Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'll now call the regular planning commission meeting of Tuesday 01/20/2026 to order. Can I please have the role?

Good evening planning commission Commissioners. Chair Lightfoot?

Here.

Vice Chair Wilkerson? Here. Commissioner Barkas? Here. Commissioner Banta? Here. Commissioner Dingmann? Here. Commissioner Hampton? Here. Chair, we have a Coram.

Thank you very much. I'll ask everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and I'll ask Commissioner Thank you, commissioner Damon. So now we'll move on to regular business starting with communications. At this time, I'll ask director Garcia if there are any communications or announcements for this evening since you're in

the meeting.

Thank you, Charlie. But earlier today, staff forwarded public communication received on all the agendized items. We also forwarded a memo, an informational memo regarding a revision to the proposed best ordinance today.

Thank you. And everybody has that memo, right? So next, we'll move on to the approval of this evening's agenda. Do I have a motion?

I'll move.

I have a motion from Commissioner Beaumont. I'll second. I have a second from Commissioner Vargas. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. The next item is business from the floor. This portion of the agenda is available for the public to address the Planning Commission on any issue that's not on the agenda this evening. There'll be a limit of three minutes per speaker.

I welcome anybody who wishes to address the Commission regarding a topic that's not on the agenda to approach the podium? Seeing none, I'm going close business from the floor. We'll move on to item number six, the consent calendar. We have one item on consent which is the minutes from the 12/16/2025 meeting. Does anybody from the commission or the public wish to pull the item for consent? Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? Motion. I have a motion from Commissioner Dingmann. Second. A second from Vice Chair Wilkerson.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes. Thank you.

So next we'll move on to the first public hearing this evening, which is to receive a presentation on the Harvest Ridge subdivision. We will first hear by staff followed by commissioner questions. We will also have a presentation by the applicant. May we have the staff's presentation, please?

Good evening, Chair. The item before you tonight is the Harvest Bridge subdivision. Specifically, this is a request to amend the general plan and zoning map to create the Harvest Bridge subdivision on a 9.91 acre site at the northwest corner of Leisuretown Road and Redstone Parkway. Project includes an environmental assessment, a general plan amendment, a zoning map amendment, an airport area of influence review, and a tentative subdivision map. The aerial image shown on the right hand side of the screen in red shows the project site.

That project site is located in the Southeast corner of the city as identified in the aerial image in the green star. This development is located within the Southtown master plan and you can see on the map multiple phases have developed over the years. South Town Phase 3 is currently under development right now with construction being commenced by KB Home for those model homes out there now. South On Phase 1 A and South On Moody have been developed for some time now and this is a remnant 9.91 acre site that's located right along Leisure Town Road. This site stems back to 2004 when city council approved the South On Moody master plan project.

As development occurred within the Southtown area, another pertinent time stamp for this project occurred in 2014 when city council approved Southtown Phase A 1 A. As part of that approval, it also created that 9.91 acre remainder site. That's the subject of tonight's meeting. That site was approved for development under the South Town Apartments project in 2023 by the city council, but no development occurred on that site. And so this year, the property owner sought to change a general plan to try and get a different type of housing product on the site, and city council heard that request. And, on October 14 decided to

the northwest of the site. It is

a vacant vacant site site with with frontage frontage improvements already constructed along Leisure Town Road and around the rest of the main remainder of the site of Redstone Parkway, Burgundy Street, and Scarlet Street. This project includes a general plan map amendment. That's a graphic change to our map and the applicants requesting to change it from residential high density, which allows development at 20.1 to 30 units per acre to residential medium density, which brings that density from 8.1 to 14 units per acre. The corresponding map change would change from residential high density to residential medium density. Then And the project includes a tentative subdivision map to subdivide this 9.91 acre site to create 134 lots, yielding a density of 13.52 units per acre.

The vision for it is for a single family residential development, and the applicant is requesting various deviations to city standards and development standards. This map shows the existing general plan and the proposed general plan of residential medium density. These exhibits show proposed zoning of residential medium as well as the existing zoning for the site. Another graphic provided by our media team shows this shot overhead from the site and the intent behind this is to be able to overlay the project plans that show how access would be provided. Access is provided to the north which is the left hand side of the screen along Scarlet Street, one driveway there, as well as another driveway on Burgundy Street that stems from Crimson Circle.

This project would also provide landscaping improvements along Leisure Town Road between the property line and where that existing sidewalk is along Leisure Town Road. When these types of applications are submitted to the community development department, our job is to review for consistency and compliance with regulatory documents that are relevant to the development review process. And it starts with the general plan map amendment. Their proposed density would yield 13.52 units per acre, and that is consistent with the residential medium land use designation that allows density within that range. We also checked the housing element, which is a element of the general plan, to see whether or not the site was listed as a site for the regional housing needs allocation.

And what we found was it wasn't listed as one of the required sites, so we wouldn't result in any net loss of units that were designated for in housing element. The energy conservation action plan is, or strategy, is another document that we refer. And so what we found is that it would be consistent with that as conditioned. And it meets the required findings to change similar fashion, we looked at the zoning map amendments, the proposed residential medium district that they're proposing would be okay because we do have development standards within our municipal code that would allow for development. So there aren't any issues for the potential for future development of future homes.

It also needs required findings for changing that zoning to residential medium. Last entitlement for consideration is the tentative subdivision map. They're looking at creating 134 lots. There would be seven lots for common open space. That would be a remainder.

Those are for private driveways, open space, as well as some parking areas. As I mentioned before, there are some landscape improvements along Leisure Town Road with masonry walls around the perimeter of a portion of the site. We found that it was consistent with the subdivision map act and that the site provides sufficient utilities as well as vehicle access for emergency vehicles. The applicant is requesting deviations from city standards and development standards that are listed on the screen below and we'll go one by one for the public hearing tonight. The first deviation that the applicant is requesting is to reduce the front building setback and deviate from the site distance standard that city has.

