, the fouryear-old and the 11year-old boy on the street. The problem in this world like I always say the rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. I'm just hope you know this I'm just hoping that this developer will think about the people that will be affected and there are other places where they can put their project or they can build their build project aside from this Fair Oaks Plaza. And to me is I don't think they understand the impact of what they're doing to the

people who are working there and have also have a business there and um and that's all I can say and I'm just worried about this. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Lenor Lopez. Hello. Can you hear me? We can hear you. We can hear you.

Oh, hi. Yes. Uh, so my name is Lenor Lopez and I've been living here in the this area for 25 years. And the reason why I bought this house was its accessibility to this uh Fair Oaks Plaza. And I really like the market as well as the restaurant and with that I will not be able to access it. There's also had been an issue with the traffic ever since this uh two lane became one lane and I um there was an instance also that you know there wasn't stated before that they had one car had to use the the um bike lane and I was like I was just there like where did this car came from? So it was just very close. Also, I'm I'm older person and this is going to be a challenging issue for me if I have to travel and I don't have the probably the means to do that. So, I just wanted to let you know about these issues that everybody is talking about. And that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And vice chair, we have no further hands raised. Thank you. I will close uh public comment and I'll have a applicant to come and respond to all these comments. You have like five minutes a Oh, I thought we said we weren't doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Um madame vice chair, um so prior to the public comments, um uh the the clerk said that

Yeah. had indicated after we re I mean we further reviewed both the script and the council policy on study sessions and there's no indication that there is a closing statement portion so okay

I know I was just um I didn't hear it properly maybe uh sorry I'm just like focusing on it so I apologize and so you have no five minutes but um um I think I'm going to just say that um we had a great uh great public comments and I applicant and took notes and that's about it. And so at this time the meeting will recess until um oh meeting okay meeting will adjourn and the regular planning commission will start um 8:20.

Good evening. Let's call to order the planning commission meeting of April 27th at 8:20 p.m. The city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. Sunnyville prides itself on the rich diversity of our residents and we are committed to creating a culture of belonging where members of a diverse community can feel included, safe, and respected. This planning commission meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the commission for consent, calendar, or public hearing items. Speaker comments during oral communications must be limited to matters within the commission's authority, generally referred to as within the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are not related to an agenda item, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be rolled out of order because of a disagreement with the content of their speech. Location and online meeting details are available on the planning commission agenda. Use the show captions button to view captions on Zoom. Comments on matters not on the agenda must be submitted prior to the time I call the item for oral communications. Comments on agenda items must be submitted prior to the time I close the public hearing on that agenda item. Speakers are requested to keep their comments to the time period set for public comments for the agenda item, which will be strictly enforced. Guidelines are posted on the city's website and on the planning commission meeting agenda. Please join me in a salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Recording officer, may we please have the roll call. Commissioner Sigura, present. Vice Chair Shukla, present. Commissioner Cerrone, present. Commissioner Pine, present. Chair Glesius, present. Commissioner Davis, present. We have six commissioners present and Commissioner Fagon's absence is excused.

Thank you very much. All right, this brings us to oral communications. Oral communications is the public's opportunity to address the commission on topics not listed on tonight's agenda. This section is limited to 15 minutes and may be extended or continued after the public hearings general business section of meeting. Individuals may only speak once during oral communications. This planning commission meeting is a limited public forum and the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments during oral communications must be limited to matters within the commission's authority to take action against the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are outside the commission's subject matter jurisdiction, the presiding officer will rule the speaker as out of order. This allows the commission to conduct its business in a reasonably efficient manner and protects the rights of other speakers. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of a disagreement with the content of their speech. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial star9 on a telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first, followed by remote participants. Speakers will be given three minutes for oral communications. Uh because of the nature of remote communication, speakers who are ruled out of order will be will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Therefore, speakers are warned to limit their comments to subjects that fall within the commission's authority to decide or take action. According officer, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on oral communications?

We do not, Chair. Thank you. I will go ahead and close oral communications. Uh this brings us to our consent calendar. I will go ahead and open public comment on consent calendar items. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial star9 on our telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first followed by remote participants. Speakers will have three minutes to speak. Recording officer, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item? No, we do not. Okay. I will close public comment. I will now ask for a motion for my colleagues. Commissioner Pine.

Thank you, Chair. I move the consent calendar with a modification as noted in the uh responses to commissioner questions attachment to it that the formal amendment should state that it was to specify that developments with only 10 or more rental units would be subject to the proposed ordinance. Thank you. I'm looking for a second. Commissioner Davis, uh second the motion. Thank you. Recording officer, please conduct a vote.

The motion passes with five yeses. Chair Glesia is abstaining and Commissioner Fagonei absent. All right. Thank you very much. Uh this brings us to our general business public hearing portion of the meeting. We have two items for this evening. The first item is item 26-0451. It's a proposed project to recommend a city council to adopt an urgency interim ordinance pursuant to government code section 65858 adopting a temporary moratorum on the establishment and operation of smoke shops as defined within the city of Sunnyvil and the location would be citywide. Is there a staff report?

