Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

flag salute, which will be led today by Commissioner Hinnard.

Please join me in saluting our flag. Ready? Salute.

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. Thank you. okay the next item on our agenda is public comment members of the public wishing to comment on any item not appearing on the agenda may address the planning commission at this time state law prevents the commission from acting on any matter not on the agenda however Your comments may be referred to staff for follow-up. This is also the time for public comment on items listed under the consent calendar or to request an item from the consent calendar be pulled for discussion purposes. comments related to public hearing and general business items will be heard at the time those items are discussed in fairness to all who wish to speak public comment is list is limited to a total of 15 minutes with each speaker allowed three minutes unless otherwise extended by the commission please begin your comments by stating your name and providing your city of residence Is there anyone in the audience that would like to comment on an item that is not listed on the agenda? All right. Seeing none commissioners, this is the time that commissioners reports and items of interest. Does anyone have anything they would like to share from the days?

I do. I'd like to once again, thank Mario and staff for sending me to the planning commissioner training academy. Um, it was great. And I did email you the dates and, uh, for next year's in Monterey. but I learned a lot and I just thank you. I attended city council last week and I did the Tulare Chamber business after hours that was at T-Mobile I had seven events in five days. And then I did the Leadership Tulare Killer Pianos on Friday night, which was a lot of fun. And then Proud to Wear Pink event on Saturday. And I did the invocation for that. And then later that night, World Ag Expo's Thank You Dinner. So it was a very busy week at different events around our city. So it was a great week, an exhausting week, but I made it.

Yeah, last week ago Sunday, I participated in the St. Patrick's Fun Run in Fresno. It was the first time I ever walked a Fun Run. First time I ever did part of one of those. And it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Also, an item of interest is I've seen what the VICEA community course, and we're having a concert on April 10th. and it's at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Visalia. It's at 7 p.m. and it's $20 general admission. It's Latin music and it's going to be a full orchestra and two other choirs are going to be singing with us.

Okay, thank you very much. The next item on our agenda is a consent calendar. And on that is the approval of Commission meeting minutes. I will entertain a motion that we accept the minutes as presented.

I will move to accept 5.1, the approval of Planning Commission meeting minutes.

And I second the same.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion is carried. Next on our agenda is comments is public hearing our first public hearing is conditional use permit number 202603 and has to consider a request by Juanita Fonseca to operate a mobile vending food truck that will be located at an existing body shop and approve the personal use commit the. conditional use permit and Jonathan, this is yours.

Thank you. The item for you is requested by Juanita Fonseca to operate a stationary mobile vending vehicle on the property located at 3450 South K Street. The proposed site is zone M2 heavy industrial and general plan designation is heavy industrial and the use requires a conditional use permit to be approved by the plan commission. The business will operate from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The vending operation contains a refrigerator, cooking appliances, and food preparation areas. Customers will have access to the restrooms. Tables and chairs will not be installed or allowed. Two employees will operate the business. The project is examined pursuant to Section 15304 of the California Environmental Quality Act. In conclusion, staff recommends approval of conditions for application number 2026-03 subject to the recommended conditions approval provided in your staff report. This concludes my presentation. Staff is available to answer any further questions.

Thank you. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who would like to address the Commission on this item? Okay. I'll close the public hearing. Commissioners, your thoughts?

Well, I want to thank you guys for answering where it was, because as I said, I don't like the maps and I forgot to drive by. So thank you guys for telling me it's parked in front of Golden State. My only other question to you is what kind of food will you be serving? This has nothing to do with your permit. I just want to know. I would. Oh, wow. We should do a tour. I don't have any questions.

I do have a couple questions. Jonathan, if you could put the map up again. I was just kind of curious about where do you plan on putting your trailer or your food truck? And is that something that's going to be permanently located? I mean, it's going to be temporary, but I mean, is that where you're going to be moving in maybe one corner here and then maybe another corner another week? It'll just be in one spot?

Sir, can you come up to the microphone? We just need your name and city of residence. Turn it on.

There's the push button.

There you go. My name is Guillermo Castillo. I live in Tulare.

Thank you.

And we're going to try to put it on the east side of the fence.

Is that where the grass is?

Yeah, the highlighted little rectangle right there. That's like blue.

Okay.

Correct, yes. That'll give customers access to the parking spot.

So you're going to be located more back up? back toward the back, not where people will see it driving on K Street, right?

Correct. They're going to let us put a couple flags in the front. Mike's actually a really good friend of mine. There used to be an enterprise rental company in there, so he actually gave me the key for the little office in the bathroom so we can use it whenever we want.

That's generous of Mike to do that. So, cause I know he owns for the enterprise used to be, and so you're, that's what it looked like your body were enterprise. That's why I was just asking.

I thought you were going to be more on K street, but yeah, it is some, it is a fenced area, so that makes it really nice.

Oh, so you're going to be within the fence area. Yes. Oh, okay. That gives you low.

Yes. It's not going to be out in the open. Okay. Good.

Okay.

So will you be moving the trailer every day?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay, so are we ready? I will. So I make a motion to approve a conditional use permit number 2026-03 based upon the findings and subject to the recommended conditions in resolution number 5549.

And I second.

It has been moved and seconded to grant conditional use permit number 2026-03 based on the findings and subject to the recommendations in resolution number 5549. Is there any further discussion? Maria, would you pull the commission?

Commissioner Hennard?

Aye.

Commissioner Cantu?

Aye.

Chair Miller?

Aye. The motion is passed. Congratulations. Next on our agenda is the city housing element. And our duty tonight is to adopt a resolution recommending to the city council approval of an amendment to the city zoning ordinance to add chapter 10.83 by right approvals And an amendment to the general plan use designation for a medium density residential to high density residential and reason from RM to to RM for for 10 acres of assessor parcel number 149 07008 to meet the housing element adequate sites and Mario.

Good evening, Chair Miller, Planning Commissioners. This item tonight, actually, I think maybe only Chair Miller was involved from the beginning of this long-range planning project.

Yes, I was.