The front building setback is from our Vacaville Municipal Code for development standards for residential districts. The site distance is a city standard. Specifically, the code requires that a minimum 18 foot setback be provided between the garage door and the front property line. And this is that standard is there to ensure that projects are compliant with city standard three dash zero five which requires a 20 foot clearance for unobstructed visibility into the public right of way. I promise I have a graphic illustrates what this standard is.

This standard as well as the city as well as the development standard, both of these, the intent is to really help reduce the potential collisions between residents and their single family homes and those vehicles that might be driving on the street and any pedestrians might be in the public right of way. Applicants requesting to reduce this from 18 to five feet. This deviation would affect a 116 lots. Our summary of this is that staff is deeply concerned that this proposed deviation would result in safety issues. And that concern is expressed by multiple departments within the city.

To illustrate this concern on the graphic on the right hand side of the screen is the city standard three dash zero five that requires that 20 foot triangle of unobstructed view. Within that triangle should be no obstruction so that way as a resident is trying to back out of their driveway, they can see within the public right of way that there is nothing coming down or that they're not gonna hit any residents or other vehicles that might be traveling along the street. While the vehicle is parked in the garage, they cannot see outside of the garage. And that is the main issue right there. And so by the time that they're finally able to see their vehicles already entering into the public right of way, which is that sidewalk, potential conflict with pedestrians.

As the vehicle is backing out, those conflicts are compounded because vehicles might be parked along the street and depending on the type of vehicle, they may not be able to see past those vehicles. And so what we have here is a potential issue where as vehicles backing out of the driveway, they can't see pedestrians within the sidewalk. They can't see a vehicle that might be speeding down the street and they may not be able to make any good decisions about getting out into the public right of way. And there might be those potential conflicts for collisions. This graphic is intended to depict exactly how that mapping works.

And really, this effect is applicable to, I think I had mentioned how many, 116 lots. And really, what the issue is, is that the applicant is requesting that reduction of the front setback. So that way, the houses can be closer to the front parking line. And what it creates is a very shallow driveway. And you can see on the map that's in front of you right now, those shallow driveways as compared to these other compliant driveways that show the green dots.

Those are standard depth where vehicles could be parked within their driveway and they're entering in the alley. On these other lots, these driveways are too shallow and they're unable to see because of that conflict with the wall of the garage as they're backing out of that garage. So we noticed this concern as part of the development review process and we tried to work through potential solutions to see if there were alternate means. We knew that this couldn't have been the first case where the scenario occurred where you had shallow driveways. So we looked at a couple of different scenarios in the city.

This graphic on the screen is intended to give you two examples. The picture on the left is Ashton Place which is located around Cogburn Circle in Southtown and then the picture on the right is Portofino. Now both of these scenarios you'll see in the graphic below each of these images an aerial image of from what view you're actually looking. You're looking from the public right of way. And you can see in these scenarios that they do have shallow driveways.

However, these shallow driveways are not abutting a public right of way. They're abutting an alleyway. And those alleyways are privately owned and parking that the applicant would be relying on within the public street. So in these alleyways, the particular issue that we noticed about it is that, yes, it is on private property. And so they can regulate parking obstructions a lot easier in the city.

The other thing is that with no parking allowed in the alleyway, vehicles that are backing out of the garages, they can actually see down that highway. The last thing that we wanted to point out in this particular scenario was these are alleyways. These are very short areas where vehicles are not using as thoroughfares or reliever routes to be able to get away from traffic and other transportation areas. These are alleyways that are accommodating maybe six to eight driveways. That's a substantial less amount of circulation that's going along versus a public right of way.

Ultimately, we couldn't find any scenarios in the city of Akerval where you have these short driveways up against the public right of way, which comes back to the reason why we have the sight distance triangle, why we have these front yard setbacks, is because when you have a vehicle that is entering the city's public right away they need to be able to see any pedestrians within the public right away any vehicles that are motorists that are in the right away and so it's unfortunate that staff arrived at this conclusion. Really we don't support this. We have a number of concerns that these residents that would be living here will not have adequate sites of motorists or pedestrians in the public right of way. That issue is compounded because of on street parking obstructing the view. Motorists would use streets as a reliever route and Leisure Town Road.

The one thing I wanted to point out about this one that we noticed about it was this one is nestled right next to a major arterial leisure town road. That's when you have vehicles that are trying to get areas. And so you might have vehicles that are just speeding down those streets. And so with those narrow driveways compounded with on street parking, compounded with vehicles using this area as a reliever route, we really did see that this being a big concern for us to be able to make a recommendation on this for the planning commission. The other thing that gets created is that residents potentially coming home late at night can't find any on street parking.

They might be tempted to park within that five foot shallow driveway. And that parking would be blocking the public sidewalk. And so really what you're finding is a potential enforcement issue where those vehicles that are parking the block parking the the sidewalk is a violation of our municipal code and a violation of the California vehicle code. And so it does two things really. It pushes those pedestrians to have to actually walk into the street to get around those vehicles if they were to park there.

But it also creates a pretty substantial code violation issue that would result in the city having to respond to code enforcement issues on a regular basis. The planning commission is a recommending body for the city council. When we have these situations where a staff can't make a recommendation, we can still move projects forward before the commission and get these decision before the commission so you can make a decision, a well informed decision based off of staff, our evaluation, and then also hearing from the applicant who has a presentation for tonight. This particular deviation staff doesn't recommend approving. That results in a number of particular issues.

We don't cite it as part of our resolution because we do have a condition of approval. Conditions required. Our conditions are assigned to make projects bring or brought into compliance with our. The reason why you don't see this part of the resolution is because we have a condition of approval number seven that says that they just have to comply with that setback. And it allows the developer to maybe work with a home builder that might have a different housing product that could build a project that complies with the city standard.

Spent a lot of time on that one. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the next deviation because we didn't find any issues with that. The intersection spacing looking to reduce that from 200 feet to 156 feet. That's largely because city council provided direction to look at different ways to provide access into the project site. The applicant is looking to request a deviation from the city standard for water and sewer laterals.