Uh yes there is. Uh Cherry Glaciius. Um good evening chair and members of the planning commission. I'm Rebecca Moon. I'm the city attorney. Um and I'm here to present this item. I don't have a PowerPoint. Um, this is a very straightforward item. This is an urgency interim or to recommend a city council to adopt an urgency interim moratorum um on smoke shops in the city of Sunnyvale. This initial moratorum will be good for 45 days and then we can come back and we can extend it for up to a year um or sorry up to a total of a year which is actually works out to 10 months plus 15 days plus the 45 days and that will give us an opportunity to study the harms of smoke shops and to look at an appropriate regulatory scheme. Uh we're one of the last cities in the county that doesn't specifically regulate retail tobacco uh shops. Um and anecdotally there has been a growth in these shops uh really statewide over the past few years. These are shops that sell uh primarily tobacco um and vaping um paraphernalia and products. And unfortunately, many of these shops also sell a variety of other harmful and/or illegal substances, including um cannabis, which is not legal in Sunnyale, flavored tobacco, which is not legal in Sunnyale, products that are illegal under state law, including um some very dangerous products like or 70oh, which is highly addictive. Um, it's an illegal opiate opiatike uh chemical. Also, magic mushroom products um and other things of that nature. Um,

and because the city of Sunnyvil doesn't have any uh permit, local permit requirement or any zoning restrictions on these shops, unlike many of our neighboring jurisdictions, uh there is a possibility that this is a more attractive area for these shops to locate. they can be very profitable if as you can imagine. Um so this moratorum would um make it illegal for any new of new shops to open in Sunnyville. And so as I will quote um uh council member Melinger sometimes at at uh council meetings where he says please vote yes as his comments. Um I happy I'm happy to answer any questions. Oh, there was a question about Mountain View. I apologize. because they left Mountain View off the list of jurisdictions. Mountain View, uh so there's there's uh some cities that have a a local city permit and some that have decided to participate in a county run permit program. Mountain View has opted for the permit, the county permit program, but they haven't implemented it yet. So, they're kind of in a transition period right now.

All right. Thank you so much uh for the brief but direct presentation. Um at this point I'll turn it over to the commission uh for questions. Uh Commissioner Davis, you up first. Yeah, this is pretty straightforward. I was just reading through the ordinance and perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see a a definition for standalone smoke shop.

Um yeah, it's at the very beginning of the ordinance and it says that let me find it here. Um, a smoke shop means a retailer or person that primarily sells offers for sale or offers to exchange for any form of consideration tobacco products and or tobacco paraphernalia in which the sale of other products is merely incidental. And then there are definitions of tobacco paraphernalia and tobacco products. H3. Okay, I guess I guess I skipped over that. Um, I guess Okay, that's that's okay. I'm good. That's pretty clear. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Next, we have Commissioner Cerrone. Thank you, Chair. Um, let's see. The council requires a four-fifth vote for an urgency ordinance. What do we require here for a recommendation? Uh, you only need a majority. Just a m just a majority,

right? Okay. Um, according to the staff report in October 2025, city inspectors found seven smoke shops in violation of the city's ordinance prohibiting flavored tobacco. And apparently there were other illegal uh drugs being u sold at uh these shops. So what was the result of that? Were they shut down? Were they fined? Uh what happens in that case? So my understanding is they were cited um for the flavored tobacco and illegal products were seized. They those um operations I believe are usually done in uh conjunction with the county. Um so there is a state retail tobacco license that these businesses have to get and the county enforces those. So there's there they usually have um operations once a year, twice a year where they inspect all the shops and issue citations and seize illegal goods.

So why are we doing a urgency ordinance? Is there a more smoke shops imminent or

That's one of the concerns just as I mentioned that other cities in the county have stricter regulations than we do. Um, also it's going to take us some time, I think, to really study this issue and decide what type of regulatory program we want. Do we want to coop, you know, inter cooperatively with the county and use their program? Do we want to have our own program? That involves deciding what type of permits we'll issue, uh, who's going to enforce that, what the fees are going to be, and so on. Um, so we could do that without doing a moratorum, but that means there would be more shops potentially opening that would then be grandfathered when we eventually regulate them.

Okay. I mean, just looking at this, it seems like the main problem is the shop selling illegal drugs, and that's a violation of law. So, uh, more so more than saying, well, they're all selling illegal drugs. We just don't want more of the illegal drugs, which is a valid point, but seems like stopping the illegal drugs would be the first step

that, you know, that's a great point. And obviously, uh, the fact that we're going to look at zoning regulations and permits for tobacco sales doesn't mean we condone the illegal products. That's a that's a law enforcement issue. Uh potentially a a civil litigation issue where we have to shut down shops. Having a permit um requirement would mean that we have a permit we can enforce. So we would then have an administrative process we could use to shut down these businesses because we could revoke their tobacco permits. We don't currently have that tool.

All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Cron. Uh, seeing no other commissioner hands, um, I just had one point of clarification. So, um, if if this passes as designed, as requested, it's 45day moratorum. Um, and I know that there's the county's approach and then there are some cities do their own. Is have have you already kind of determined, are you going to use this period to determine if the county approach would make sense for us or if we want to do something more bespoke for Sunnyville? So, I I think we'll be able to get started hopefully. Um, but we wouldn't be able to complete any type of study within 45 days. So, we'll be we'll have to come back and extend it u for the remainder of the of the 12-month period.

