Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Progress.

Good evening. The time is 06:01, and I will call to order the Test and Planning Commission of 03/24/2026. First, we have the pledge of allegiance done by me. So please stand if you can. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. 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. We'll start off with the roll call. Bear with me.

Commissioners Gullo?

Present.

Kozak?

Here.

Chair Pro Tem Mason?

Here.

And chair Douthat?

Here.

And commissioner Higuchi has an excused absence. Thank you.

Next is the planning commission reorganization reorganization in 2026. At this time, I will open nominations for chairperson. Is there a motion and a second? I will make the motion to have chair pro tem Mason be nominated for chairperson. I second that. Thank you. Do we do chair and chair pro tem at the same time, or do we do one at a time?

It'll turn on one at a time please chair.

Perfect. Eric, can have a roll call vote for that please?

Commissioner Gullo? Aye. Kozak?

Aye.

Chair Pro Tem Mason? Aye. And Chair Douthat.

Aye.

Motion passes four zero one.

Thank you. Well at that point do I do Chair Pro Tem or do we make the move? I can't remember.

Chair Mason, if you would like to change places, can go ahead and do that now.

Mr. Chairs.

Thank you.

You.

Thank you.

Right. I will now open nominations for a chairperson pro tem, and I would like to, nominate commissioner Kozak.

Second.

Vera, can we take a roll call vote?

Commissioners Gullo. Aye. Kozak. Aye. Chair pro I'm sorry. Chair pro tem. Who is chair

pro tem?

We don't have one.

There isn't one.

We're voting. Chair Mason. Aye. Commissioner Douthat.

Aye.

Motion passes four zero one.

All right. Let's go. I'm going to move on to public input. Is anyone here in person? Please fill out a request to speak form and hand it to Vera, we'll invite you up to the podium. If you're watching via Zoom, please raise your hand in the webinar, and you will be called to speak. Vera, at this moment, are there any public comments for items not listed on the agenda?

Chair, there are none. Thank you.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is a consent calendar. All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion without discussion. Persons wishing to speak regarding consent calendar matters should file a request to speak form with the Planning Commission Secretary. So the only thing on the consent calendar is the approval of meeting minutes on March 10 and the recommendation is that we approve the minutes of 03/10/2026 as provided. Are there any public comments for the consent calendar, Vera?

Chair, there are none. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Do we have a motion? Motion. Alright. Do we have a second?

Second.

Vera, can we

have a roll call vote, please? Commissioners Gullo? Aye. Douthit?

Aye.

Chair Pro Tem Koczak? Aye. And Chair Mason? Aye. Motion passes four zero one.

Right. Okay. There are no public hearing items. And so the next two items on the agenda are regular business items. The first one is twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five certified local government annual report.

And the city Of Tustin is certified by the State of California to carry out the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. As a certified local government, the city is required to submit to the California State Office of Historic Preservation an annual report reflecting the participation and qualifications of the city's commissioners and information related to historic preservation actions, activities, and programs. The City Of Testin twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five Certified Local Government, or CLG, annual report reflects a reporting period of 10/01/2024 through 09/30/2025. The recommendation is that the Planning Commission acting as the historic and cultural resource advisers approve the twenty twenty four-twenty five CLG annual report and direct staff to forward the annual report to the city council as they receive and file item, and then file the report with the OHP. And so tonight we have a presentation from Erica Demkowitz.

Erica.

Thank you, Chair Mason. Good evening, commissioners. As Chair Mason has just summarized we've got our annual report here for historic preservation. The reporting period is from 10/01/2024 to 09/30/2025. We are a certified local government, the City Of Tustin.

And as such, we are required to submit an annual report relative to that. And this slide highlights the approval process from the Planning Commission to the City Council and then on to the Office of Historic Preservation. The CLG program was established by the National Park Service to encourage cities to participate in the preservation of local historic resources. In 1991, the Tustin City Council adopted a resolution that designated Tustin as the first city in Orange County to receive CLG status. Currently, Tustin is one of only three cities in the county to achieve achieve this designation, alongside the cities of Santa Ana and San Clemente.