But there is some good background to provide to Commissioner Henard and Commissioner Cantu on kind of where we've been, where we are today, and really what we're doing this evening. So this is a, as a reminder, this is for the housing element. So the housing element is one of the eight mandatory elements in the city's general plan. It's covered by California government code. You have the government code section there. And it's required to be updated unlike the general plan, which has a longer timeframe. The housing element is to be updated every eight years in accordance with the acronym you see there is RHNA. otherwise known as regional housing needs allocation, which is the fair share of housing that each jurisdiction of the state is supposed to provide to meet their what the state considers adequate housing during that eight year housing cycle. So here's a table that shows the regional housing needs allocation for our Tulare County region broken down by city. So you see each city has the expected number, total RHNA. So that's the total number of housing units to be produced in the eight year cycle. For some reason, HCD refers to it as 2023 to 2031, but it really should be 2024 because 2023 is the end of the last or fifth cycle. So really from January 1st, 2024, is when we start counting. Then we can get credit for some of the ones after June 2023. But for all intents and purposes, these are the expected numbers, and they're broken down by income. So there's very low, there's low, moderate, and you'll see numbers, and I'll get into it as I go through the presentation. But those numbers represent when you see 50% or 80% AMI, what that means is Those are households or individuals that are at either 50% or below what's called the area median income for our region. There's a 50 to 80%, 80 to 120%, so on. And you'll see, so Tulare is noted there. You'll see it referenced later on in the presentation and of course in the housing element, which is included in your staff report. So we actually participated in a multi-jurisdictional housing element update. So all of the cities you saw listed in that table participated with the exception of the city of Isalia that prepared their own housing element and Tulare County at the last minute pulled out of the multi-jurisdictional and prepared their own as well. So you'll see participating cities are Dinuba, Exeter, Farmersville, Lindsay, Porterville, Tulare, and Woodlake. And so the way this was prepared is we have the regional analysis, which is included in the multi-jurisdictional housing element. And that covers information at a regional level, has regional goals. And then attached to those are appendices for each city that's participating. So we have our own appendix that deals with specific items as they relate to the city of Tulare. And that'll be the focus of the presentation and what you have included in your staff report are the Tulare specific requirements. So we all participated in this effort, but each city is adopting its own independent housing element. So there are several components that make up the housing element document. And they're listed there. There's housing needs, housing constraints, resources and inventory, fair housing assessment, and then finally a housing plan. And there's public participation that informs along with a lot of data collection that is collected as part of this effort. And we've had a number of workshops, housing element surveys, stakeholder interviews over the past several years as we've worked on this housing element update. So here's a timeline of kind of where we started. So the project ticked off in winter 2022. I think probably folks, most people are probably optimistic thinking we could get this done in a year. By the end of 2023, Um, but, uh, you kind of see the schedule there. So 2023 was really where we, we started in earnest, a lot of data collection, um, the site inventory was prepared and that's where we began the community engagement. So there was a number of workshops that were held here with the planning commission and the community. Uh, there were also surveys, um, and, uh, stakeholder, like I said, stakeholder interviews as well. Um, those, those started in summer, 2023, and it took about a year. To collect information, receive input through interviews through surveys workshops that we had with the community as well. And there was a draft the 1st draft of the housing element was released in summer 2024. And so that was circulated for public review comments received. And then that document was provided to the state. State HCD you'll see referred to a number of times as the State Department of Housing and Community Development. So they're the ones that oversee this process and ultimately would approve the plan. And so from summer 2024 until just this past fall, winter 2025, there's a lot of back and forth. We prepared, gosh, I think it's four or five different iterations, drafts, if you will, of the housing element where we did our best to address the requirements. Actually, I think the next table will have more detail on that. But then where we are today, so we finally, this past November 2025, state HCD said, hey, this is substantially compliant. You've addressed. They didn't have any follow-up comments other than the final requirements to adopt the housing element. which is uh what we're starting here tonight is this presentation this public hearing but ultimately the approval lies with the city council so after this hearing this evening this has to go in front of the city council for the ultimate decision um and there's various actions as you noted in the recommended action one of which is the rezone of one one property to meet the required uh regional housing needs assessment need for the city allocation. So this is kind of a summary, like I mentioned, public participation involved. We had a project website, community workshops, stakeholder interviews, online surveys. We received a number of emails as well as written letters during the last few years while we prepared this document. And that public review, as you see on the right, on the table on the right, So it shows all the iterations where the city prepared a draft. It went off to HCD for review after it was reviewed by the public. And then there were comments provided by the state HCD, which staff and the consultant working on the project had to revise and update and resubmit. And so we did that a number of times to try to achieve essentially substantial approval to get us to the point where we are this evening. So it's been quite a bit of work. I started when I was a planner working on this, and it's 1 of those projects where I was knee deep into it when I was put into the community development directory role and 1 of those projects that kind of brought with me and. I've been working for the better part of my time here at the city. So, as we delve into the different components of the housing. Element, which is in your staff report, I'm going to highlight kind of the sections of the housing. So, the housing needs assessment looks at. These are some of the things that were reflected in the input. Um, when we had stakeholder interviews, as well as the community workshops and based on surveys that we circulated. So, kind of was reflected in this is there was that came out of that was need for more housing options until Larry for both renters and buyers at different income levels. Various income levels need for more financial assistance for low income families and rent known. need for housing close to services and jobs, and the need for housing for large families were kind of the primary things that emerged from that feedback. So in the housing element, we look at affordability. Well, what's considered affordability? Well, it varies by region. You remember I mentioned AMI, Area Median Income. So this table kind of shows So, kind of on the far left column, it depends on the number of folks in the household right from 1 person to 5 person plus. And there's different thresholds, so. You see, those are the annual income limits. So a lot of the service, a lot of the. Different subsidized housing programs at the city administers that we receive grant funding for and when you hear the term affordable housing, well, that can mean a lot of things, but there are these specific thresholds and categories. So, for a household to qualify. As extremely low income, you'll see, they have to make between 0 to 30% of the area median income. And then very low income is considered 30 to 50% of that area median income. And so that's divided based on the number based on the household. There's different thresholds. The affordable monthly housing costs that you see there that's divided on a 12 month basis. So that's monthly. That's kind of a cap of what. is considered affordable and affordable you'll see a reference a couple times in the presentation for all for everyone including those of us here this evening what in the field they consider affordable or cost burdened is the threshold of 30% meaning if a household spends more than 30% of their monthly income on housing they're considered cost burdened when it comes to housing whether they rent or they own And so this table kind of lists out those various thresholds and metrics. And you'll see it's, so we go to low income, which is 50 to 80% of the area median income. Median income is 80 to 120% of that. And moderate income is actually considered once you're at the area median income and above, right? So up to 120% AMI. In preparing the housing element, we did a survey of the city's housing stock. And so here are some tables from the housing element. The first one lists total housing units by type that we have in the city. And it compares it to Tulare County and to the state of California. Between Tulare and Tulare County, the numbers, the percentages especially are very similar. Where you start to see some variances when you compare it to the state. And most of them are fairly in line where you kind of see a lot of divergence is kind of at both ends of the spectrum. So Tulare is overrepresented in single family detached, about 77.4 or almost 78% of all the housing units in the city are single family detached units. statewide and in the state, that's only 57.7. So we definitely have been overbuilding or, you know, all it says is we're building that much more above what the state averages. We really don't have condos and townhomes that are attached, right? So if you look at that, we have, I think it's 3.4% of our housing stock where statewide it's at 7%. So we're less than half of what the state produces. then as we kind of move into two three four bedroom uh units or i'm sorry two three four bedroom two three four unit development so those