And if that's the case, is there any reason why that the planning commission couldn't like 45 days seems relatively short. Is there a reason why it couldn't be a longer moratorally? This is the statutory procedure for interim zoning moratoria. Got it. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Seeing no other commissioner hands at this time, I will go ahead and open the public uh hearing on the specific item. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer or raise your digital hand now or dial star9 on a telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. Uh speakers are warned to limit their comments to the agenda item being considered. Speakers who are ruled out of order will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Recording officer, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item? We do not, Chair. All

right. Thank you. Uh then I will go ahead and close. uh public hearing and ask for discussion or motion from my colleagues. Commissioner Davis. Uh if my colleagues are, I'm ready with a motion. They're ready. I see nod. So, um, I move alternative one, recommend that city council adopt the urgency interim ordinance pursuant to government code 685, I'm sorry, 65858, adopting a temporary moratorium on the establishment and operation of smoke shops as defined within the city of Sunnyville founded in attachment two. Far enough far enough away for me to read it. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis and Commissioner Sigura. I'll second that.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. your motion. Uh yeah, this seems pretty simple to me. Um it it's sounds like we're in a prickly situation where some we've found some harm and so on and this is buying us some time to to deal with it. So I'm fine with a with a moratorum.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis and Commissioner Sigura to your second. I absolutely agree that we should regulate it and try to prevent from illegal drugs coming in to the city and get to our um young kids and uh definitely to make sure that all the vapor products that are there. There are some that are very dangerous and we need to regulate and make sure that our community is safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Sigura. Uh Commissioner Pine. Yeah, thank you. Uh, I we've said a lot of recently about the need for more retail in Sunnyville, but I'd argue that making Sunnyville the vice capital of Silicon Valley is not the right way to go about this. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Pine. All right, seeing no other commissioner hands, uh, recording officer, please conduct a vote. The motion passes with six yeses and Commissioner Faggoni absent. All right. Thank you. And what are the next steps for this uh project? This will go to the city council at the next council meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Uh that brings us to our next uh item for this evening. It's item 26-0376. It's a proposed project forward a recommendation to the city council to take the following actions. Stay with me. It's going to be me a little bit. A find the proposed actions are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to SQL guidelines section 15061B3 and 15308. B. Adopt a resolution to establish lowdensity residential objective design standards for single family dwellings, two family dwellings, and dual urban opportunity housing developments and repeal the single family home design techniques. C. Introduce an ordinance to amend Sunny Bale Municipal Code Title 19 zoning to amend chapter 19.32 building heights lot coverages and floor area ratios and repeal and replace chapter 19.80 design reviews to implement the lower density residential design standards and to amend chapter 19.79 accessory dwelling units to confirm with new state ADU laws. D. Adopt a resolution to update and adopt the green building tables for 2026 and E. Repeal city council policy 1.1.12 maximum standards for small lot single dwelling residential developments. The location is citywide. Is there staff report?

Good evening commissioners. Yes, we have a staff report.

Um, so my name is um Astabashes. I'm senior planner and today I'm going to walk you through the proposed lower density residential objective design standards and the related updates. And before we go into the presentation, I would like to make some uh corrections. So we'll start with the staff report on page two. Um after the increased green building incentive program for residential projects, we would like to add repeal city council policy 1.1.12 maximum standards for small lot single family home residential developments. Uh then on page four uh which is under the environmental review we would like to add also the SQL guideline section 15308 and then um on page seven which is under the ADUs uh we would like to replace uh the X days it's on the second line with 15 business days and finally um in attachment three uh which is the resolution. Uh we just made a minor correction. We added the minimum roof slope for prairie style architecture and that's on page 42. Now moving on to the presentation. So a little bit background about this project. Uh the proposed lower density residential objective design standards they will replace the existing single family home design techniques. These are the guidelines that are currently being used for evaluating single family and two family home projects. This was adopted back in January 2003 and at the same time it included creation of floor area ratio thresholds for planning commission design review. Um in 2020, city council authorized uh update to these guidelines and this was through city council study session paper CDD

20-01. Dalon which is a planning and architectural firm. They were selected as the project consultant in 2022. Now looking at the timeline here, um this effort started back in 2022 uh when we first held our uh community outreach meeting and since then we also um held three study sessions and we made revisions to the draft. The first public draft was released last year in December and the final next step would be city council hearing on June 2nd. Now uh talking about the goals of these uh this update. So the existing single family home design techniques, they have overall been very useful reference for both property owners and staff for guiding single family home and duplex projects. But um those are mostly subjective in nature which is now inconsistent with the state law which requires local jurisdiction to review housing development projects based on objective standards that don't involve any personal discretion or subjective interpretation. So that's really the key goal of this update is to create those objective and measurable design standards consistent with the state law. Um the other uh key goal for us was to streamline the permit review process to really minimize hurdles for development of these kind of projects. Um we also uh aimed at promoting architectural variation, modernizing the documents to address the current demands and trends, include sustainable design goals. And finally, an important goal was also to provide more flexibility to home owners while still having um still balancing and addressing the needs of the

