Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e e e e uh good evening city of tap Planning Commission is meeting um we have a special meeting agenda today Wednesday January 8th 2025 uh City Hall Council chamber 209 East Kern Street Taff California City of tap Planning Commission meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are live streamed at

https ww.youtube.com /user cityof Taft public comment can be made in person and can be received per the following written comments may be dropped off in the drop box in front of City Hall comments may be emailed to the city at the city of clerk at City ofa.org made by phone to the city clerk's office at 661 76312 22 public comments not made in person will be accepted up until 1 hour before the meeting and any comments received will be read into the the record so we're going to have the Pledge of Allegiance and um I'll go ahead and do the invocation since we don't have a person here to do it deal um I shall do the FL it's I from the camera all right so flag salute I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and thank you please bow your heads I couldn't hide by the plant uh father I thank you for your presence here with us today I ask that you guide our our deliberations and bring us to proper conclusions in your son's name amen am amen okay roll call when you're ready chairman Livingston here Vice chairman shz here commissioner D here commissioner Johnson here and commissioner oron has made okay normally we would be looking for public comments or citizen requests item one we have none at this moment so we will move on to item two the minutes of our previous

meeting I'll motion to approve I'll I'll second it's been motioned and approved uh second please uh roll call vote commissioner dowon yes commissioner Johnson yes Vice chairman shz yes chairman Livingston yes okay we're moving on to uh more review here we've got the Planning Commission view of zoning ordinance amendments to sections related to unit size requirements setbacks definition of family and Residential Care Facilities um planning director uh thank you uh chairman Livingston as you mentioned uh we're looking at another set of zoning ordinance amendments um that were um derived out of the housing element preparation process and uh keep in mind this section which is uh in the housing element as referred to as the removal of constraints but it's basically what do we need to change in our zoning code Andor General plan um to make more housing um available in the city but um so we're and there's yeah there's 16 different ones we're on to the next four um programs 5j K M and N Out of the housing element um and the topics that they cover is uh reducing or removing the minimum unit size requirements um amending the ordinance for front yard setback requirements um and section m is definition of family and N um as a Nancy is uh regarding Residential Care Facilities so I'll go through um each of these for program 5j and reducing or removing unit size requirements in the draft resolution that was provided um the table for um well actually just go over the whole um land use table which is Page four of

the draft resolution we're not acting on it tonight but um uh I do have some um items here for you where um so for the unit size requirement it's the last um line item in the table from setbacks and lot sizes and the like um actually missed one there um sorry about that uh so at the bottom there reducing the um unit size in the um U RS and R1 zones which are essentially large lot and your standard R1 single family Zone districts down to 850 that matches the minimum single family unit requirement that's in our manufactured home section of the code so it's providing at least a little bit smaller so if it's somebody wants a two-bedroom manufactured home or build stick built one they could go that small and then drop the R2 which is essentially your duplex Zone and the R3 Zone um which is a multif family apartment Zone down to 400 square ft which was that upper end of the um single room occupancy that we talked about last time so it's kind of that dividing line of if you're below we'll be considering some of those units or SRO and then above that um is a suggested minimum unit size when someone comes in with Studios or apartments whatever it may be further up on the table there are some other changes where um little more definite on um when you there's a culde saac or knuckle lot which is basically the 90° change uh on a street that that curve Frontage be at least 35 ft on that curved distance um it wasn't overly specified um and then below that the uh front yard setbacks I did bump them up a little bit but it's referring to the actual occupied space

of the home so like if a living room or bedroom is all the way up to the front um I've adjusted it where um in the R1 it's now instead of 20 ft it's 15 and the same in the R2 and um R2 Zone because you have duplexes they're just two units and then in the R3 Zone it's 10 feet which would normally be like a um landscape area or maybe a fence separating the parking that's for an apartment complex type type of development uh but if you see below that um garages and other accessory structures need to be 20 ft back and the basic thing on that is if that uh garage door is 20 ft back it provides a driveway that's 20 ft long that a standard vehicle usually could be parked there without blocking the sidewalk so that the actual Liv room come closer than the garage correct and it's more to just provide a good parking pad for parking cars outside of a garage yeah anything shorter they're out in the driveway Aon out in the street so that's why uh there's a differentiation there and all these little changes were in section four that when we get to the final approval all this um there used to be these sub um development standard statements after the table that were these items that could just be a numeric amount in the table as opposed to a sentence saying well if you do this or that you could do this or that um so I move those struck all those out so this whole subsection c um below um uh what table is this 5 C 5 4B um will be struck out from the record and everything's been brought up and integrated into the table in a numeric amount the minimum unit size setbacks and it looks like my minimum lot size didn't take um the the in the R1 zone