are your duplexes especially with triplexes and uh quadplexes four plexes that's a little bit more in line closer to state average um not surprisingly we're not a large you know metro area like in los angeles or the bay area So for developments that have 10 to 19 units or 50 units and above, you know, big apartment complexes, you don't have too many of those. That's not too surprising. You'll see the state average is a lot higher. And then housing unit size is also very telling. Housing unit size, so that's the second table. We really lack, we have under 2% studio units of our total housing stock. And under four percent, two bedrooms, whereas, if you look at the state, it's not not really high, but it's still double about four percent is the state average for studio apartments. For example, one bedroom units. I say average about twelve point eight percent. We're sitting under four. So we're substantially lower. We really produce really three bedrooms is what I mean, that's over fifty percent of our housing stock. So most of the housing stock we have is three bedrooms and above. Um, and that's a little, you know, actually quite a bit higher than the state average. So three, four bedrooms, it's not a huge difference. And then you see, once we get into five or more bedrooms, um, we really are. much lower. We're less than half of the state average, which is pushing more than 4%. And that's really what that's telling us is there's a lack of a variety of housing types. We tend to produce a lot of the same type of housing over the years in Tulare and overall in our housing stock. Our population trends, these were also pretty interesting to look at. So Tulare just boomed between 2000 and 2010. 34.7% population growth percentage change there in that decade. Tulare County was about 20. The state of California was 9.7. It's definitely slowed down, you know, about half of that in the decade since 2010 to 2020. That's the latest census data we have is 2020. But it's still, if you look at the numbers, we're over 3% of the growth that you see in California or even in Tulare County for that matter. So we're a growing city population-wise. If you look at the age demographic tables, there's all kinds of tables in the housing element, right? We're a fairly young community. So we're, you know, it's not too surprising. We're one of the more relatively affordable places in the state. So we see a lot of folks moving here, having kids, raising families, reflected in a younger demographic, which also probably kind of tells the story a little bit of why we have so many three-bedroom units and above. But one of the things that came out in the housing needs assessment was a need for even larger four or five-bedroom units, which we don't have too many of. um so we also looked at housing constraints so the state these are all requirements that the state has when we prepare our housing element so housing constraints is okay you've done your housing needs assessment that's kind of what i went over some of the things that came to light as part of that what constraints seem to be present when it comes to housing production or the number of housing that we produce at the various income levels and those are typically things that the governmental constraints are things either set by government or that government has influence and control over So that's your zoning, your permitting process, building code, required improvements, and CEQA, right? CEQA is a state law. So those are considered governmental constraints. Then you have your market constraints. And you'll see impact fees. Impact fees I would characterize as being, I think, a mix of governmental and market. Because cities can set impact fees. But they're also reflective of the market because, well, a couple of things. One, there's certain costs to provide infrastructure, right? And so that has to be taken into account. But also when the city would set impact fees, you kind of have to land somewhere just for practical purposes where you're not so high that it's cost prohibitive for a developer to develop in your community, but not so low that you're completely underfunding your infrastructure program. So a little bit of a quasi there. Other things that are kind of definitely out of more market, certainly out of government's control, to some extent. You could argue that some of the laws being passed affect construction costs, absolutely. But things like the cost of land, labor, and materials, right? Those are market indicators. The complexities of financing, especially if we're talking about affordable housing. Affordable housing projects require very complex financing structures. to have those projects pencil and complete their financing plan. And then there's environmental constraints, which thankfully in Tulare we're blessed we don't have too many. We do deal with drought, right? And we have, you know, we have water challenges, but there's other places like Monterey that, you know, at one point they didn't even have water to serve any new developer. So there are things like that. There's some parts of the state where they're building on fault zones, somewhere on hillsides or And so there's different things that could maybe hinder your development. We have less of that here in Tulare, thankfully. So here's the summary we heard of local constraints as we received feedback. And this was especially as we talked to developers, affordable housing developers, market rate developers. So I'll read just kind of the summary of those. So one thing that came to light is that the cost of developing housing, including land costs and construction costs, is rising rapidly. There's a lack of federal, state, and local funding, and the funding that is available is increasingly competitive. The time and effort needed to identify, compete for, and layer affordable housing funds is a major constraint to development of affordable housing. So that's a little bit of an insight into the folks we talked to that develop affordable housing and some of the challenges they face. We looked at things like loan approval rates for folks trying to buy a home. We actually have higher loan approval rates than the county. However, we did see some disparities in racial and ethnic groups for loan applications and the rate that they were approved by. Now, discrimination and mortgage lending has been prohibited by federal by the federal fair housing act for for a number of years now. So, even though it's illegal, there could be other factors that play there and some of those are reflected and are some of the things that we're going to do in our that are we're proposing in our action plan. is that could contribute to this. It could be that some of these communities have a more challenging time securing safe financing, stable credit history, savings, and then education regarding the home buying process, or even home buying programs that are out there, like the city's first time home buyer program that's available. And maybe that's something we need to work on, having that information out in the community more. And in summary, when we were looking at the constraints specific to Larry, the conclusion was that although to Larry's development regulations do allow for a variety of densities that the city, there are certain development standards that were not sufficiently flexible to pose that could pose a constraint to development. One example of this was we had very strict emergency shelter requirements that limited the emergency shelter to like 13 beds. um and so that could pose a constraint right because it's so expensive to develop anything these days i have 13 beds you'd have to have quite a few scattered sites to meet the city's uh unsheltered housing needs so then we look at uh what's called the site inventory uh to meet the city's rena which i mentioned earlier and so this is okay we have this amount of housing units we're supposed to produce in an eight-year housing cycle how's the city going to do that One approach that the state has really been pushing in terms of legislation that's come out and procedures is the state's really gone full in on what's listed there as ADUs or accessory dwelling units, second units, right? And in Tulare, for the past almost better part of 10 years, we've probably only been averaging about five accessory dwelling units that were produced. It's starting to tick up, I would say, in the last few years. But when we prepared this analysis between 2022 and 2024, we were seeing that about an average of five. So for the eight-year housing cycle, a pretty conservative estimate is, hey, we should be able to produce at least 40 in that eight-year cycle. And you'll notice they're all listed above moderate instead of lower income and moderate. And that's because from the folks that have developed accessory to all units in the community, they haven't been deed restricted. They haven't been guaranteed low income. um oftentimes sometimes they're for family right so or sometimes you'll have somebody who has extra land they can build a second unit and like it could be a senior that's on a fixed income and so they rely on the on renting out that second unit to provide another fund um source of um revenue for themselves and so for that reason we counted it under moderate above moderate certainly if we have one proposed that's actually affordable We'll capture that when we do the Steven will be bringing fairly soon here the annual progress report. That's the report every year where we list the number of housing units produced or permitted. So, really the vast majority in order for the city to meet our regional housing needs assessment is going and the allocation that we have for that is going to be. Really through new construction of new housing, multifamily, single family. And so you see the numbers listed there in terms of we have what are called opportunity sites and rezone sites. We were very fortunate. So, and well, the reason I say that is when we did this assessment, the city actually has quite a bit of land zoned at the right densities to provide housing units that are above moderate income. So market rate housing, which tends to be single family, as you saw earlier in the presentation. moderate income units and lower income units, which the state equates having high density residential land to provide those. And so you'll see those are scattered throughout by income category in terms of opportunity sites. So those are sites that we already have zoned at the right density to provide those units if a developer were to come forth and develop them. The rezone sites, we actually only have one site that we had to rezone where we had a shortfall in our low-income units and in our high-density multifamily development zone.