neighbors. Um so with that in mind we worked on the draft document and this is generally the organization of that document. So it's divided into three chapters here. The first chapter is introduction which uh explains the state law that prompted the update. Talked about the applicability of this document provision of exceptions which we are going to talk in next slide. Um it introduced the design principles that guided the design standards. Now the second chapter design standards is really the bulk of this document and it's divided into two subsections. The first is architectural style section standards and that only applies to new dwellings and new second stories and it include guidance on like roof form, slopes, materials, decorative elements, entry porches and appendex A supplements this section and it includes the design element for common architectural style within Sunnyville. We also have a provision to um allow architectural styles that are not included in the appendex. The second subsection of chapter 2 is neighborhood scale and patent standards. Uh the goal of this section is essentially to achieve compatibility of mass and scale among the neighborhood and it includes several standards including second floor massing, heights, roof forms, facade articulation, entries, privacy, covered parking, materials, landscaping and lighting. Uh the final chapter is glossery. It's a graphic and narrative description of all the terms used in the document. And then the appendix B, it clarifies the design standards that are applicable by the project type and also clarifies the standards that would allow for a deviation. Now, as uh I mentioned before, one of our key goal really was to offer

flexibility uh to the homeowners and also allow also really support the creative site and architectural solution. With that in mind, we included the provision for exceptions and alternative compliance. Now, exceptions are allow a deviation of up to 25% from most numerical standards. And um a maximum of two exceptions are granted for staff level permits and three for planning commission level permits. An example would be one of the standards states that the entry porch height should be within 2 ft of the first floor area. With this exception, with an exception, it would allow for up to 2'3 in. Uh the other provision was alternative compliance. Uh we are we have proposed alternative compliance for a majority of design standards and this was essentially to address projects that have a more unique context. An example would be um side entry uh doors would be allowed for neighborhoods where 25% or more of the existing homes have the same pattern. Uh next in conjunction with these standards we are also proposing several updates and we'll go through that in the next few slides. So first is lot coverage. So over time we have seen there is a demand for larger homes in Sunnyville and this is primarily to accommodate household needs uh multigenerational living and aging in place and to address the demand we are proposing to increase the maximum lot coverage allowance for the lowdensity residential zoning district. Currently it is 45% for one story and 40% for two story and we are proposing a flat 50% irrespective of the number of stories. Next uh consistent with our goal of streamlining the review process we are proposing to increase the design review

thresholds for all three level of design reviews. So this would result in fewer permits at each level. Uh so for staff level design review without noticing the key difference would be we are increasing the threshold for from one story addition greater than 20% to one story addition greater than 50%. We are also clearly defining the exterior modifications that will trigger design review for staff level design review with noticing we are clearly defining the second story exterior modifications that would need a permit. Uh finally for planning commission level design review we are proposing to increase the threshold from 45% F or 3600 ft² floor area to 60% F. Any project that's below this threshold will only require a building permit but irrespective of the permit type all the projects will be subject to the design standards as well as the zoning standards. Um next uh we proposed some very minor updates to ADU ordinance and this is in compliance with the recent state laws that went into effect. Uh next we are also proposing a very minor update to the green building program. So green building program it offers incentive for pro projects that exceed the minimum requirement for a single family or duplex project. uh if they exceed the requirement, they can choose to increase lot coverage by 5% or qualify for staff level design review with up to 50% F or 4,000 square ft floor area. Consistent with the increased threshold, we are we are recommending that this incentive would allow for staff level design review with up to 65% F. Finally, uh the city council policy

1.1.12. So we are proposing to repeal this policy. So this policy was devised to allow flexibility for new single family home projects on small lots irrespective of the underlying zoning. It's essentially consistent with our 1.5 and R1.7 PD requirements that typically have these kind of projects. So small lots, single family homes. Um we uh are recommending repeal as with the proposed revised thresholds and lot coverage this policy will be redundant and additionally this policy is also subjective in nature and therefore cannot be applied to housing development projects per the state law. Now since our last study session on March 23rd we have made some revisions to the document. So we have included the requested corrections. We updated the pictures in appendex A. We also added the minimum roof slope for prairie style architecture and that's in appendex A as well. And the link to uh the recent document it's in attachment two. So in conclusion uh the proposed new standards they will provide clear direction and guidance to the applicant and staff. The related updates will further help in streamlining the process and also allow increased flexibility and meeting the in uh changing demands. Uh therefore staff is recommending planning commission to recommend to city council alternative one which is to find that the proposed actions are exempt from squa adopt a resolution to establish lowdensity residential objective design standards and repeal the single family home design techniques. Introduce an ordinance to amend chapter 19.32, repeal and replace chapter 19.80, and to amend chapter 19.79,

adopt a resolution to update and adopt the green building tables, and finally repeal city council policy 1.1.12. This concludes staff's presentation. The next step would be city council hearing on June 2nd. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Uh to kick it off with commissioners, we've got Commissioner Davis. Um just one point of clarification. Yes, thank you for the presentation. Um this has been really good work getting to this point. Um on two-story homes for new two-story homes, you said there's a staff level design review that's that's mandatory. Are there any exceptions to this? Is this across the board or is it only in predominantly singlestory neighborhoods?