right now the minimum lot size is 6,000 square ft CU a lot of the standard Lots in the center part of town and even those west of 10th are generally 60 by 125 which gets you 6250 ft Lots like almost every single lot is that size um and that fits under the density allow of the R1 Zone which is 7 units per acre but there's very little room to maximize 7 units per acre so there was a sub standard item that said um there can be lots of 5,000 F feet as long as the overall density stays under the allowed density of 7 units per uh uh 7 units per acre so that would change as well down to 5,000 that mat is matched by the R2 Zone which is 5,000 so there'll be some consistency between r1s and r2s it's just that r1's are going to be more single family r2s are going to be duplex oriented so that's the main thing there for the removing minimum unit size and the setbacks um and then the third one which is the definition of family um it's not so much saying what a family is it's just that family is one of the things that's under the um uh anti-discrimination law age race all that um overly rejecting someone who wants to rent or buy because they have one kid five kids whatever or trying to figure out what their family Dynamic is it's more of a we just copied and pasted the best I could of um it's not overly defined on the state level but I took some of the decisions if you will of what they say a family is um and it doesn't actually necessarily have to have kids a couple is a family so um that's a general term it's not a definition correct and it's not saying oh this is

with kids or without kids it's not about that it's just uh being more consistent with all the different court cases that have happened when a family has been discriminated against um because if you do a search feel free to search it at home uh it's all about the coure cases and um you can't discriminate against those folks if you're a landlord or selling property or whatever it may be so that's the the need for the definition there in every city that's gone through the housing element process this has been one of their programs if they don't have a family definition or if it's an older one that's talking about kids or no kids kind of definition and then the last program is 5n which is regarding the Residential Care Facilities it's a general term for all things whether it's care for children adults seniors it's a really small term covering a whole lot of categories of Residential Care um so that's why um the last section in the draft ordinance um right now it has no edits to it but we had uh dependent housing as a category or a term um that needs to be changed and updated to what the state law says but the law is so big and Broad on this I need a little more time on it so this is probably going to get detached out of this at the later date when we actually act on this and it's probably going to be its own thing okay because in the housing element it also talks about group homes and um uh Community Care facilities and those are in the definitions that are being amended as well with this ordinance um but the broadness of residential care facilities and what it covers it covers uh adoption facilities as well or Foster Care Homes and things like that so it there's so many subcategories of it that um need to figure out how to cover it all leave stuff out but it references back to the

state law whenever we come across someone wanting to establish one of these here locally I mean the arc The Arc class is classified as one of these uh Alpha houses a care facility emergency shelter so there's just so many categories that it's need to make sure it's covered but not to the nth degree cuz we only have two facilities we're not a bigger larger City that could have all 20 to Define Community Care Facilities so um we have the definitions in but now I need to amend this section 6-2-4 which is more of the development standards of what a facility operator would have to go through and um prove on their part being a licensed facility um or if there's going to need to be two or three or four different sections in um the code now that will cover the most common types I guess you could say so I'm still working on that part but I have the other parts of including it into the allowed uses table for the residential and Commercial sections and then the definitions are in as well uh based on the programs that were drafted on the draft housing element but this community care facility that will amend the dependent housing is kind of the up in theair one that will probably get removed and delayed to a later uh much later meeting once I figure everything out with it um and we start coming through and adopting all these coaching changes so I will leave my presentation at that and um I'm open for any questions you may have okay open it up to the commission anybody have any questions step backs on the sides are still 5 feet basically yes the sides and rear stay the same 5 ft okay yeah would you repeat that please um side yards the side yards are still 5 ft and rear yards are five um R3 I think might be 10 it's just it's assumed that there's going to be some sort of buffer

to the adjacent property and uh when it comes to R3 okay wider but R1 and R2 it's five on the sides and the back we used to allow 10% of the lot width if the lot was not 50 ft is that still in the code that wasn't in this code um it may have been changed before I got here when they did the overhaul in 2010 I don't recall that yeah I would like to entertain that we provide that because it's very difficult for some of these people to develop with a 5 yard um 5 foot side yard setback because that requires 10 ft out of sometimes a 35 ft lot you know or a 37 and 1/2t lot that has been created by us in the past so I'd like us to consider putting that back in at a 10% well I think it probably be something else where it' be a defined uh um measurement as instead of 10% in that um because most other cities that do have the real dense single family or a lot of smaller Lots um I think they push it to where um they need a firewall so it refers back to more of the building code on that distance CU once you're within six feet of each other you start having 1 hour firewalls and 2 hour and all that so we could probably do a reference to building distance Orange County had um lot of um the coast I think there were 25 ft Lots yeah and we wound up having to still put a house on it you know baloa Island Newport Island that kind of stuff um so if we can look at that the other question I had is I I apologize for being late but I came in on the setback requirements of 10 15 and