Mario, can I ask a question? So we have 2,491 sites. Are those built on or they're just some built and some not or?

No, that's a very good question. That's actually the capacity. So you'll see kind of the third row there in the table that says total capacity. So these are all parcels of land that are either vacant or underdeveloped. And that's the number of units that if they were all developed, that's how many units we could actually build.

And the city, the city owns this land already or have to buy the land.

I would say, I think actually all, I'm pretty sure all of these sites are privately owned. So this is not city owned. Um, unfortunately, um, the city, well, not that, you know, not too long ago, I guess. Um, but the city had what was called a redevelopment agency.

Right.

And they were very adept at, you know, compiling, uh, property and. Devo things like affordable housing. That was dissolved, and I think basically between two thousand and twelve, and since we've lost the redevelopment agency, cities were also required by the State to They developed what's called housing successor agencies to oversee those properties. And the city was kind of pressured. I don't know the full details. It was before my time here at the city. But a number of those properties were essentially sold off to private parties with the intent to be developed. Some of them are still in that process. We have some here along the trail that were sold for that purpose. The city still retains ownership, I think, over a few. But the majority are private. And so that's the capacity of units on all of those sites. And there's going to be a map coming up that shows kind of where they're located. And then the state also required with this housing cycle, I think the last one as well, is we had to have a surplus. So not only was it going to have to meet our arena number, we need to have a surplus because, hey, eight years is a long time. Things happen. If zoning changes, we need to make sure that we have enough to cover our needs in the eight-year planning cycle. And then when we're looking at these sites, there's certain criteria. Most of these are infill development sites, or if they're on the periphery of the city, they're kind of in areas that are growing along with other developments in the vicinity. The state has some specific criteria. For example, they prefer sites that are between a minimum of half an acre in size and preferably 10 acres in size if they're standalone as a max to count towards a lower income obligation. They also prefer vacant or underutilized sites. We do have a lot of that in Tulare. Other parts of the state, they rely a lot on redevelopment sites because they don't have a lot of vacant land. So these are the inventory sites. I'm sorry, that's easier to read in your staff report. But you can kind of see it there on the screen. So one thing I'll mention, and the various colors just represent various zones, right? So you'll see starting at the top of the legend there, those are all your single family zones from R15, R16, R17, kind of on through. And then in the middle, we have our multifamily developed or multifamily zoning designations. One of the things the state was very careful, meticulous, or very much concerned with was making sure that all these sites are not in one part of town. Um, this is, so you heard me mention, we went back and forth with the state number of regions. This was not one we had to do that on. In fact, they were complimentary. I think they were glad to see that they're pretty spread out throughout Tulare. Right. So we have opportunity sites throughout the city as it should be. Um, I think as a city, generally speaking, we've done a pretty good job in the past decade, especially in probably 20 years and growing in all directions and continue to do so. And it's not all growing in one direction or, you know, all the multifamily is not on one side of the, you know, we're getting apartments on the east side of Tulare, on the west side, single family, same thing. So, which is really good. That's healthy. You want your city, you want opportunities for decent places to live, for commercial services. We have to work on providing more commercial services on the west side. That's something the city is working on. But with housing, absolutely. We have to You know, one of the things that came out of the survey was, man, there's not enough housing near jobs or near shopping or places that we need to be. Or, you know, we have a lot of educational institutions in our city, making sure they're near the schools or the College of Sequoias campus. And I'll just draw attention to two main, the purple kind of at the bottom of the legend. So we have the ReZone and Light Purple. So that's the only site that you heard me mention has to be ReZoned, and that is the old winery site there along Mooney. So not the whole site's being rezoned, only a portion to high density from medium density. It was already zoned medium density. The rest of it's single family. And the darker purple down the southeast, that is the Chandler Grove master plan that many of you are familiar with. essentially between Mission Oak High School and the College of Sequoias campus. And that's really an opportunity to have a master plan community as the city grows over the next 10, 20 years. That's a mix of single family, multifamily, there's commercial, be a great site. We've kind of been talking to College of Sequoias if they're ever ready to provide student housing, that would be a fantastic location to have something like that. So, you know, we have different opportunity sites throughout the city. Another chapter in the housing element is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. So this is an analysis that looks at, are there patterns of segregation and integration in your city? What do those look like? Identifying disparities and access to opportunity. So I've kind of been building to this. You heard me mention, hey, these are all spread out. Essentially, the state's looking for, because this has happened before and it happens in some cities where all the apartments are only in one neighborhood or, you know, you have certain segregation patterns that could show up through, you know, uh, it could be racial segregation and economic segregation. So the duty to affirmatively further fair housing extends to the site inventory and the housing plan. Um, there's also this requirement as part of six cycle AB 686 new housing element requirements that encompass some of these elements, which you've heard me mentioned already, um, substantial outreach. the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis, or for short, the acronyms AFFH, site inventory analysis, which I covered, identification prioritizing contributing factors if there are patterns of segregation, and AFFH actions on how to address them. So at the regional level, the summary when we did the analysis was that, yes, there's differences in population demographics between urban and rural parts of the county. I don't think any of this is too surprising, but in parts of Tulare County that are more rural, the population tends to be wider than in the cities. There tend to be more folks with disabilities. Maybe it also reflects an aging population in some of the rural parts of the county. There were identified racially concentrated areas of affluence around Tulare, Visalia, and northwest of Woodlake. And those are just very specific neighborhoods. Things that are similar throughout the county, poverty rates. So Tulare County, we are one of the poorer counties in the state. And that doesn't matter if you're in the rural area or the urban area. It's reflected throughout our county. The other thing that we all have in common is we all breathe the same polluted air. And so we all face these environmental outcomes. it says Western Tulare County, and that's because geographically speaking, Eastern Tulare County is up in the Sierras and in the mountains where they're above the bowl here in the valley where we