Really our city standard When you have a water or sewer lateral that goes up to the house, have to maintain a minimum five foot setback away from the property line and other concrete. So that way if you have to dig them up, they're asking to reduce that from five feet to zero feet to allow for, since these are very narrow lots, putting those water meters as well as sewer clean outs that would be either in the driveway or within the walkway that would go up to the house. The applicant is asking to allow for parking to be counted on on street parking. This is just 29 on street parking spaces for guest parking. Staff found that was okay.

There's plenty of on street parking around the neighborhood. We noticed that we were unable to confirm whether or the applicant would be able to comply with common outdoor recreation space. We're asking the commission to consider allowing the applicant at some point in the future if they need to take advantage of alternate means for the standard for outdoor recreation space that the commission would allow the applicant to maybe improve city parks in order to be able to meet that requirement. We will note that to the original staff report cited in the text that it was condition number 10. Really, wanted to clear the record and say that this was condition number 13 as part of the conditions.

What we found was we can be supportive of all the other deviations as part of this project. We did some public outreach as part of the project. Really, concerns that we heard back from the public was about the traffic, the overflow parking within adjoining neighborhoods, and potential school capacity. This project, because the applicants amending the general plan, it does require review for consistency with applicable airport land use plans This one's located within Travis Air Force Base Zone D and so we took this to the airport land use commission on January 8 and found it conditionally consistent with compatibility plan. The commission said that they wanted to make sure that the home that the property owner provided a deed notice to future homeowners about the military activity that was occurring at the airbase.

California Environmental Quality Act is a pertinent component of the project and we have to determine compliance with that act. What we found was that we could reaffirm the previous environmental assessments that have been conducted for this site because the activities within the scope of the previous EIRs, there's no new effect that would be creating no new mitigation that would be required as a result of this change. And the previous statement of overriding considerations are still applicable and the previous mitigation measures are still applicable to the project. We think it meets the findings and that no new document is required to be circulated for this project. In conclusion, staff supports the proposed project as conditions environmental impacts already addressed previous CIRs, meets the findings as conditioned, provides more housing, and it complies with development standards with granted exceptions.

We do note, again, that staff does not support this deviation for the reduced setback and the city standard. That concludes my presentation. I wanted to make sure that the commission was aware, the applicants here, to also make their presentation. But we also have a key number of city staff including our fire department, our police department, our traffic engineer and also our city attorney that can help clarify any questions about our concerns here tonight. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you very much. Does

Commissioner Beaumont? Yes, I met with the developer.

Commissioner Vargas?

Yeah, I'll just disclose that I had some texting with the applicant and then was subsequently emailed the slide deck.

Commissioner

Wilkerson? I had a meeting with the applicant and didn't learn anything now. Commissioner Hampton?

Had a conversation with the developer. Didn't learn, nothing was disclosed that wasn't in the presentation this evening. I did ask one question. My one question was if the setback was imposed the way it's presented or with the additional setback and not what the applicant was pursuing, what would they their product. And the answer was they just they'd have to come up with a different design.

They could still have the same number of units but the design would have to change. Now I'll ask the applicant to come up and give their presentation. We'll give you fifteen minutes. I think this is the right one. There you go.

Yeah, the applicant isn't gonna come up because his legs don't work too well. How's that? My name's Rich Alexander. I am the applicant for the project. I wanna I'd like to send up some pictures because the first picture doesn't show it. Have we got those that I can send up to the clerk for them? Here, let me have them. I'll give them to Riley. Here, Riley. Can you take those up to the clerk up there?

A preamble to our PowerPoint, I'd like to point out this is a new type of project, Albert and I have talked about this, it's a new project for the city. Not the five foot driveways, not the units, but to use city streets and use five foot driveways is new, and it's gonna have a major impact on the city, and I'm aware of that. Sometimes when you have something new, you have to have some give and take and how to's, how to make it work. And we're gonna try and show you number one that it that it is work that it can work and that it is safe. And this came about as a result of the city's approved housing element study, of which they're short 28%.

What that is is that they're they're asking for their short middle missing housing, or what I call workforce housing. And so what we're trying to do is to maximize the number of units on the land as possible to create this. It will staff will point out that missing middle and our workforce housing has not yet been defined. But we know what it is not, and it is not a 6,000 or 10,000 square foot lot. We have gotten the lots down as small as we possibly can to which we can try and build units that will meet the requirements, which will help entry level people get into their homes.

So, that's sort of the goal of where we're headed. Now, I'd like to introduce engineers who used to be one. Mister Tom Felipe, who has somewhat retired, but I keep him working, and mister Vince Bosse, who used to work for mister Tom Felipe and is now with CBG. I'd also like to enter introduce the most underpaid consultant that I have, and that's my daughter, Christa, which is sitting to the left of me. She's gonna go over the PowerPoint because she can do a better job than I can, and we're gonna then step in in different points and point a few things pictures that I passed out before she gets started are the picture that's in the very first picture on our proposal up there, but if you'll notice, it is a full street.

It has parking on both sides. If you'll take a close look, you'll see that the parking is designated so that it's controlled. Some of the points that were made in the slide that upset me is I'm also involved in two apartment buildings here in town. Built Harbison, and I also built Allison. Both those have very, very small or no driveways at all.

And, yes, they're apartments. Yes, they have smaller streets. And, yes, they have it. But we have never had anybody park their car in the driveway. We have never had complaints, and I'm involved in the complaints of Sarrai. We have never had an accident to date. Thank god. Knock on wood. So it's just a point that I wanna make. And if you take a look at the picture that I just passed passed out to you, that is a normal sized street that is normal.

Mister Null will point out that he looked it up on his Geograph and said, well, this is private street. Well, it's a private street that looks walks and talks and smells like a public street, and I and and it does work. So with that, I'm gonna quiet down and let my daughter take it from here.