Overall, a total of 69 CLG cities in California participate in this CLG program. The program is managed by the Office of Historic Preservation and offers a variety of benefits to cities which include access to technical assistance programs, training opportunities, indirect economic advantages, such as increased property values, revitalization of our downtown areas, adaptive reuse of buildings, and support for small business development and tourism, eligibility for federal grants, and streamlined project approval processes. Now, to participate in the Certified Local Government Program, a city has to meet five essential responsibilities, and these are listed on the slide, namely enforcing state and local laws relative to historic properties, maintaining a five member commission to oversee the review process that meets four times a year, have a comprehensive surveying and inventory ing historic sites, and continue to offer opportunities for public participation, along with, of course, fulfilling responsibilities delegated by the State Office of Historic Preservation. This slide highlights our accomplishments during this reporting period. As a collective, the Planning Commission completed five hours training and education in historic preservation.

City staff collectively completed 34 of training. The staff approved five certificates of appropriateness that were issued. And our public education initiatives that were involved last year included, and continuing to refine and update our historic preservation web page. Our biggest education initiative is, of course, our historic preservation week and other community outreach efforts, which involve city staff setting up informational table or booths about historic preservation preservation at at the the Sunset Sunset Market, Market, the Tustin Street Fair, Home and Garden Tour, Library, and Historic Preservation Museum. So at this juncture, staff recommends that the Planning Commission and its role as the Historic and Cultural Resource Advisor approve the twenty twenty four-twenty five Certified Local Government Annual Report, And we will be forwarding it to the city council as a receive and file item and then on to the state office of historic preservation.

Concludes my presentation. Thank you, Erica.

Does the commission have any questions before I open public comment? No, we're good. All right. So are there any public comments for this vera?

Chair, there are none. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So we're not voting on this since we're just receiving file. We'll move on to the next item, which is the twenty twenty five year in review, one of my favorites. It's, from the Community Development Department. And the twenty twenty five year end review summarizes the community development key programs and activities conducted from January through December 2025. The recommendation is that we receive and file the report. We have a presentation from Erin Valle I hope I'm saying that right. Okay, great. Assistant planner. Does Okay.

Alrighty. Good evening, planning commission, and thank you for the introduction, chair Mason. I am pleased to present the 2025 end review this year. We have made some changes to the formatting of the presentation, so this evening, we'll begin with a GIS story map, and we begin the twenty twenty five year in review with our current ongoing projects and their major updates. Starting in the northern portions of the city, the greatly anticipated Enderlea Center redevelopment, known as Camp Juan 17, began in late twenty twenty five.

The project is split into two major components: residential to the South and commercial to the North. The residential portion will consist of 100 condominium units along Vandenberg Lane and the commercial component will include restaurants, retail uses, two new drive through restaurants, and a new car wash. The application materials are being reviewed by staff with no public hearing date set for the near future. Nearby Camp 117 is a small residential project along Yorba Street. The project proposes three detached single family residences, detached garages, and the preservation of an existing historic single family home, which you can see from the satellite view on the screen to the right.

The project is currently under construction and was approved by Planning Commission in 2023. One of our newer projects, known as Cypress Grove, is proposing the demolition of five existing office buildings to redevelop the site with 145 market rate condominium units. The project was approved by City Council in 2025 and is currently awaiting plan check submittal. This next project is right across us at City Hall. The 535 East Main Street expansion, which includes the construction of a 3,200 square foot addition to the existing building, is now complete.

A new urgent care facility has since moved in and is now operational. The expansion was approved by Planning Commission in 2021. Another recent project is the Bonita Townhomes, also near us here at City Hall. This project includes the demolition of an existing single family residence for the construction of four three story condominium units. Staff is currently awaiting plan check submittal, the project was approved by Planning Commission in 2025.

A significant project within our downtown area is the Keebee Home Stafford Glen development. The 35 residential condominium unit development with two affordable units is nearly complete, with work on the final building now commencing. This project was approved by City Council in 2023. Moving on to the next project, a new restaurant to the city of Tustin, Taqueria Oi, is seeking to repurpose the former Taco Bell building site on the corner of Newport And Mitchell Avenue. The project includes an upgraded site, landscaping, and other improvements.