have all the air quality. We come down the grapevine and you see the haze. So that's kind of reflected in those findings. So going specifically to the city of Tulare, what was found for Tulare? Where there were disparities is the data does show there's differences in educational outcomes, health outcomes, and economic opportunities. between the eastern and western parts of the city. For those of us that have grown up here, that's tended to be the case, especially as the west side tends to age and become the older part of town. Those were the areas where there were neighborhoods with higher poverty and segregation patterns, specifically in historic west Tulare and portions of southwest Tulare. However, there were more commonalities throughout the city than there were those. So I called out kind of those differences and disparities. But one thing about Tulare is it's generally predominantly Hispanic, Latino throughout the city, not just in one part of the city. And there's also a high percentage of nonwhite but also low income residents compared to the state average throughout the city of Tulare. There are a large portion of the city on all sides that have high rates of low and moderate income residents, whether you're in East Tulare, South Tulare, West Tulare. And that's really, those are households or individuals that are at or below 50 to 80% of the area median income. And there are large portions of the city on all sides that have a high rate of households considered housing cost burden, meaning folks are spending over 30% of their income on housing, as well as overcrowded households. although renters are affected at a higher rate than owner-occupied households. But again, these are needs we face throughout the city. So it really kind of goes hand in hand. The data is showing us that we have these needs throughout the city. Our opportunity sites are also spread throughout the city. So we're being responsive to that, at least in the housing element plan. So going to the housing plan. I just went over a ton of data and a lot of needs assessment and analysis. The final portion of the housing element is what's called the housing plan. So it says, OK, great, we've collected all this information. on what the city's housing needs look like for the eight-year cycle how's the city going to address these various issues and so there's seven goals that you see shown on the screen and i'll go through those and so the housing plan goes through each goal and sets programs and policies on how the city is going to address those needs over the eight-year cycle so for regional collaboration that's one of the first goal We have a program called Regional Collaboration, which focuses on furthering the regional housing goals by working with our partner agencies. And so that could include things, obviously coordinating on housing, but housing is tied to other areas as well, right? So maybe coordinating with our transit authority on transit options for artillery residents, funding opportunities at the regional level, as well as addressing homelessness at the regional level. And these are things we're already doing, right? We have a regional transit authority. We have a task force on homelessness that's region-wide. Um, for housing development goals. Maintaining adequate sites, and we have programs on well, how's the city going to make sure we have enough sites for the housing that we need? Um, programs for by right approval if we've used the same site more than 2 housing cycles, the state now requires that if we actually have a development proposal, it can be permitted by right. So, our zoning code amendments that reflect that, um, so it's removing constraints. Transparency in government. You know, developers that you've heard me mentioned before, they want predictability. They want to know what is the city's process that it's clear that our fees and costs associated with development are consistent and clear, right? Affordable housing option goals. You heard me mention accessory dwelling units. We've already implemented about half of the programs that we need to accomplish for accessory dwelling units. The state's had legislation every year for the past at least five years. Uh, continuing to kind of chip away and making sure that we're doing everything we can to encourage affordable housing or I'm sorry, just read one unit development. Facilitating affordable housing development, lower income and special needs housing. Housing and neighborhood preservation goals, so working on programs, and we have some of these programs already in place, but it's how do we expand those and make sure they reach further. So, replacement housing preservation of at risk housing and housing preservation and rehab programs and funding. Making sure we're providing housing for all folks in Tulare, including those with special needs. So, making sure that our zoning code is consistent with state law, and then we're providing opportunities for residential care facilities. emergency shelters, low barrier navigation centers, farm worker housing, senior housing. We also have lower income special needs housing and making sure we have programs aligned to address those. Resource conservation, sustainable development, wherever we can, incentivizing energy conservation efficiency and new development. And some of this based on the new building codes and the California green code, a lot of new development is very green. I mean, new housing requires solar, for example, Most new developments are electric only as well. And then the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. I went over this section. There's a number of policies tied specifically to this. Increasing fair housing enforcement and outreach. Addressing housing mobility through a number of programs listed there. New housing opportunities. Creating new housing opportunities in high opportunity areas. Place-based strategies for neighborhood revitalization, and we have a number of programs in place for that. And making sure we have tenant protection and anti-displacement measures in place. So there's a lot being asked of staff. I kind of have let my bosses know we probably could have one full-time staff person working on all this implementation. But we have been fortunate to grow as a department. It's going to take a combined effort between planning, and our housing and grant staff to address a number of these items in our housing plan and probably work with consultants as well. For CEQA, when we prepared this housing element, there was an addendum that was prepared to General Planning IR analyzing the impacts of implementing the programs, the policies, and the residential reason of that single property to implement the housing element. So in conclusion, staff is recommending this evening the Planning Commission receive this report And recommend to the city council the approval of an amendment to city zoning ordinance to add chapter 10.83 by right approvals. That's a state requirement. Just a number of state requirements that will come into play with this housing element. An amendment to the general plan land use designation for the property I mentioned at the old winery to rezone it from RM2 to RM4 and general plan designation for medium density to high density for those 10 acres. in addendum to certify the environmental impact report prepared for the city's 2014 general plan and that the 2024-2032 six cycle housing element and actions proposed in it be adopted, those in the housing plan. That concludes my presentation. Thank you so much for your attention. I know this was a lengthy presentation, but it's been a lot of work by city staff. but community involvement by the consultants that have helped us. And so with that, I'll conclude and open it up for any questions or discussion. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your very hard work. This is a public hearing. I will open the hearing now. Is there anyone in the audience that we have any questions for staff? If not, I'll close the public hearing commissioners.