Good evening. My name is Krista Harness. Tonight, we're gonna go over our proposed miss missing middle homes project for the city. We have two primary concerns that we're going to address. First one being public's work department and concerns over the five foot driveway design, and then planning and development, their open space approach. Our goal is to expand housing choice while maintaining safety. Next slide. So this first section is gonna be about the five foot driveway. Next slide. We wanted to establish early on that there's this core assumption that the city of Vacaville requires a 20 foot site line when backing out of driveways.

Next slide. Goals of the five foot driveway design are as follows. It's to increase the unit capacity per acre. It is to deliver more missing middle housing to help reduce the city's 28% deficit, and it is to deliver a safe and functional community. Next slide. For the site line calculations, there's a couple of competing methodologies. Accepted engineering standards, including AASHTO and Caltrans, define sight line distance from the driver's position. That's

in

the top left diagram. This standard accounts for the driver's actual viewpoint when looking for pedestrians and approaching vehicles. The city has measured sight line distance from the vehicle front bumper. Measuring the bumper artificially shortens the sight line, incorrectly creating a failure condition. Bumper sight line calculations imposes a false opportunity to stop the project from moving forward.

Next slide. Next, let's talk about the public works concerns. Next slide. The public works department has identified primary concerns. To all of these concerns, they've had a recommendation to possibly look at building private streets in lieu of public streets and to require the minimum setback of 18 feet.

I'm gonna walk through the four different concerns and what we found during our research. So the first concern is the shallow driveway visibility. The street design complies with with city standards, general plan, and local street criteria. The site distance, speeds, and controls are consistent with comparable Vacaville streets, and private streets would improperly shift maintenance to the homeowners without a safety nexus. For the possible cut through traffic, setbacks and density need to follow an objective zoning standard, not speculation.

Roadway design, geometry, stops, and traffic calming is the accepted Caltrans ITE method to manage speeds. For the concern related to mixed public and private street enforcement, consistency can be achieved through design, not fewer homes. Uniform public streets, clear curb markings, and designated fire lanes lanes can improve enforcement. Reducing units lacks rational basis and conflicts with the state housing law. Increased complaints and service calls is the fourth concern.

There's no evidence that the project will create dis will create disproportionate calls. Similar Vacaville projects operate safely at comparable densities. The city retains tools post occupancy such as parking, signage, and enforcement, making a preemptive density cut unwarranted. Next slide. For the open space calculation.

Calculation. Next slide. Developers intend to build three and four bedroom units, including backyard and a pocket park. Completed calculations are targeted to be ready at the time of the building permit. The approach remains consistent with the early project iterations.

Next slide. So the recommendations are, follow the examples of Livermore, California public Streets and our privately owned shallow driveway projects. The picture to the right shows what they're doing in the city of Livermore. This will achieve increasing missing middle housing to help reduce the city of Vacaville's 28% deficit. We also recommend approving the project with public streets, five foot driveways, open space calculations to be completed at the time of building permit processing, and accept analysis as requested by staff.

At this point, I'd like to ask Vince Mosse to go over the engineering calculations.

And,

it's a slight duplication on one and a couple of new pieces on that.

And

So we have heard the staff on several concerns, I I do just I would be remiss if I didn't thank staff, although we kind of button heads over a couple comments. You should know they made themselves available numerous times and several departments met with us in the crunch time over this last week. On the on the screen here, we're taking a look at a possible reliever route. That was one of the concerns in increasing the traffic flow flowing through the neighborhood in Burgundy Street. The green path would be the path we would feel a normal person would take.

It follows the quickest road, Leisure Town Road, to the other quickest road, Redstone Parkway, avoids any narrow streets. It avoids driveways. It avoids parked cars. And so the red route, which it would be concerning, requires additional turns on slower streets. And and a normal person's gonna find the easiest, quickest route.

And so we don't find they would use the red route because it's not. It's more difficult, slower, and a little more friction. Next slide. So this is a look at a standard 20 by 20 line of sight. If you had the full size driveway, this is what the city standard calls for and and wants. We're able to meet this where we do have full length driveways. It's only those short driveways that are an issue. Go ahead. Next slide. So the big the big rub, I will say, with the city standard 20 by 20 line of sight is where it's measured from.

And the city standard just calls a 20 foot dimension out. We argue that the line of sight should start from where the driver physically sits in the car as they back out, as the back bumper goes to roll over the sidewalk, behind them. They look both ways. What can they really see at that point? Go ahead. Next slide. And this was just an example of a 10 by 10 used in a limited case in vaca, but we're gonna skip this because I know I'm short on time here. Next slide, please. And this is what I'm talking about. This is measured where a driver physically sits within the chassis of the vehicle before the bumper potentially would conflict with a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

What can they see? And ensuring that before they hit the sidewalk, they can see 20 feet either way down that curb line on the shorter driveway. This is the minimum worst case the road So see

to

road road

the

map.

Slide. Slide. And

we'll

next

triangle, and then you can see the the the

next start of it inside the garage. Slide. Just doesn't make logical sense. It's not where the driver would be sitting in the car. It's not what they could really physically view in the real world. And next slide. Where's that all? That was all of them. The last or couple last points. The second page and what we just distributed to you, that all dealt with pedestrians.

It's a different animal looking at cars traveling 25, 30 miles an hour through a roadway. So I apologize. This all came about last minute. The second page shows how before a vehicle enters the roadway now, instead of the bumper hitting the sidewalk, I'm now talking into the paved street. We're showing they can see 200 feet or more either direction, which would meet a typical standard at an intersection if you're looking down a thirty, twenty five, 30 mile an hour road.

We can still meet that when you back out before you get into the street, before you conflict with a car coming down the roadway. On that note, I saw earlier was presented, well, what about the cars parked on the street? They're there. They might create an obstacle. That's true of every single family subdivision and every home in Southtown. You back out of your driveway, we don't prohibit parking everywhere on every single family home. How could we reject this for that reason? It's no different. And I see my my time is up. I I would very quickly because it's super important.