This is a ministerial project that will be reviewed and approved via plan check. Next, we make our way to San Juan Street and Red Hill Avenue at the Compass At Red Hill site. This project proposal includes seventy three three story townhomes, including four affordable units, among other site improvements. The project was approved by City Council in 2025 and is currently in grading as you can see on the photo above. Continuing south on San Juan Street, we run into our next project, Tustin Heritage by Families Forward.

The project includes an eight unit affordable housing development with construction costs funded in part by a $2,000,000 grant from the city's inclusionary housing fee fund. The project was approved by city council in 2025 and is currently in plan check review. Next we make our way over to East Tustin with the Tustin Ranch Road Costco. The project includes an expansion and refacade that includes the demolition of the adjacent building which will result in additional parking spaces to serve the busy center. The project was approved ministerially and is currently under construction.

Our next project, tucked between the 5 Freeway and Michelle Drive, is the 2441 Michelle Industrial Building proposal. The project includes the demolition of an existing 117,000 square foot industrial building and the construction of two new industrial buildings totaling 180,000 square feet. The project is currently under review by staff. Another industrial warehouse building proposal can be found at 14511 Myford. The project includes a request to demolish an existing 87,000 square foot office building to accommodate a new 103,000 square foot industrial warehouse.

The project was approved ministerially in 2024 and is in the process of finalizing their building permits. Adjacent to the Metrolene tracks is our next project, Quick Quack Car Wash. The project includes a new commercial automated self serve car wash facility, including our car wash tunnel, 19 vacuum stalls and other site improvements. Planning Commission approved this project in 2024 and the project is currently under construction. The next project is Platform At Tustin.

The project includes demolition of existing buildings to make way for two new industrial buildings. The project was approved by Planning Commission in 2024 and grading is currently underway. Moving right across the street, the ATEP campus edition is officially complete. This project was approved ministerially in 2022 and consists of a culinary and automotive educational facility. The culinary building includes a cafe and a limited restaurant where students have the opportunity to work in a fully functioning restaurant that is open to the public on limited dates.

Another achievement for the city is Advantech's North America campus. The development is nearly complete. This project was approved by Planning Commission in 2023, which consists of a six story office building and a two story warehouse. Next project is Mariners Church at Tustin Legacy. This project consists of a 30,000 square foot church on a site owned by the city and will be sold to the church after approval.

And our final stop and one of our largest projects on the list is Irvine Company at Tusson Legacy. Approved by City Council in 2025, the project includes thirteen thirty five apartment units over six multi storey buildings with integrated parking garages, open space amenities and other site improvements. The project also includes a staggering three thirty four affordable units, furthering the City's efforts in providing affordable housing and meeting our state requirements. This project is currently under construction. All

right. Thank you, Aaron. That is a really, really cool new platform.

Sorry, Chair. We're actually going to continue to advance forward That's right. Keep going. Apologies. All right.

So moving on from current projects, we continue with the twenty twenty five year in review by highlighting major efforts and accomplishments by our various divisions. And so continuing with planning, in 2025 planning received 4,371 phone calls, an increase of about 100 additional phone calls compared to last year. Our front counter statistics remained relatively consistent this year, showing a continued interest in renovations, expansions, and other projects throughout the city. We saw a decrease in new entitlement submittals compared to last year, with decreases in new conditional use permit and design review applications, while miscellaneous permits like variances in subdivisions remain stable. On to advanced planning.

2025 saw the implementation of objective design standards. These standards, required by state law, provide greater guidance and clarification for multi family and mixed use residential projects. Planning Commission recommended approval of the objective design standards in 2025, with City Council adopting the standards a month later. Planning also undertook specific plan amendments which sought the reduction in parking and storage requirements for multifamily projects. City Council approved these reductions in 2025.

As a continued effort in streamlining our development process were able, four code amendments were passed in 2025. One of the more significant amendments was a reduction in processing time for alcohol beverage conditional use permits, by only requiring a public hearing upon request. Since the approval of the streamlining effort, approval time of alcoholic beverage conditional use permits has decreased significantly with a twenty five day reduction in total approval time. Many of these efforts were duly noticed as the Department was recognized with two awards at the twenty twenty five American Planning Orange Section Awards. The Department was awarded the Housing Innovation Award for the Tuscan Heritage Project and the Opportunity and Empowerment Award for the House of Ruth Project.