It's across the board for all the projects. Okay. Um, have we considered um limiting it to only predominantly single story or is it just not come up? Uh, we we haven't, but generally there has been um an interest in the neighborhood to review the seconds story homes. So, we just continued with our practice. So, we thought we can just continue with that. Okay. All right. That's that's fine. Thank you. That's that's my only question. U Thank you. I I have some commentary, but that should be held till after we open the public hearing. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Next, we have Commissioner Cerrone. Thank you. Uh thanks for the presentation. Uh so, in in the case where a a project comes to the planning commission, will we have the option of uh waving or changing the requirements?

Um not. So it's because it's a housing development project. So even a single family home is a housing development project. So it will be you'll be confined with the objective standards which are the zoning code requirements and also the objective design standards. But with the planning commission level review they can request a deviation from uh or an exception from up to three uh standards.

Okay. All right. Um, something I um I I mentioned uh I think I mentioned before when we looked at this, but uh for the purpose of this document, I I thought that a neighborhood should be defined as a housing development that was, you know, built at the same general time by a developer in the same uh general style. And sometimes it's a large area. And sometimes when uh for like for example, sometimes a school was closed and homes were built, it may only be a couple city blocks, but uh and it's pretty easy to see if you just look at them. Uh other areas uh of course uh like some previously uninccorporated areas don't have a coherent style, which is fine. And using a circular distance might work in some cases, but why do that when you can either with historical records or just driving around, you can see where one housing development ends and another starts. And uh I'm just thinking of an example where you have let's say four or five blocks of craftsmanstyle housing built as a housing development next to let's say a iclair development for example. But a house close to the edge of the craftsman development will be in a circle that is half craftsman halfler. So compatibility doesn't make sense in that context. Um when anyone looking at it can see that here's one development and here's another development and uh can see what's intended. But uh anyway that's you know that is what I would uh recommend but because I think the circle will besides the fact that you know blocks are almost never circular. Um uh let's see electric I thought electric

appliances were required. It looks like we get you get points for doing electric Yeah, the reach code does require the all electric appliances here. Okay.

I'm sorry. Can I correct that? I mean, the reach code that that was rescended um and so there I think there there's a point system. So, the city cannot um mandate like no gas uh infrastructure based on um a lawsuit out of the city of Berkeley and a ninth circuit court of appeal decision. Um but there are efforts to uh incentivize um all electric. Um so,

okay. I thought they got around that with a nitrous oxide uh requirement, but maybe not. At least that was discussed um as uh part of this or I guess apparently it would be separate but we've seen kind of a lot of issues with external buildings relative to the kind of single family homes or lowdensity housing. Uh would that show up as a separate standard of some kind or I'm I'm sorry. Can you please repeat the question? for if you have a shed in the back, the setbacks or maybe it has power, maybe it doesn't or

uh so as part of this study, we did not update our zoning code standards besides just the lot coverage and FR thresholds, but yeah, that would be a separate study. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Cerrone. Next, we have Commissioner Pine.

Yeah. Uh thank thank you thank you, Chair. Thank you staff for the report and also thank you for all of the work you put into this. I It's been a pretty long row, but it's been very nice, but I'm I'm glad we've I think we've gotten to a good product, so I'm glad we're there. Uh couple kind of technical procedural questions. Uh first of all, uh I staff correct gave us a correction on to the attachment. Uh, does that need to be referenced in the event would that need to be referenced in the eventual motion or would just would it be already incorporated an alternative one?

Um, so it does I think yeah it does need to be included in the motion the corrections.

Okay, thank you. And second one and I will apologize to staff for not sending this one in advance. I honestly should have, but it didn't really hit my brain until right now. Uh, would it be appropriate to include a recommendation to modify page six of the Icler design guidelines to update the statement that says when is design review required to say 50% instead of 20%. The scope of this study issue that was issued to us by the city council was to update the existing single family design standards. Um the scope was not to modify any other design guidelines.

Right. But I'm not we're not modifying the Iclar design guidelines per se. We're just making sure the thing is the thing is if we do this the Icler design guideline I'm referring to on page six will be giving incorrect information. and I would like us to fix that. Yeah. No, thank you. So, um, design standards are always subordinate to zoning code. So, that takes a precedence. So, even if we don't make that revision, the zoning code will take the precedence. Right. What I'm But what I'm saying is we should have that revised at some point because we are I don't want us to have a document on the city website that's wrong. Understood. Yeah, we could definitely take that note. And could I

could we possibly include a recommendation that the city council direct staff to return at a future date with the literally one figure revision to page six of the design guidelines? I'm not quite following what the change or where the error is. Can you point that out? Okay. Again, this is Iclar design guidelines. It is page six of the Iclar design guidelines.

I'm sorry. Is that a different document than what's before us? Okay. So, it sounds like it hasn't been agendaized for tonight. Uh, hold on. Uh it's uh is it that it's inconsistent the guidelines are now inconsistent. It would it it there's a thing that says when is design review required and it's includes the language for an inc any increase of floor area that equals or exceeds 20% of the existing house. And we're changing that to 50% tonight which is why I brought it up. Thank you.