The very last page in this does offer up a quick alternative that would give an 18 foot driveway on Burgundy for all the fronting homes. That driveway would be measured from the garage to the existing back of sidewalk. So it'd be a 14 foot setback to the property line, 18 foot driveway. We would have to give up just a little bit of backyard space on some of the units to make that work. Space isn't free, unfortunately.

Thank you very much. Yes, sir.

Commissioner and commissions, I appreciate the time you've given us and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. I want to conclude by stating that with this being a new type of project, I'd really like you to consider it. I'd like you to I wanna hit a high point. This is being done in other cities such as Livermore. I'd like you to look at the pictures that I sent you, the full size street.

We can do that and control it. Also, we are going to have an HOA, which is gonna take care of the park and and and the private driveways. We're going to do that. And with that, we will be taking the first calls. And the only reason opinion that the police and the fire department would be called is if we had an unmanageable person.

Now as far as they pointed out, somebody pulling in on the short driveway and parking on the sidewalk. That's illegal in any of our subdivisions. You don't park on a sidewalk. If you do, you can get busted. And so it won't take long, experience those problems in our private areas, and I don't think we would experience those problems in the public areas. Thank you. So I'd like you to consider it, and I look forward to this going to the city council with your blessing.

Thank you very much. So we'll bring it now back to commissioner questions for staff or the applicant. Do we have any commissioner I I to

that's

design for Burgundy Street that might solve some of the problems. But I'm just wondering, Albert, if there's any other designs that might achieve the same density with different results results for the fire and the police and everybody else?

The answer is yes. This question about missing middle is really the question about what does valuable need and Rich is right. We do have a housing needs assessment that says that we do have some missing middle but not enough. We have too much of the large lots, single family detached the

neighborhood

of of of there's more time with the development of a revision of the map, maybe the introduction of a different housing product. We might be able to get to that situation where we can find a project that does comply. But project in front of the commission tonight is one where the applicant is looking to move forward at a pretty quick pace and get in front of the planning commission and in order for them to be able to meet their own timelines which Rich can talk about. The project has to include some deviations. So there are other housing products that are out there that could be done.

It might make some revisions to the maps, might result in the same unit count, might result in some different changes, but the applicant has communicated that they just don't have the luxury of to go through that process.

So is there anything the city would do rather than just a hard 18 feet? Is there any middle ground to meet this missing middle that we can't define and don't know how to fill?

Try not to dance around the speculation component because we've already, we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out if there were alternative solutions as Rich had mentioned. He provided lots of good examples of where these short driveways were but the ones that we looked at, the ones in Livermore, there are private alleyway driveways or private areas where HOAs can have a greater control over it. And when we look at the scenario of an HOA controlling it versus a city controlling it, we impact that it creates us sending more staff out there to enforce it, potential conflicts. And we can't no one recommend an incursion of potential issues onto the city when we know there are alternative methods to solve that. The applicant provided an example of alternative methods is between the time that we published a staff report to the time tonight, they found a solution where they can meet the driveways at least on one of the street.

And so what we're suggesting is is that we have a condition that says comply with it. And it gives them the opportunity to move forward with the tentative map, move forward with the general plan and zoning map amendment. But it still gives them the opportunity to maybe think about some other housing products that are out there that they could make it work. Maybe they move forward with a different tentative map and modification that proposes some different housing products later on down the road. So there are some other benefits seeing a

a

the

bumper versus the actual position of the driver since it's been approved by Caltrans or whoever else that

We've got our traffic engineer that's here to discuss, that can answer the question about the technical. Where does that standard come from? Why is it based off of 20 foot versus 15 foot or whatever? I would say that one of the things that was noted in the applicant's presentation, we agree with, which is setback should back of the sidewalk is on to the person's property is at 15.5 feet at that point. Your typical vehicle, it's not the back bumper is not going to be parked at the back of that sidewalk.

It's going to be maybe moved in a little bit further. Maybe it's going be up closer to the garage door. And so where that person is positioned within their vehicle, it can move up closer or behind. It's really intended to provide that tolerance so that way you get a vehicle that's in the driveway no matter where they're parked. As long as there is an unobstructed view of the public right of way that they can have a safe entrance into the city's right away. So if you have if you are interested in the particulars about where does that tribal come from, we do have our city traffic engineer, Mr. Rick Navarro, available if you have those questions.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner Dingmann?

Yes, thanks. Staff, thanks for a great presentation. Appreciate the applicant's time tonight. Thanks very much. So my question is, I have two of them, what's the trade off for the 18 foot driveway? Is it less backyard or less density for housing and how many builds. I mean I don't think we really got there to understand that piece and at what point does it cause the project to not be financially viable for the applicant. Have we run the numbers on that if all of the driveways have to be 18 feet, how much do you lose? I mean that's something that we didn't see. So yeah, if the applicant would like to answer that question that would be great.

Yeah.

And we did take a look. In order to do an 18 foot throughout, you're going to lose like an entire row. It would be a significant reduction in the number of units. If we try to compact it and keep it within the same lot. You'd have the 18 foot driveway, the 20 foot garage with the 10 foot backyard, and there's almost no living space left anymore. You're left with 12 feet down

Without the small driveways, would this not work? And we would have to go back to 6,000 or 10,000 square foot lots, which we don't want to do. And the city doesn't want us to do. I do have, which was brought up to us late, and that was maybe a compromise and I forgot to offer it. And that is, if you're concerned about burgundy, I've asked Vince to do a drawing to see if he could get 18 foot driveways on Burgundy.

We would not be able to get him throughout the project. If we do, we lose the whole project. It would leave us nothing. Vince was able to squeeze 18 feet on Burgundy. Now interior, I think if we took a how to attitude that between the fire department, which we work together very well with, and I know you don't like speed bumps, but maybe if you want to slow it down in the interior, we could put something in.

We can also agree to do our CC and Rs. We also agree to be the first responders with our HOA to answer questions, and we also agreed to put signs up in the very beginning clearly stating parking and how it should be done to teach the people how you live in a short driveway

home.