Congratulations to all our divisions for such accomplishments, as we all had a significant role in getting these projects across the finish line. Historic preservation also had a successful year with the second annual Historic Preservation Week. The theme for 2025 was Tustin's Military Past, where we held a veteran cemetery tour, a movie screening, old town walking tour, and various other events. Two new homes participated in the historic plaque nomination program this past year, 153 North C Street and in 535 West 3rd Street. These two new homes add to the city's robust plaque program, which has become a significant source of pride for our city.

However, the sense of pride could not be maintained without our community preservation and code enforcement efforts. 2025 saw a total of four thirty five code cases opened, with the top categories being property maintenance issues, unpermitted construction, and zoning issues. Another key factor in community preservation is our graffiti program. This year saw a total of 3,188 removals at a cost of $140,000 This is a reduction in 1,000 removals and a cost reduction of $56,000 compared to the previous years. A trend in the reduction in removals has been occurring for various years, while the cost in reduction can be attributed to a change in contractors.

Moving forward to our building division. Our building division also had a great year. This year our building division issued thirteen thirty four construction permits while our inspectors conducted a staggering 14,174 inspections. Of the thirteen thirty four construction permits, 50 permits were new residential construction, eleven nineteen were new residential additions and alterations, 159 were non residential additions and alterations, and six were new non residential construction permits. So hats off to our Building Division for another incredible year!

Moving forward to our newest team at Community Development, our Economic Development and Housing division, who are busy getting started with three new ambitious programs. The first of these programs is the New Visitation Program. The purpose of this program is to visit local businesses to listen, learn, and support. Through the visitation program, we have engaged with businesses by conducting outreach to 171 businesses and listening to their feedback. We have shared relevant programs with businesses and aided in referring clients to appropriate staff when assistance is needed.

Through doing so, we have identified barriers and progressed in strengthening the business climate in the city. The City Scope program is the most unique of the three, with the use of Tustin's new data driven insight tool that helps businesses analyze visitor counts, origins, and dwell time, as well as commercial real estate information. The city in turn has used the data to better understand retail dynamics and identify future businesses for the city. Through the program, Economic Development has held 31 of these city scope meetings and provided reports for 72 businesses. The last of the three new programs is a concierge program.

The goal of the concierge program is to provide a helping hand in starting, growing, and expanding a business in Tustin. The program provides a single point of contact across all departments at no cost to the businesses, providing a low barrier to entry for zoning, licensing, and construction support. Our economic development team has also partnered with the Small Business Development Centre of Orange County and the Inland Empire to provide over $60,000 in direct grant capital to 25 Tussan businesses. They have also had 44 strategic partnerships consisting of 25 graduates of the Level Up training program and nineteen one on one consultations between businesses and SBDC. These programs were provided at no cost due to our partnerships with SBDC and Cal State Fullerton.

This last year also saw the start of the home repair program with Habitat for Humanity. The program provided up to $15,000 in grants for essential home repairs for low and moderate income seniors and veterans. Affordable housing efforts saw significant accomplishment with the approval of four very low income units at Compass at Red Hill and 334 affordable units at The Irvine Company at Tustin Legacy. As previously mentioned, these efforts will push the city forward in meeting the state requirements for housing development. As the city progresses in combating the housing crisis, CityNet assists the city in providing resources to homeless individuals.

CityNet provides street outreach, case management, housing navigation, bridge housing, and census coordination. In 2025, CityNet recorded seven sixty two client interactions with 186 positive exits from the system. Similarly, our shelter saw 200 intakes in 2025 with two zero nine exits. Moving forward with Community Development Block Grant, our CDBG program has reported $108,000 in non funding given for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six program year. These nonprofits can be seen below, and we thank their dedication to the long term care they provide for our community.