You guys do a great job. There's a lot of information. I read through the report earlier. Farm worker housing. I just have a couple of questions. Where is all this located in our city? Because I think there's some over on Sonora. Yes. But where else or is that the only location?

There's a few, so the Sonora was 1 of the 1st, kind of landmark for housing developments. We had in the city there by Wilson elementary, and there's also from worker housing has been developed in the Parkwood Meadows area kind of the South between and page that residential development. There's some senior housing. It's the parts of the gardens apartments on. So, that project is actually. Several of when that was really developed, it used USDA funding, the US Department of Agriculture, for retired farmworkers even. So that's a senior housing complex. So we have a number of places where we've captured that. But of course, we do have a lot of farmworkers in our community. So there's always a need for more. And there are programs out there, like the Joe Serna Farmworker Housing. I think the Santa Fe Commons Project, actually, which is the newer development there by Self-Help Enterprises on west of the Lima. A few of those units were funded with that farm worker housing grant. So a few of the units did go to farm worker families.

Because I know there's a need for more of that. I know that the Sonora project has been there a very long time. And then with our shelter being built, and the navigation center, that'll meet that criteria that you talked about, right? Because we didn't have that prior to all of this, and now we will, so that will look good for us, right?

Yes, well, I always tell people our department, we have to plan for housing for the whole population from folks that are unhoused to luxury housing and everything in between.

So, yeah, but we didn't have anything prior to this. And so this is going to be huge.

We did have the lighthouse, but it was limited again to 12 beds. So a larger shelter based on what the needs are today.

And a new navigation center being built out there too.

Yes.

Okay. And then special needs housing was my other one. Where all is that? Because I know there's a special needs housing over on Inyo. I can't think of the name of it. It's by Valley Burger.

Yes, so special needs housing, there's a lot of categories. The one you're referring to, it's tied to Tulare County HHSA, I believe.

Right.

And the Housing Authority, and in particular, I think some of those units are for behavioral health needs.

They are for behavioral health.

But there's a variety of things, especially with one of the things the state's really um really limited um cities from passing any ordinances that limit for example group living sober living facilities or things of that sort um and so there are things that need to be included in the zoning ordinance to make sure that we don't have language that conflicts with those okay I was just yeah

I think our city is doing very well. I think we're very well-rounded as a city trying to meet the needs of everybody. I think you guys and our council does a good job at trying to look at everything our city needs and then coming around that and creating space for that. Low-income housing, I know, is still a great need, and I don't believe we have enough I mean, I looked at what the rent was, even for a low-income house, and that shocked me, that dollar amount, that people could even afford to pay that. But there is a need. One of the greatest needs, I think, is for low-income housing. But who constitutes what low-income housing costs are? I remember sitting in a meeting as we were talking about that at the Chamber Trade Room, and Margie, who used to work for the city, City Council Chambers, She said, well, we totally had it and, but the rent was going to be 1200 a month well for somebody on senior income they can't afford that or. City Council Chambers, State assistance they couldn't afford that so. City Council Chambers, I mean the 700 and whatever dollars I looked at $86 or 36 was better than that, but that's what at that point. City Council Chambers, Our city considered low income and that's ridiculous. City Council Chambers, Most people can afford it, but I do think we're growing in all directions, I think that's very positive that we're not just. City Council Chambers, As you use the word several times segregating we're not just putting people over in one area I think we're very well rounded as a city and you guys have done a ton of work on this so. City Council Chambers, i'm very proud of our city and all all that we're doing right now we're moving forward and. City Council Chambers, And it's all got a lot of good stuff happening right now so. Thank you. That's all I had. I just wanted to know if there was more farm worker housing, especially.