10 no 15 15 and 10 um what happens to the um rear alley entrance to a garage what's the requirement there so since that's not an occupied structure we do allow um getting as close as I think it's either 3 ft or 30 in which is another building code uh okay call out because I just want to make sure that that hadn't changed yeah the garages can be closer because they're not occupied okay let's say on the uh side setb if if someone wants a build and they they can come do us and maybe we can do an exemption for them even if we don't do a overall but like okay well if you want to do it let's make a design get a we do to be fairly friendly with variances not quite as letter of the law of what some might consider uh when you apply a variance um if it's they're providing something like a better construction type on that wall you know getting those fire walls near a property line sometimes wiser to do a zero lot line and put the side yard over and create that firewall on the property and if that's their design we could come forward with something where they're showing how they're um CU that's the the purpose of setbacks the the building code Community is created this 10 foot separation so that's how you got five on one property five on the other you got your 10t between structures but then they also talk about garages and other accessory structures that aren't occupied they could get closer to a property line as long as they don't have an opening but a garage usually has a garage door so that brings it back to the 30 or 36 in that's why you'll see all the garages along our alleys are a little bit set back right it's that 30 to 36 in distance that's in the building code because it has an opening the door but if you see some of the garages that have

a broadside to the alley with no doors or Windows they can be I'm assuming it's for fire hazard though corre anything with so you can fire the fire out so we we can look into those more we don't quite have that Urban or Coastal Community type thing but there are some narrow lots that could probably benefit from a little bit of a um allowance on the um setbacks whether that is in a variance type process or whatever may be to allow that in or some other statement I'll look into that yeah okay I appreciate it thank you for your answer I think we do need sort of a generous variance I was just thinking of the uh it's on second that the house that burned down on second and uh Woodrow there are the the tiny postage stamp Lots yes right it's such a postage size size that if you gave all the setbacks you'd be building an ouse i it's right so we we need to have that for sure um the a question I had was that we have the com you were planning on redoing the Convent care or are we leaving it at because that fits the current definition of the uh code that's what I have to dig into as well I didn't notice uh uh in the sections I've read through so so far in the health and safety code on it hasn't been so much on that it's been on the group homes there's a really robust area regarding uh um places that handle adoptions and foster children all that stuff okay it's like trying to get through all the pages to figure out um it's important but how do we refine that down to how do we quickly and succinctly Define the probably the most likely facilities to be established here you know we have a couple examples with Alpha and the arc facility um but just your basic uh folks that Tak in children

that's why I have the basic thing where it's at that threshold of six or fewer they're generally just allowed There's No Business License NOK nothing if they're having seven kids seven adults or more more that's when they might need a homok or some other process involved with that um so um and then it expands from there of the different types of child and adult and Senior Care that comes out of facilities like these uh we don't have enough examples here where we could mold it around what we have and that kind of guides you so we're we're kind of just trying to comply with the state and they it's quite the novel to read through on the state um code so I'm getting through it U but by the time we get to the final stage on this I'll be able to explain it better and again it most likely will get detached from a lot of this um this grouping wasn't necessarily grouped in the the housing element they were just the next four in a row and unrelated to the next four after that so I kind of pushed this uh through to today to start discussing it and making sure it's in your minds for when we come back with the uh final uh adoption of this well I you know it's the the problem with with a code that keeps trying to cover everything yes and um you know I I can remember remember you might even to that in law school there was a case on whether or not a grandmother and her grandson was a family and that's your first line practically in here and then since then it's been accreted more and more things that make a family so it's Cas yeah um I don't envy the person who reads through all that so good luck on that thank you are there any other questions okay then we'll move on to item four which is the planning director report uh yes thank you again uh chairman Livingston um first I'll just say I hope everybody had a good

Christmas good New Year every other holiday in between Hanukkah started late so um hope everybody had a safe one and healthy one as well I know there's various illnesses going around right now so uh stay safe with that um but to update from our last meeting on December 4th we had the follow-up uh workshop on the housing element on December 12th well attended uh we had a fair amount of Spanish speakers so we were able to utilize a newly um contracted translator that went very well um it was well attended um we're still and we had a follow-up meeting with uh hcd as well they're I think again they've gotten through a lot of the more urbanized parts of the state with their housing elements that um they become more and more available which has been great um so we're working away on getting the edits done that they've asked for it's kind of expanded a little bit since we had that discussion and we've had the holidays in between so I'll be meeting with our consultant in the next week or two to nail down the last stuff and when we send this next draft out the state has 60 days to review that so it's two months out from whenever we send that if you do it on the 15th of January it's not till the 15th of March till we hear from them so there's that part with the housing element um working on getting the update to the Adu plans because we also had the uh um Economic Development Workshop to go over those the one uh defined thing that came out of that meeting was to keep the Adu units that we're going to put together preapproved U plan packages together are essentially one bedroom and smaller units so about 510 squ ft and smaller so essentially just adds one bedroom to the overall residence of the property so the electrical need this water need the sewer need um doesn't add another 1,200