Finally, the City received a $136,000 energy efficiency and conservation block grant from the Department of Energy, dollars 701,725 thousand in CDBG funding for fiscal year twenty four-twenty five and twenty five-twenty six, dollars 253,000 in permanent local housing allocation funding, and $78,000 in AB two Thousand seven hundred and sixty six funds. So wrapping up our presentation, this is yet another great year for community development. And here are some statistics of our accomplishments this year, with three fifty four new businesses opened, over $60,000 in grant money for local businesses distributed, three thirty eight new affordable housing units approved, thirteen thirty four construction permits issued, four thirty five code enforcement cases opened, and 14,000 building inspections conducted. Thank you, commissioners, listening to my presentation, and congratulations to our team for all our hard work. I'm available for any questions, and we have staff from the various divisions here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Like I said, the initial platform was phenomenal, and what's even more phenomenal is all the hard work that the city's done and this team has done. And so thank you for all of that. It's a business friendly city. It is a resident friendly city. And we are very lucky to have the staff we do. So great job on the presentation, Erin. Does anyone have any questions? Clarification?

I have a question. First off, that's awesome stuff, staff. You should be really proud of the way that you do make the city better. Question. For some of the the programs that you mentioned, like the concierge or new businesses, is there any place where we can kinda see who qualify for that or did the consultation just to watch them thrive through the years?

Oh. Sorry. Could I bring that one?

I can answer that question, Chair, if I may. Anyone qualifies to come and speak to us about their business. So in terms of the city scope program and the data that we can help provide, we will meet with any business here in Tustin that would like to gain additional insight or information.

Are the businesses that we help, are they mostly small businesses, big businesses, retail, manufacturing? Is there any sort of description of who?

It's been all of the above. I can invite my deputy director up here if he'd like to provide a little bit more insight. But yes, it's been quite a wide range, which has been a really nice response to the program that everyone seems to be benefiting from it.

Thank you for the question. Valentin Flores, deputy director of economic development. Are you asking in particular about the concierge program or all the programs?

I think just any. I'm curious about what types of businesses are taking advantage of the services, if they're kind of siloed in one area or if it's

all over the place.

Great question. I think the big boys, the big corporations don't really need access to, like, our city scope program, is the analytics program. It's mostly the the mom and pops that are taking advantage of that program in particular. And we're kind of going after those because we know those are the ones that need that type of analytical support. Okay. But in regards to the other programs, visitation, we're trying to go after all them. We have a specific plan. It's an eighteen months delivery specific plan that kinda jumps around the city and hitting different corridors, different types of businesses. But our approach is we're gonna meet with anybody. We're knocking on doors. We're we're on random days, a pack of us will be you'll see us in red shirts. We're just out in the community.

Amazing. Thank you.

You're welcome.

To the chair? Yes. I had a actually, a question on, the city scope. So you kinda were answering it a little bit. Is it is that a program where, the businesses come have to come to the city or the city goes to the businesses or a little bit of both and kind of what is sort of a growth plan to because I think it's a great program to to expand and make sure a lot of, Tustin businesses are on the city scope using the utilizing the tools?

Yeah. Great great question. It happens both ways. Most of our offerings get triggered through visitation. So we have a a little saying that we don't know how to help you unless we visit you and get to know you. So after visitation, we let them know about our city scope program, which is our analytics program. And that usually triggers additional meetings. But we also have been advertising it through our channels. And we're getting requests just to schedule those meetings because different businesses want access to that type of analytics support.

Channels like social media channels?

Social media. Yeah. A lot of it has also happened via email and stuff like that.

Okay.

So in regards to expansion, yeah, we couldn't agree more. We're trying to multiply our we're training our our interns to use the software too. There's one intern that is already taking meetings with Cityscope by herself. So yeah. Great. As we grow, we wanna offer it to more businesses.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And then I also wanna just comment that I think we all have we obviously all have an idea of what's going on in the city, but to see see all the different projects and see everything by the numbers is truly impressive. And I really thank staff and all the teams for making Tustin so

Hang tight.

Hang tight. There's probably a couple more questions for you. Thanks.

Development friendly and business friendly and looking forward to the future. So thanks.

Thank you. I have a couple of quick questions. So on CityScope, the target currently is for existing businesses. If somebody came to you with a potential idea, would you meet with potential future business owners as well about viability in the city?

Absolutely. And we've taken those meetings as well.

Very cool.

And and just so you know, city scope has two components, two main components, two softwares, if you will. One is called Placer AI which uses every single time you download an app and you say yes, you're you're signing your soul away a little bit. And basically, we use cell phone data. We do a geo map of certain areas, and then we can know exactly what type of people who's coming into certain areas. That information becomes very valuable for a small business. We also use CoStar, which is a real estate software. If you're in real estate, you know what CoStar. But a lot of these small businesses don't have access to CoStar. All we've done is just package it and made them, made these offerings available to small businesses.