Do you have any questions? Okay, I have a few number 1. When we originally did the general plan, we worked very, very hard to do an overlay of a walkability development of a neighborhood. And we selected the area out under in Chandler Grove because it was close to the, to the college. And we thought it was going to grow and have, you know, walkability and all that kind of thing. Is that being in any way considered or has that overlay process been just ignored? Where are we with that project?

No, thank you for your work on that. It was not in vain. That was really sort of general plan had they were called transit. As part of our general plan, we had a transit oriented development component, and there were 3 areas identified 1 on the West side 1 here in downtown, which are more redevelopment areas with a floating overlay. And then there was the, what's considered the north area. And for the portion closer to. As part of that general plan, it was well thought out. There was actually. essentially a master plan put in place for how that should develop, kind of as you described. And so when that project came forward a few years ago with the annexation, the property owner, to their credit, hired an architect and a planning firm that essentially took what was in the general plan and kind of fine-tuned it a little bit. And that's what was brought into the city. So for now, that plan remains intact. probably not surprising to anyone. It's gonna take a number of years, maybe a decade or more to develop fully out. And as you heard me mention, we produce a lot of single family detached housing. So it's likely at the single family will be the very first thing that gets developed. But as long as those But really what we're doing and part of the things about master planning is we're laying the groundwork. So when I had this, we actually had a meeting, it is moving forward. We had a meeting with consultants working with the property owner right now. And actually this morning, As the chair knows, we approved a parcel map to kind of take those big agricultural parcels, parcel them off so that they can start to prepare to sell to different builders, to bring in maps, to start really the first phase of that development. And so when we met with the property owners consultants, we said, you know, and you know, again, credits on property owners, they're willing to master plan and serve as a master developer, if you will. because what that will allow kind of what happened in the logo where you had different developers tackling different portions of it um so you could have something similar like that we hope that's how it plays out where we have the single family developers building out that portion we have folks that do multi-family developing that retail and doing doing that and so on so um As of now, it remains intact. I still have that master plan sitting behind my desk because it's just it's great planning. It was a good project that started with the general plan and the planning commissions work and staff at that time. And here we are trying to see it implemented now.

So it was a great experience to be on that with the commissioner, Miguel. I was very proud of that. And then if memory serves at one point in time, the area by the winery, was designated multi-family they're going to put in condos and duplexes that kind of thing and in fact they had the wires laid everything laid and then the project set i think it was 2008 hit and everything ended so are we going to go back to planning at the winery using using the same type of plan for that area.

well um you're correct it's changed quite a bit there was some multi-family kind of closer to mooney on both sides of the winery and um some of it's been built out right we have the duplexes there along uh what is that is bella is it bell oaks yes um to the south they had something similar um that was at some point changed years ago and now it's just single family homes um however This is early on all we're all we would do if council approves the rezone is rezone half of it to allow for high density residential. And so that would allow an opportunity for developer that builds apartments to build them on that part of the property. And then the back part of the property could be single family or or less intensive, maybe multi family. so we'll see that that um from my from what i recall in the delago specific plan the winery was the only property in that whole kind of quadrant from mooney to hillman right that was excluded so it didn't have uh plans but you're correct as you got closer to it there were some multi-family opportunities so some have held some have not proceeded in that fashion but um here we have an opportunity to to kind of do a little bit of a mix

Okay, and then could you please just. In plain English, um. Define what is used by right?

Used by right means that the land is owned appropriately. So if somebody comes in and proposal development, that's allowed. In that zone they don't have to come to planning Commission for a special entitlement or they don't have to go to city council for his own amendment. don't generally have to do sequel, except for a few exceptions and if it's a large enough project, I suppose. And so that's what by right means is it means it doesn't require discretionary action like conditional use permit so an amendment general plan amendment things that sort.

And is that. A state suggested rule.

Yes, it's required by the state, but it's actually that was 1 of the final kind of back and forth. So we had with the state, because we actually have. There's a little bit of an insight and I'll try not to give myself in trouble with the state, but it just shows, you know, we have a very varied state and the needs are different everywhere. You have to understand a lot of the laws that are coming out from Sacramento, they're meant to address issues that are happening in certain parts of the state. There are parts of the state, very wealthy areas of the state, where there's neighborhood groups that come out and oppose really any housing. It's not even, it could be, you know, three stories. It could be 12 units. And so when we were dealing with the state reviewers, they didn't believe that you could come to Tulare and have a site that is zoned multifamily, high density, if you will, And that it's a by right approval that, hey, you meet the zoning, you go through our site plan review process, which you all know about now. And if you meet the development standards, we'll let you build it. You don't have to go to plan commission. You don't have to go to city council. We're not going to put all these different. Kind of hurdles, if you will, in the way to allow you to build. Because of our places in the state where they do the opposite and it's very hard to build. And they're like, they almost couldn't believe it, so they made us put it in writing and put a specific section in the zoning ordinance that says, yes, if you develop on one of these sites, so one of those I mentioned in the presentation, sites that have been in the, because the other thing too is that has happened in other jurisdictions. I think the state was feeling that, so for example, we've had some properties that we used in the last housing element cycle that sat vacant, weren't developed, and we're including them again. And so the reviewers are looking at this with a critical eye. Again, they're reviewing projects up and down the state. And they're like, are you using this property because no one will ever develop it? Are you trying to take the easy way out, so to speak? And that's not at all what we're doing. Frankly, we don't have enough developers that do multifamily here. And we try to explain that to them. We try to let them understand that there's nothing we're doing here that's underhanded. this is what the reality is on the ground. But to comply and be letter of the law and specific, we're adding that 10.83 section on by right approvals right in between the density bonus law that we have. I think there's other streamlining provisions in there that talks about how, yes, we have a by right approval process. If you meet the development standards, if you're zoned, you know, to make it clear that we were consistent with state law.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then what is the plan for and where will the low barrier navigation center be?