So, um, as Austin was mentioning, it the law says that the design guidelines are subordinate to the zoning code. So, if we change the zoning code, even with the Iclar design guidelines showing a lower threshold, we can still enforce the change, but it's more of to avoid confusion. Yes, I follow I I follow that this. It's just I don't want somebody reading the ACL design guidelines and then

Yes. I I mean I think I think that um they can you the commission can recommend to council um that uh they direct staff to uh bring back conform any conforming changes needed um to other design guidelines including the Iller design guidelines. And if I could add to that, if there is a procedural way for us to do it at staff level because there would be no judgment, there would be it would be to make it consistent with the zoning code. Um maybe that's something that can be considered in the motion is to work with staff to consider amendments to Iller design guideline to ensure that it's consistent with the new zoning code requirements. Yeah, I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying I'm not trying to over compl Like I want I just basically just want the one number fixed. Like whatever the best way to do that I am fully supportive of.

Yeah. So if you could make your motion for um staff to consider options to to update that number, we will look for ways to see if we could do it administratively because it's really a cleanup to make sure it's consistent with the code. Thank you. Sorry, I was just writing them down. We we can clarify the process for the city council as part of the staff report to the city council. But um yeah, the d the recommendation can be to have staff review options to update the Iller design guidelines to conformed with the changes that that are being made to the citywide objective design guidelines.

All right. or sorry the lower density residential design guidelines. Well, it would technically not even be that. It would be the change to the permitting thresholds. Okay. Thresholds. Thank you, Commissioner Pine. Uh next we have Vice Chair Shukla.

Thank you. Thank you for the great presentation. You've come a long way. I I suddenly remembered the when they uh increased the density they may have cut down some trees and so we have um so they don't belong to the guidelines correct or is there a document which will go uh with this one that like uh see for the tree removal and tree because there are some replacement trees and all so that will be not part of this document correct

yeah so that is part of our uh title 19 there's a chapter for tree preservation. So um so it's not related to this uh design standards but we generally do recommend preserving the trees and we don't need to update that it this will not affect it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. This will be this that will be a separate study updating that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Because I think it uh so there is no attached so this will not have like C references at the bottom of it or something. No. So generally we say I think in the introduction chapter that the zoning code still applies and the design standards are subordinate to the zoning code.

Oh okay. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you Vice Chair. Next we have Commissioner Cerrone. Um I just had a quick followup. If if we're changing the uh recommending changing the Iclar uh um Ilar design guidelines, does that all do? We also have changes in the heritage neighborhood design guidelines. You are psychic. I was just doing that research right now and there is some language about triggers. So staff will want to look at that more closely. If you want to put that into your motion that staff would consider other design guidelines, we can certainly do that.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Cerrone. Uh, Commissioner Pine. Yeah, I did a very quick skim and I didn't see it, but that is probably just me not seeing it. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Pine. Uh, Commissioner Davis. Uh, thank you, Chair. So, I'm just starting to think about motion language. So, I'm thinking that cascading changes to subordinate documents or or something like that would probably cover. Is that is that concise enough to to give staff what they need to work with? I think if we say subordinate design guidelines or standards, that way it doesn't open up other documents. That would be helpful.

Okay. I kind of want I mean if there's if there's a document that's going to then be obiated by these changes, we should change the Okay. Yeah, that could be put in your motion changes to all of them.

Sorry, you got me into softer thinking for a second. That's uh Okay, that's that's the end of that comment. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Um, seeing no other commissioner hands, at this time I will go ahead and open the public hearing on this specific item. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial star9 on a telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first, followed by remote participants. Speakers are warned to limit their comments to the agenda item being considered. Speakers who are ruled out of order will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Recording officer, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item? We do not, chair.

Thank you. Um, I will go ahead and close the public hearing and I will ask for a motion and or discussion from my colleagues. Commissioner Davis.

Yeah. A couple of items I'd like to discuss with the the commission before we go to a motion. Uh, one is the twotory uh mandatory design review. I I I think that's going to seem anacronistic very very quickly. Um I I don't aside from Iclers which are covered by separate design guidelines. I don't foresee many new single family homes in Sunny in Sunnyville being built that are not two stories. That that's just uh so I I would like to change that so that it's uh we leave it in there if it's a predominantly single family I'm sorry singlestory neighborhood which we have a good definition for. Um, and then the other thing is that I I went through the document again and uh I I like the labeling on the pictures in the appendix, but there's still a little bit of ambiguity that I'm afraid that a a resident will look at. So, I'd like the just some more clarifying language that says these these you cannot that's just very clear. You cannot rely on these um as plans, right? um with something appropriate. Right now I think it says uh for illustrative per purposes only and well that's a word that we can't even agree on how to say in different dialects of English. So I I just like something to be very very clear with very short words

maybe writing inspiration on them. Um you could just say uh leave the for illustrative purposes. Um the picture the illustrations cannot be relied on for compli have not been reviewed for compliance with Sunnybell design guidelines. Commissioner Sigard, did you have a comment? No, that's fine. I I agree with him. It's fine. Okay. Um Commissioner Davis, are you Yes. All right. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Pine.