Young people wanting to have a home are going to be more than willing to do that. So I heard, I think it was Doug that asked me, and I tried to respond to it. And if you want to take a quick peek at that, Vince can tell you about it more than I can.

Thank you. And so I think we did receive that map which showed the extra setback, right? Yes. So on Commissioner Dingmann's point, you mentioned some other products that are available to build on this that would meet the requirement? What are some of those other types of housing that you've seen that meet the medium density standards?

So again, I want to be careful about the speculation only because this is just map. There's no housing product that's proposed. Other housing products that you could do

Or currently currently built in Vacaville that are medium density.

Yeah. Attached single family homes. Mhmm. That's something that was built over in Harmony Village

Mhmm.

Off of East Monte Vista. That's where they're connected by a single wall. And that that was a tentative map where it was proposed for two two story units, but those were on slightly larger lots. The question we asked the applicant was what if you did a three story product for the other two rows that are farther away from the two story homes that are fronting along Burgundy. If they're able to make the two story homes work along Burgundy with those driveways standard.

What if they were to do a three story product on the interior development? The product that was here before, the Southland apartments, had a townhome design that was three story that was fronting along these streets. And so we know from our experience that those are just a few different examples of housing products that could be done. As we mentioned, that's usually something that when you have more time during the development review process, you can go back and forth with a bunch of different iterations, maybe some different house plans. We just didn't have the luxury of being able to do that with the applicant. They just they've got their own timelines, and they just need to be able to move forward with it.

Does that answer your question on design? Sure. Great. Commissioner Banta.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation from staff and the applicant. I really appreciate the project and the energy given to one, the missing middle. I think the smaller lots are really important in this city. We don't have a lot of that entry level home design.

We are building 6,000 square foot homes, 10,000 square foot homes, not a lot of the 2,000 square foot homes for first time home buyers, and so I really appreciate the effort towards that. I also do appreciate the applicant's effort in trying to make this a faster project. I feel like we take a long time in our review processes, and I think that we hear that complaint a lot. And so I appreciate that they want to get this project across the finish line faster, And I would hope that our staff and that our city is trying to make the process more seamless. And so I do understand that there's a sideline issue.

I understand the public street versus the private street. I do have a question on which streets in this project are public versus private. That's one question. The second question is sorry, forgot what my second question is. Can we answer that question? Which was our public versus private?

The applicant is requesting that all of the streets be public.

So those small driveways that veer off, those would be public streets as well?

Sorry, those are small little private alleyways.

So those are private?

Yeah, let me bring up the map to context.

Because I don't believe the whole thing is public.

Correct. So these Kristen, Raelin or Kristen and Raelin and Andrew Court would be private lots and then you've got a couple of parking stalls on either side of Crimson Circle and then Parcel A and parcel D.

Okay. Then my second question is for the public streets that are remaining, is concern for all of the public streets or just the ones that have like a more of a thoroughfare right of way type of public street? Because we are discussing them kind of in two different ways.

Public streets.

So we would want them all to have the 18 foot line of sight or the 20 foot line of sight?

Correct, yes.

Okay. And then, I what number question I'm on, but my next question is, would, he did, Beaumont did ask, Commissioner Beaumont did ask about the versus the bumper versus the eyesight, and I don't feel like it was clearly answered. Which one does the city is our city standard, and which one is the engineering standard? And if there is a difference, why?

Your consideration, consideration, mister mister Rick Rick Navarro.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners and member of the commission. We don't use the bumper as the sideline.

If you

look at our other line of sight standards, it clearly shows we do use the driver's eye as the the point of reference. Okay. So no. So that is in there they were saying.

So we're both saying we use the line of sight, but we're getting to a different number.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you. My next question is you had mentioned that there are potential solutions, you mentioned a few of them, but it sounds like the solution is to completely change the project, which would potentially change the density. And so that to me sounds a little frustrating that we've already went from high density to medium density, and now we wanna change the project again to what? Lower density? Or then we propose back to the high density again, like which we saw that project of the Southtown apartments, that was before I got here and that apparently was a disaster.

So it just that feel it feels a little frustrating, guess, I could say. That's more of just a comment. But my question is the COA seven, the the conditions of approval seven. So is the applicant sufficient also with this moving forward with just accepting that conditions approval, but still being able to move the project a lot? Because you had said that they they do wanna move it along faster. Is applicant amenable to that or is that not something that they are amenable to anyways? We

have been told that the applicant needs to get this in front of the decision makers for the consideration?

So if we were able to approve this with the conditions of approval, would move it along and we could still hash out the driveway situation potentially. They would be accepting that it needs to be the 20 foot?

It would be 18 foot would be the setback between the garage and where the property line is. That's what the standard would be and so options that are available after the decision making process might be a home builder comes in with a different housing product that could achieve that.

Okay.

Or a home builder comes back in and says, you know what, we don't need five feet, maybe we can do it with 17 feet as a setback. And so if this project moves forward, it doesn't prevent a home builder later on down the road to be able to come through and ask again from this commission and from the city council. In this particular case, an applicant has communicated to us. They need to be able to get it front. And this is the recommending body on situations like this, such as the map.

Okay. So it it would be with the condition of the 18 foot, but they could come back and say we want an amendment or a condition again potentially.

Correct, that's always afforded to any developer in the future if they need to request a deviation from our city standards. There's a process for that.

And then just to clarify, because the second tentative map that we were kind of given with the 18 foot on the more thoroughfare, that hasn't been viewed by the city staff, so that is not accepted as what is being recommended from staff currently?

That's correct.

Okay. That's all for

now. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Thank Commissioner Vargas.

Thank you to the developer for the presentation and staff. Sometimes when you're kind of at the alone in the totem pole in terms of asking questions, everybody asks the question that you wanted to raise. With that said, I think I would like to hear the concerns from public safety and from public works. I think that's kind of the missing information that's needed here. It's hard to make a decision without hearing from them.