It's incredible. Thank you.

Yeah. As a small business owner, I'd say, just a couple other questions. Yeah. I'm curious, and I thought this is, what you initially asked, and that is, are we able to feature any of the folks that are, out there winning because of our help? And, and I don't know. I've I've always saying we need to do more social media, but but somehow where you put real people, and real having real experiences, like, is it I I look at those things as small business owners.

Have been doing a great effort this last year as as a city, not just economic development, but as a city, as a department, to tell more stories. I sound a broken record if you're around our office. We got to do a better job at telling more stories, more local stories. We're onboarding, you might have seen a young lady with curly hair on our social media. We're onboarding her to do exactly that. We're trying to not only tell more stories about our small business, but also do this more, explain our programs a little better, and just let people know of our offerings. As much as we live in it, we feel that more people need to know about it. And that's exactly the effort.

Yeah. It's good for their business.

It is. It is. And it's good for testing, too.

Right. Put it on LinkedIn as well. And then just out of curiosity, you already answered the question about recruiting. So you are going outside the city to bring people in. Do we have a list of big fish we've captured or those that we've recruited? In the past, we had been getting updates on that. And I'm just curious. It might be something that the city council gets. But I'm wondering if

At the moment, we aren't maintaining a list like that. But if that's something you'd like us to look into, happy to do. If we

have it, I don't think you guys need any more work to do. But it would be interesting to see over time when we've got those wins. I think it was bigger years ago when we were building some of the larger spaces, building out the legacy, etcetera, in the district. All right. And that's it for you right now. I have a couple more questions. Did you have any more questions on the other presentation?

A little bit of questions, little bit of comments. So it looks like our planning commission decision or what what's the term for when there is it ministerial that is that it's able to be issued from the city staff.

Right. Ministerial.

What's Underline. I'm having a brain fart on what when the planning commission has to make a decision. Discretionary. Discretionary. That's it. Okay. So our discretionary permits seem to have gone down, but our ministerial permits seem to have gone up. So I think that's probably a testament to our streamline. Good job. Because it looks like our building permits have not slowed down either. One of my concerns in that process is that some stuff that probably should be potentially discretionary might slip through the cracks. I know that was part of the whole streamline as well, but it seems like the Enderle project is, moving along. Is that gonna come before the Planning Commission?

Yeah. The, Enderle project does have some entitlement requests that will come before you, conditional use permits for drive throughs as an example. So and it is a track map, application.

Okay.

It is a residential project. The residential project is permitted by right under state law. But yes, the commercial aspect and the track map to subdivide the condos would be before you.

Okay. Good. That's it for me.

That was got part of my question answered on Enderlea. Think, again, super impressive on all of that. But it's a hot topic. And so for it to be in the presentation, it felt a little like done dealers and name and just haven't had the luxury of getting a little more detail on that. There are certain projects that I would like to request that we do get updates on when those things especially if they're ministerial or what he said.

Discretionary. Discretionary. Thank you. That would be good. And especially when we're having meetings, when there's a lot of conversation online, as planning commissioners, it's probably best if we are a little better educated on when those things are going on. So I'm just requesting specifically on Enderle. And Jay, you've been great answering questions.

Thank you, Chair, if I could. Yeah, We don't have a lot of information to release right now because we still are reviewing the project. And so there are little tweaks that are being made here and there, and we are looking through the technical data. So it's hard for us to get out in front of the public when we don't have answers. But we do know that the applicant has been holding meetings, and we've been encouraging him to hold meetings with the community to keep them apprised. So we definitely will keep you up to date as more information becomes available.

I think it's probably the beautiful photos and the mock ups that threw me personally for a loop. That seems like it was well down the path. So great, as it's developed and the feedback's given. And then was surprised graffiti, that's a significant drop in. What's going on there? You said something about, is there less graffiti? Did we get a much cheaper vendor? What's going on?