Yeah, thank you. Uh, for clarification, uh, uh, I wasn't exact I wasn't precisely sure which kind type of twotory thing Commissioner Davis was proposing to bump down and to bump down to which levels because there's essentially there's three bullet points under staff level design review noticing and all of them are relevant to twotory homes. So, I was just wanted to get clarity on that. Let me open up the presentation

and I would yield to Commissioner Davis for a response. Okay. So, what I'm referring to story editions, uh just the new two-story homes, honestly. Um I'm sorry, the staff level design review with noticing. Uh that's what I would uh I I would amend that to be only in in predominantly singlestory neighborhoods. So my understanding is that sorry it just so it would be so staff level design review without noticing would be new one-story homes or new twostory homes that are not in a single predominantly single family home neighborhood. And then staff level design level staff level design review with nursing would be new tin twotory homes in predominantly single family home neighborhoods and then everything else would be as is.

Okay. Am I am I getting that right? Um okay. So we're both looking at at uh page 10, right? I'm looking at the staff report, but yeah, it's the same table.

Oh, okay. The same table. Yeah. So I didn't quite follow. So um on staff level design review on the proposed um I don't see any changes. Okay, let me start first. Building permit only, no changes. Staff level design review, no changes. And then for staff level design review with noticing it would be new two-story homes in predominantly single singlestory neighborhoods and second floor additions in predominantly singlestory neighborhoods.

Okay. What I'm flagging is that you've if we did that we would have new twostory homes with actually less of a threshold than new singlestory homes which would strike me as problematic because uh we're because this guidelines has written is a staff level design review for new singlestory homes. So it to me it would not make sense to have new twostory homes to have less review than uh that's new singlestory homes.

Okay, that's fair. Um then I would say uh add the phrase add the phrase and move them just to staff level design review. Let me think about it. I Well, I don't have anything, so I'll put my hand down. Thank you.

Um, yeah, my concern is that we're going to we we're nothing's going to really happen in staff level design review. Everything will just basically automatically jump to staff level design review with noticing and uh and that would just be extra work for staff when we're going to approve that when greater than 95% of them will be approved. That that's just that's my thinking right now. Um, I I'm actually fine because uh because this is going to city council, uh, I'm fine with maybe making notes in the minutes that we brought this up and having it come have come in in the staff report that it was discussed. Uh, but going with things as they're published right now just for expedience.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Um not seeing other commissioner hands. I would uh second your your point not as motion but as a idea. Yeah. Um that it does seem a bit like an uh not not planning for the future acknowledging that a lot of we should expect that a lot of the developments would include second story homes. So I think that it is smart. I think it would reduce uh demand on staff time as well. So having that be noted makes a lot of sense to me. All right. Commissioner Cernney, uh, I just had a question. There's discussion now about building tiny homes. Um, how would that fall into this? Uh,

um, sorry, can you repeat your question, please? Well, there's uh been a recent discussion at city council about uh building tiny homes. it relates to uh the unhoused population and uh so those would be small single singlestory homes obviously. Um so do they fall under this? Uh uh yes they would fall under that. So if it's a one-story home then we'll just do a design review at staff level. Yes. So it would be the same um whether it's small tiny homes or not. So Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Shnney. Any other thoughts from the commission?

I think I'm ready to make a motion then. Commissioner Davis, go ahead.

Okay. So, my motion uh I don't need to put anything about notes in the staff report in the motion, do I? Okay. So, we'll just put that in there. Let me scroll down so I can get all the language. Yeah. My my motion is to follow the staff recommendation to take alternative one um with one change which I will list at the end. Um that is find that the proposed actions are exempt from SQA pursuant to SQA guidelines sections 15061B3 and 15308. Adopt a resolution to establish lower density residential objective design standards for single family dwellings, two family dwellings in dual urban opportunity housing developments and repeal the single family home design techniques. introduce an ordinance to amend Sunnyville Municipal Code Title 1 N zoning to amend Chapter 19.32 building heights lot coverages and floor area ratios and repeal and replace chapter 19.80 design review to implement the lower density residential design standards and amend chapter 1 19.79 accessory dwelling units to conform with new state ADU laws. adopt a resolution to update and adopt the green building tables for 2026 and repeal city council policy 1.1.12 maximum standards for small lot single family residential developments. The one change is to add verbiage to the illustrations uh in the architectural style appendix uh to make it clear that the pictures cannot be relied on uh for compliant designs. That's my motion.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Commissioner Pine, uh would the maker be open to a couple friendly amendments? Shoot. Okay. Number one, uh to modify adopter resol the adopt a resolution blah blah blah to incorporate the change made by staff to the uh that was provided to us earlier. Uh yes. I thought that was included but yes my understanding was that we had to state it.

Yes. So the staff report in a portion of the staff report it doesn't include it but where it is important is in the staff's recommendation and it is noted there already. Actually it's um action E. So you don't actually have to make an amendment of the motion. If you recommend the motion as noted in the staff report that covers staff's uh uh correction. Okay. Okay. Cool.