Can we?

Like PD

that

And we

about parking and reduction of the parking spaces allowed. It's common knowledge that most people have more than one vehicle, sometimes even two or three. As they work to park them in the limited amount of parking on the roadway that there is that might create the parking issues we'll address in a minute. We believe that it would be very likely that people would then park in their very short driveways essentially blocking the sidewalk. It's just an unfortunate fact of life that sometimes people will do what is convenient over what is right.

And the variety of safety issues posed by drivers regularly parking in a short driveway includes blocking the sidewalk, which forces pedestrians out onto the roadway. But it also essentially becomes a quality of life issue because people can't then walk their own dogs, walk with their own children, teach their young children how to ride a bike in front of the house that they just bought in this nice town that they were told they could enjoy. The developers here will say that, well, that's illegal. People just won't do that. Well, so is speeding.

And so is running red lights. And so is driving drunk. There's a reason why myself and all my traffic officers routinely have much more to do than we have time to deal with. So there's one issue is with the parking, which is what we believe will be caused by the number of vehicles wanting to park in the space that they have been provided with. Secondly, there's been mention of the time, and if you're backing out of a garage, you're going to back out in a manner that allows you to see what's coming behind you.

Most of you back out in a way that allows you to have some to see what's on the sidewalk, so you can see if your neighbors are coming. And also, what's out on the street, so you can see what cars are coming. Any of you that live in town and have to back out onto a driveway that's along residential street where there's already a 25 mile an hour speed limit are surely familiar with backing out and having somebody almost hit you because people simply just don't go 22 miles an hour on regular roadways. The distance listed on here, for those unfamiliar, the Crimson Circle and the Kevin Drive, that distance is about roughly the same as many of the subdivisions in the Bird neighborhoods. So like Eagle or Raven, they're about similar to those streets.

Or if you're more familiar with the northern side of the town, those are about similar to the distance of say the as I call them the alphabet streets, but Birch, Dia Deira, Elder, Fur, those ones. Anybody that lives on any of those streets is familiar with the fact that speeding is indeed a problem. And it's not something that we, as a police department, k, can simply enforce our way out of. In order for us to create safe streets and safe communities, k, rely on a combination of education, so that people know what's going on. Also of enforcement.

Most people know not to speed on Leisure Town because there's always a motorcycle cop out there. But also engineering. Okay? Creating reasonable situations that allow people to act reasonably and also don't encourage problematic behavior, which then needs to be out engineered and out enforced because of the problem in the first place.

Thank you very much.

Have two questions. Have no detail.

Was there anybody else you'd like to follow-up?

I don't know if fire is anything more. I'm assuming it's the same. Or public works. If not, I'm good. That was eloquent.

Do I think you could comment on that?

No, you can bring it up during public comment. Vice Chair Wilkerson.

Yes, thank you so much for the presentation staff, and thank you for the presentation applicant. Albert, can you speak to me quickly of the changing of the setback for the sewer laterals? You said it's going from five to zero?

Yes, correct.

Whose And responsibility will it be as things evolve and times change, whose responsibility will it be to maintain the sewer laterals if they ever need to be fixed?

Homeowners association.

HOA?

Yes.

That standard?

No. The standard is that. They would comply with it. If there was a need to tear up the person's drive way to be able to replace part of the line, that it's actually dirt. And so picture on the screen shows a scenario in which there are allowed where you can have the laterals. In this case, the sewer clean outs are in the driveways. So the reason why we understand that this is necessary is because of the narrow lots, but we also can't incur the cost associated with having to replace everybody's driveway if there is an issue out there. And so the applicant's agreeable to the idea that they can have it, but it's got to be the HOA's responsibility to replace that concrete.

We've heard a lot about what the city wants to do with the property or what the city wants, but I'd like to hear from the applicant, what are your other options? That's the question for you, Rich.

If this doesn't pencil, what are our plans? More likely it will go back to apartments. They mentioned before apartments that we did have there, some of them were townhouses. To build townhouses are very expensive. So, you can build them to rent them, but you can't build them to sell them because they're too expensive to build and market and We've already tried it.

So three stories don't work. I just want to make that very clear. The product that we are looking at here are that of Meritage and they will be the builder, and they will be building three bedroom and four bedroom units, and the type of product that everybody has told me that the city wants. So that's what we're trying to provide. And with that, yes there's gotta be some give and take. And I don't know if I could take a moment and respond to real quick. I

think the chair asked you to wait on that.

Alright, I'll wait on that point.

Was a point that I think we haven't heard yet.

For explaining that.

Commissioner Hampton.

Thank you, Commissioner Wilkerson. That sort of dovetails with a clarifying question that I have. Thank you for quite sure that I have an understanding of the zoning on that. Is it HD or MD right now for those nine acres? Nine plus acres. What is it zoned as?

Residential high density. Okay. So does that mean that

medium density can come in and build in a high density zone? Correct. Okay. If medium density is not built out then it defaults automatically to high density.

Correct.

That was the initial. Okay, thank you for that clarification. I just wanted to make sure that I have an understanding of that. The second question is the precedent implications for future projects in the city. So if the driveway issue, say for example becomes adopted and this project moves forward, what are some of the implications for future developments with those mitigated driveways?

Implications are that developers would use these as justification for being able to pursue them in other areas. And you feel the developers would do that? They've told us. Thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Hampton. Back to Commissioner Beaumont.

Thank you Albert. Just to clarify, whether we pass it or not, does it go to the City Council for final approval?

Your recommendation will be forwarded to them.

So it's just a vote number, right? Whether we vote for it, five to two or two to five or whatever it is, that goes city council and just shows that, right?

It does, but we write a staff report that outlines the discussion that occurs as part of these meetings. And I will say that the commission has the authority to approve or recommend approval, recommend approval with modifications or recommend denial of the project. So you have some latitude in that area. But the discussion that happens tonight is part of the commission's comments that go along with the vote, that gets passed on to the City Council as part of our staff report.