ft you know to the maximum unit of adus so uh working with the architect to get one-bedroom and Studio options as what we're going to be providing um as options for most of the property because we also saw there's space on some but not all so also keeping it small would um help generally help more properties and having larger units uh pre-approved I think it's especially true in the center of the city yeah that that's our part of our Focus but they did a sample of properties over uh west of 10th and then also uh Park View um because they have the least amount of space in the back so uh hopefully whatever we come up with maybe they'll be able to attach that as opposed to detach but uh we'll we see when we get there when I get the next uh draft of the plans which should be shortly we'll probably have another Economic Development hopefully by the end of the month um toh see this and then we'll work on a package that will be put on the city website so people can read through of what there's still a plan check process involved um because one thing that's not going to happen or be part of the plans is a specific roof structure it'll allow it to whether somebody wants to do more of a um I guess well more stick built or if they're going to uh pay for the pre-assembled trusses oh yeah that get shipped so leaving that option to their contractor that they work with because some prefer the Tresses some may do their own framing for the roof with the rafters and the joists and all that um one thing they are recommending though is to provide more space for the individual is to do more of the uh I think they call it a box trust where it creates a little bit of attic space where you can put you know maybe 4x8 you to plywood to store Christmas stuff or whatever up in there because they're trying to maximize the space with a kitchen space and bedrooms all that so

um that's a suggestion but there won't be any structural CS with the roof but will be for the box of the um living space yeah so um so we're hoping to put a whole package together a whole homeowner's guide the what are adus why we did this and how it's going to work with these three options or they could go with their own with something else they found out there as a Adu for their properties so um those are my three items okay move on to item five City attorney have anything to tell us I do not any Mr chair okay then we're on to item six commissioner comments any comments from the commission uh great uh Christmas party for the city that was fun yeah just couldn't stop winning that was hardest part of a gambling and uh had to give it all back um the uh yeah had year and wish you all the best anyone else I just um glad to see everyone here we survived the holidays um I imagine we all had good holidays the Christmas parade was the big success again and uh New Year's was pleasant so welcome back yes just kind of an observation we were talking about the setbacks the area where the fires are in La happens to have been 1920s and 30s housing and so they're experiencing well theyve lost at least a thousand units now they're experiencing the issues that drove those changes because a lot of those buildings have either no setbacks no firewalls I mean they're just um just waiting to be burned down in some cases yes the Oldtimer from here when a fire would start here they would go four houses away start wet and start

pushing the houses over to lay them down so they wouldn't catch fire I wonder if perhaps maybe down there they shouldn't go four houses away and demolish them because they're going to burn yeah it would be nice too if they had water pressure yeah that's the big killing them right now they have dry hydrants wow and and apparently the um the mayor is someplace else Africa Africa he should stay there she just you know sent out a terrible tweet on on some of it so anyways it's just to pigy back on what I just said about the dry fire hydrants I appreciate our fire protection because they're out there looking after us checking our hydrants testing them on a regular basis so we don't have to worry about that we have a lot of fires um for various reasons but we don't have a problem of a dry hydrant no and and frankly given the the nature of the housing I'm pretty impressed with how few fires have not gotten out of hand and H more than one home oh yeah well some of them are stack kindling so yeah yeah so I agree I think it I think we're very well served by our uh First Responders and they they bust the hump that's for sure okay well now let's move on to uh some thing where we pick a representative to the city council item seven I would like to see you do that Jer like second that okay all in favor no yes I'll be glad to do it excellent okay I enjoy going to the meetings anyway so it's not like I'm well you're in good company at those meetings we have we have a very um Pleasant Council yes last night was fun to see all the blue kuas people there for their 100th anniversary we should congratulate them

on that I understood marinor concluded the meeting by adjourning that Kan yes he did um you know it reminds me in in school if you take political science you're almost always going to be required to read Alexis de teville and one of the things he talks about at that time period was the self-help nature of all the small groups in in towns we still have that Inta we have that with our alliance Club and our Kanas our rotary our Ser Optimus Masons many others I mean the the just the fact is that that's a a blessing we still have in small towns having lived in San Diego for a long time I don't know that I would have ever run into somebody from a kuas club or I'm sure they still are service clubs but the the nature of it here in town makes it a I used to run to them often you when I was living in Los Angeles um it wasn't until we moved here though that either Kathy my wife or I joined and um it's it's a wonderful undertaking that those people do yes Kathy was actually great service woman to join the tff coas she was y really but I I just you know I think that was great to celebrate it and I think we're we're blessed in this town to have so many service organizations that contribute to uh the quality of life here I think it's one of the reasons that people like living here is that they have so many opportunities both for service and to be served so um with that I think we'll just go ahead and have an a motion for adjournment I'll make that I'll second it all those in favor I okay we're adjourned deal thank you