Cool. Whatever. Uh but the other one which was actually substantive was to which was more substantive was to add uh that staff consider options to update update other design guidelines to be consistent with updated the updated design review thresholds. I Yes, thank you. And I enthusiastically accept that one. I forgot about it. Thank you. And staff, was that a clear statement of what we discussed earlier? Yes. Thank you. Ordinant document. Cool. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh so then, Commissioner Pine, that was a second, correct? Is that with that seconded?

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. To your motion. Uh yeah, that I think I think this document a lot of great work's gone into it. Um it's going to make the city um much easier to work with for for homeowners um and people building new homes and so on. Um it will streamline. Uh I it's just a I feel like this is going to be a win all the way around. Um, simple is easier to work with, which means it's faster to get things done, which means it costs less money. Uh, so it's kind of the definition of good government in my in my book. So, uh, that's why I made the motion and I hope the rest of my commissioners will support it as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Davis and Commissioner Pine to your second.

Yeah, thank you. Uh, I don't have too much to add to this. I think it's a great document. I think it'll I enthusiastically agree with it or with what Commissioner Davis said. I also think this has also just been a really good process. Like we got a really strong draft from staff and then we went through a number of study sessions when we suggested improvements and staff was able to implement implement them and I think the documents improved significantly from when we first saw it. So that's great. I think staff put a lot of hard work into it and I think I think this will be this will I think and we've talked about that. We I also do think that is the design review streamlining will be a positive. We've got I think like for like for us an item showing up on consent is you know we read the report you know we read the report we don't find anything wrong with the report and then we approve it and it takes and for us it's however long it takes to read the report and then it's like 10 seconds for the consent calendar. But for the applicant going through that, that's a significant that's a significant amount of time just waiting for it to come to the planning commission hoping having to show up to the planning commission meeting in case we do pull it. like this will be a and it will be a substantial savings of time and expense for for the pe for the pe for the homeowners to and which and as I've said if we can if we can just streamline single family projects when there's when there's no real reason for them not to be streamlined that's always something we should be doing so I think this is a significant this is going to be a substantial improvement over current process and I and I look forward to city council approving it in June. Thank you.

Please. Thank you, Sher. Uh I just wanted to quickly clarify uh because of the way that the staff report is and the recommendations are presented that the um recommendation is actually alternative because it's the staff recommendation with changes. I just it's a minor technicality but the minutes will reflect that and so I just want to make sure that what we do here is reflects the same thing. So may the maker and the seconder confirm it's alternative too. Excellent. Thank you. Yes. Alternative. Yes. Thank you very much. All right. Uh Commissioner Shukla. Vice Chair Shukla.

Thank you. I think I'm very happy about I will be supporting the motion um because I I really think that as uh all other commissioners said that it will be good for the residents in terms of money and time but also the variety of the housing uh options uh because a lot of people just want to do things but they they have so I think we have a little bit more options and more freedom uh for the neighborhood code uh definition for the style definition and you know it's a style sometimes becomes prominent when somebody mixes it together and looks amazing. So anyway I'm very happy about it so I'll be supporting. Thank

you comm vice chair Shukla. Uh next we have commissioner Sugura. So uh as a person who's doing construction during the day then work with the city submitting a lot of plans that we design for our clients I will think that that's an amazing process. It will make things uh very easy uh to work with. Um me and people in the city went for many many hours of zoom meetings again and again because of certain issues that we had. Um, and that's going to make it much easier uh to work with the clients and with the city. So, thank you so much for putting all this together for us.

Thank you, Commissioner Sigura. And seeing no other commissioner hands, uh, yeah, I will be enthusiastically supporting this motion as well. Um, I think it's fantastic that the city and the staff devote time and energy to making it easier to do business. Um, and I think that it's it's cool to be a part of a a community where that's something that matters. So, thank you very much. Uh, and with that recording officer, please conduct a vote.

The motion passes with six yeses and Commissioner Fagonei absent. All right. Thank you very much. And what's next for this project? Your recommendation will be forwarded to the city council for their consideration on June 2nd. All right. Thank you very much. Um, this brings us to non-aggenda items and comments. The next portion of the agenda is for oral reports and announcements by commissioners and staff to share information. First, we have planning commissioners. Do any commissioners have any non-aggenda items or comments? Commissioner Sigura. Oh, sorry. You're Gotcha. Okay. Um Okay. No commissioners. Um staff. Uh do any staff have any non-urgent items or comments?

Good evening, commissioners. Um this is Sean. I'm at home, but um just two things. Um, the May Planning Commission meeting dates have changed. So May 11th is the same and then May 26th will be on a Tuesday because of Memorial Day. And then the city council will be holding a public meeting on April 21st, which that means they already held it. Um, and it was for the safe parking ordinance and that's it. All right. Thank you. So just as a reminder then that we have a planning commission on Tuesday. Should I hear that? Because that's not common for us. Correct.

All right. Uh, thank you, Sean. Um, all right. And then we brings us to adjournment. I'm happy to adjourn this meeting at 9:24 p.m. Thank you for everyone's participation tonight.