Yes, both things are true, Cher. There have been less incidences of graffiti, and it has been trending downward, as you saw in that chart year over year. But yeah, it was a significant drop this last year. And I did confirm with our code enforcement officers they are not ignoring graffiti to bring that number down, that the numbers have been dropping. We did contract with a new vendor to assist in that removal, which has been less expensive. But I think the real message is that we are just seeing less graffiti, which is a great thing.

Yeah, that's a great thing. I live in a kind of a graffiti corridor, so it's nice to hear. Other than that, great job on everything.

Real quick, has the police department weighed in on why graffiti was down so much? It's almost half of what it was a few years ago.

No. They didn't. I didn't I didn't inquire with them as to why they think they think it's coming down. I don't know.

I'm not gonna

And just just from historic purposes, it spiked during COVID. I know that there was a big conversation around that. We had kids with a lot of time on their hands and probably bored. So I know that we saw a spike there that did go up significantly, as I recall.

Happy about it.

Yeah, it's good news. All right, any other questions, clarifications? All right. I'm going to open up for public comment. So, Vera, do we have any public comments on this, please?

Sure, we do not. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Again, this is a receive and file. Great job, everybody. Thank you. So I'm going to move on to other business. Alexa, our community development director.

Thank you, Chair. Actually, I am going to ask you to backtrack to our I'm sorry. With our attorney's permission here to backtrack to item number two, to ask the commission to please provide us with approval of information presented and direct staff to present it to the city council.

Okay. Regular business item three, I believe it was.

Number three. We would like

a motion on if possible.

Oh, I'm sorry. This was not a receiving file.

It is not a receive and file.

Thank you.

Just looking for direction. Thank you.

All right. Let's backtrack to, the certified local government annual report. And we're going to get a motion and a second. I would like a motion

motion to, approve that item and present it

to city council. Alright. And a second. Okay. Vera, you wanna do a roll call vote?

Commissioner Douthit? Commissioner Commissioner Gullo? Aye. Chair Pro Tem Koczak?

Aye.

And Chair Mason? Aye. Motion passes four zero one. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, now we're going to move on to other business. So Alexis?

Thank you very much, Chair Mason. Just a couple of things, one related to our earlier item that we are well underway with our planning of Historic Preservation Week this coming May, starting on May 16. So looking forward to sharing more of that with the commission and the community in the very near future. We have some good activities planned. And then also wanted to share that last week at the city council meeting, staff received direction to enter negotiations with Almquest development for the 52 acres on legacy known as Cornerstone. So that process is proceeding and would eventually come before this planning commission most likely, but we'll know more in the coming months. That's all of my report. Thank you, Chair.

Great. Thank you. So moving on to the commissioners. Let's start with Chair Pro Tem Kovac.

Yeah. Quick comment. Congratulations, chair Mason. And, once again, I just wanna echo what I said earlier. Thank you, staff and everyone's efforts in in, in all that you do.

Great. Commissioner Douthit. I have to get used to that.

It's nice.

Nice job, you guys. You guys are really killing it, clearly, and I am excited to see what 2026, 2027 does. So kudos. And the map was very cool.

Very cool.

Once again, thank you to staff. One report, I was fortunate to get to be the bartender. I don't know how that happened. At the Parks and Rec senior center or senior fundraiser bingo night this past Friday. It's awesome to see members of the community come out. I heard one table say they had not been out on a Friday night that late in about forty years. But thanks to Parks and Rec for doing that. And if you want to attend another, think they're gonna do them quarterly.

Alright. Thank you. I wanna play bingo. Pretty fun.

Yeah. You're pretty aggressive, and nobody left before ten.

That's awesome. All right. First of I want to thank former chair Douthit for your great work this year. And thank you for the opportunity to serve the commission as chair. And congratulations to you, Commissioner Kozak. I cannot get over what an amazing city we live in. And I know that there's been so many changes. I mean, everything from our, everything, city manager and welcoming Alexa and some new faces. And it has been so incredibly smooth. And even if it hasn't, we can't tell.

So, you would you would never know. You guys are cool as cucumbers. And also, keeping everything going, it's really nice to see the efficiencies that are taking place and some of the resources as well. So everybody has done a phenomenal job, and we're very blessed to have you. That is it. And I can go ahead and adjourn tonight's meeting at 06:46. And the next oh, right before taxes. The next meeting of the Planning Commission is on April 14. We'll see you then.