So that's actually under construction now. It's over on the intersection is O'Neill and Walnut. It's right behind the Hillman campus.

Okay, if you drive by, you can see there because the walls are up on it. It's right by the shelter. So, is it.

The thought going to be that. The nav center will only be available to people at the shelter or. Are other citizens expected to go there? How does that work?

No, that's a good question. So actually, this is, it's kind of a hybrid institution in the sense that it's. It's really. There's a shelter, right? What's commonly known as a homeless shelter, or there's an overnight shelter. There's a lot of different definitions. Ours is really going to be, we're going to have what's called a congregate shelter, which is going to be kind of a large space with the beds, bunk beds. And then there's a navigation component. Navigation center typically is not a large congregate space. Typically it's smaller, semi-private, if not fully private quarters that have a variety of housing navigation, and other supportive services to help folks not just stay in the shelter and have a place to sleep and eat, but try to get them, if they have behavioral health needs, having those needs addressed, helping them find housing, helping them find employment, things of that sort. So we're actually going to offer both of those. Someone could come in and they could choose simply to just have a place to sleep and be able to eat but there are other folks that are going to have the opportunity to work and without going fully into details of the operations there but as folks come in they're going to be assessed based on their need one of the advantages of being located on the Hillman campus is the county has a lot of services from behavioral health you know they just opened in a behavioral health urgent center at their or broke ground on. And then there's other services that county provides there. And so really the intent is that this is going to be kind of the entry into the overall system of trying to assess individuals as they come in to see if perhaps they're qualified for some of the behavioral health services that the county provides. Right now at the encampment that the city has, there are individuals that have jobs. that already have employment, that are frankly on a waiting list to try to find what's called permanent supportive housing, which is you're no longer living in the shelter in a navigation center. You may have your own apartment and you have a social worker that comes, meets with you, works on various plans. So we're going to have all those services available. So it'll really be a hybrid navigation center component as part of the overall shelter complex.

Okay, but it is specifically designed for shelter residents.

Yes.

All right. And then what is a ministerial plan?

A ministerial plan or a ministerial approval?

I don't know. It says permit requirements. An applicant for a project eligible for by right zoning approval shall submit a ministerial. Maybe I'm not pronouncing it correctly. Plan permit for approval of the design.

Yes, that came through from state law. And so they want to ministerial just means the same thing. And so it's by right. It means that it's not a It's not actually, I'll probably defer to our attorney here to use the correct language, but you're not using any discretion as a body to decide. In other words, if it meets the requirements, it's considered a ministerial action. Do you want to kind of give us the large?

Yeah, exactly what he said is correct. If it meets a certain set of standards or qualities, then it's by right. And then the city can't deny.

Okay. Okay. All right. And then. To answer a little bit, Commissioner Henry's concern about low income housing. My understanding from meetings with self help enterprises and people that work there is that part of the reason that self quote low income housing is so expensive to build is because of the state. Environmental requirements, everybody has to have solar. Everybody has to have double being windows, all those kinds of things. And each 1 of those things adds to the cost of the unit. So, um, it's kind of a catch 22 kind of thing. It's it's tough for families and then last, but not least. For Maria, and I think it's for you on page 14 of the, the. Plan it says Merced County. And under regional collaboration, the 2023, 2031 housing element update includes policies and programs to foster collaboration with jurisdictions within Merced County.

That is actually not from Maria. It's for me. I missed that type of from a consultant. So, thank you.

Nothing else.

Thank you.

And congratulations to you and your staff. I know that this is just a mountain of work, and you've done just a really great job with it. And being able to boil it down and making the presentation tonight succinct, informative, answering questions, you did a really great job. Congratulations.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Now the hard work begins to implement all this. Yeah.

Okay, is there any other comments? All right, I will entertain a motion.

All right, I moved to adopt. This is a lot of reading resolution recommended to city council approval of an amendment to the city zoning ordinance to add chapter 10.83 by right approvals and amendment. to the general plan land use designation for medium density residential to high density residential and rezone from RM2 to RM4 for 10 acres of assessor parcel number 149-070-008 to meet the housing element adequate sites requirement for the city's regional house needs allocation and addendum to the certified environmental impact report prepared for the city's 2014 general plan and the 2024 to 2026 cycle housing element and actions proposed in the housing plan.

I'll second that.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded that we recommend adoption of resolution coming to the city council approval of an amendment to the city's zoning ordinance to add chapter 10.83 by right approvals and amendment to the general plan land use designation from medium density residential to high density residential and rezone from RM2 to RM4 for 10 acres of assessor parcel number 149-070-008 to meet the housing element adequate sites requirement for the city's regional house needs allocation and addendum to the certified environmental impact report prepared for the city's 2014 general plan and the 2024-2026 cycle 2026 cycle housing element and actions proposed in the housing plan is there any further discussion maria would you please pull the commission commissioner hennard aye commissioner miguel commissioner kentu aye chair miller aye congratulations you're on to the next step okay next on our agenda is general business and i see that we have none and now we are to staff updates do you have any staff updates mario

Yes, thank you chair Miller. Thank you all for your attendance and passing that important item as commissioner. Henry mentioned she attended the planning commissioners Academy. I'm glad she found a very useful. I will share those dates. Do you know when they open registration? Did they share that?

No, they didn't share that. They just gave us the dates, but what I'm in their email now, so I'm sure I'll get when Maria will get 1.

Excellent I'll share those dates out with the commissioners in case there's interest. If you want to put a placeholder for next year, the goal is, it's certainly not mandatory interview attend, but I'll always encourage and the city will provide methods and accommodations to have you attend on the city's behalf on a yearly basis. It's something I want to start doing going forward. So we will facilitate that. That's it.

I do know the city manager. When I thanked him at council the other night was very much in agreement with you and in favor of sending all the commissioners to this and any other people and other boards for training. So he was very much in favor of it. Okay, is there anything else to come before the commission.