Well, guess as I found, the City Council kind of does what they want anyway. Understand what you're saying. Let's see, so if we approve this recommended like it is, that includes the 18 foot driveways, everything else is okay?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Banta.

Yeah, had another question. Can we clarify what the difference is between the public and the private streets, and what would define the two?

Public streets are streets that comply with city standards in the width and the amount of dedication that's necessary to convey those vehicles. Private streets are requested by developers because they are unable to meet our standards and are looking for shorter, narrow streets.

Who maintains public streets versus private streets?

City maintains public streets. Private streets are maintained by an HOA.

Okay. And then who enforces the laws on public versus private streets?

The city does for public and private in some cases about HOA's maintaining enforced private properties.

Question for public safety. What is the data on calls for service incidences on private streets because that seems to be an acceptable five foot lane. So what is the concern? Are there concerns on private streets or is it only for this model on public streets? Because some of the question was that there's a safety concern.

Sorry to throw that at you.

You mentioned what are the calls for service with respect to public streets versus private?

Yeah, I'm just trying to understand the difference between public and private. So, like, public meets criteria, private doesn't, then maintaining it. Public works would only maintain public ones, not private ones. That would be the HOA that has to maintain if there's issues on the road. So then public safety, I'm assuming that there's calls on a private road, you guys still service those calls. Right?

If there are calls for service of the type of calls for service that we would respond to to assist whether or not they're in like an HOA for example would be your typical calls for service that warrant an officer or a CSO's assistance, an individual that has a question about a criminal matter if there's an active incident occurring, something of that nature that would require an officer's assistance, we do. We cover those as they are covered within the city of Vacaville. There are some other private party, I'm sorry, private property HOA, CCNRs and the covenants imposed by those that we do not address as public safety because it is a part of their property. But as for calls for service, there is we cover the city back.

So so so so what about, like, traffic calls? So, like if somebody was parking in the driveway that was hanging out on the sidewalk, but it was an HOA and a private street, do you guys cover that or is that like the HOA? Because they're

So no. So those type of examples, no, those are those are generally not issues that we would respond to. Okay. If it becomes an issue where there becomes some type of a significant safety issue that arises because every situation can be different, then, yes, it's possible we would we would respond, but it would be situation dependent.

Okay. Thank you. And then I'm guessing there's more fire concerns.

Basically just picking back what she just said is if there is an issue with the street within the HOA, we would work with HOA and do courtesy notices and notice in order to abate to the HOA to mitigate those concerns.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify the difference between the two types of streets.

Okay. And commission, that was Jill Childers, the city's fire marshal.

Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have any other commissioner questions? Okay. So now I'll open it up to public comment. If you wish to address the commission on this topic, approach the podium and we'll give you three minutes to say something. I'll get you next.

I don't speak for a citizens group or anything. I'm simply a person who lives on the other side of the creek from this area. I walk my dog past there all the time. I just wanna comment that generally, I intensely dislike developers, and I'm against all of it. However, in this situation, what the developer has proposed is vastly for the people who live nearby there.

This is a vast improvement over the apartment complex they originally intended to put there because there would have been a 150 off-site parking spaces, meaning that the whole neighborhood of Burgundy, Scarlet, and everything else down there would have other people's cars parked in front of their homes. My understanding from what I read in the paper and what I hear tonight is that if this project is proposed now, is not approved, they're gonna go back to an apartment complex. Please. No. People are intelligent enough when they go to look at a house they wanna buy, if they don't like that five foot, you know, five foot from the driveway, they won't buy it.

This the developer, I believe that he said, the city street will be concerned, which is Burgundy, and they have houses fronting I believe he said that they could adjust that. Okay. The street inside is all controlled by the HOA. The people I know who live in HOA communities, they fear their HOA more than they fear God. Don't worry about I understand the city staff has a job to do.

They've got to bring you the worst case scenario, and they've done that. Let the people who buy these properties determine if they wanna deal with the potential of only a five foot driveway. They'll figure it out. And the HOA can put in speed bumps and make life miserable, which is what HOAs do. And the people who buy those houses will deal with it. It'll be great. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I chime in staff right now in the middle of public comment?

Is the question whether the applicant is entitled to additional time for public comment?

No, so two things I guess. Do you have a question plan on giving the applicant three minutes, that's okay, right?

Yeah, that's it's up to the chair's discretion.

So can I have the staff respond to the public comment that we just had, or do I have to wait till they're all

I think typically preference is for them to kind of take notes as we go through public comment, and then at the end if Albert would like to maybe run through anything that sticks out to him as needing a response that would be probably preference?

Thank you very much. Yes sir.

Lightfoot, Tom Filippi, Filippi Engineering. Technically retired, but selecting as a consultant on the project. I have been designing projects here in Vacaville for forty seven years. I am the consultant on this. I respectfully request a couple of extra minutes to make some what I think are points. I don't think I can do it in three minutes. But first of all, I've been involved in the Southtown area. I was the original designer in 1996, and we had always looked at this property as an apartment site. As we got closer to development of that site about five years ago, the neighbors were concerned about that. And then the previous owner of the property, I worked with the neighbors, and we came up with a project very similar to what you see before you now.

And the neighbors were happy with that, but the staff was not. There is a cultural bias in this town for against residential small residential housing. They will come up they came up five years ago with every excuse you could imagine to deny a small home project. The San Francisco Chronicle recently published an article about how Vacaville is the least affordable community in the entire Bay Area when you measure it with cost burden. And I have been fighting this for forty seven years.

Community. I have invested my heart and soul in this community. I have raised five children here. You know, there's two basic human needs, food and shelter. And to this good gentleman right here, the developers and people like me, we're in the shelter business. And that's a pretty good gig. And I really love the broad range of housing that should be in our community. Commissioner Banta Banta and I have talked many, many times about the lack of affordable homes here in Vacaville. This is what we're trying to do here. But we have a community here, a culture in the city hall that does not want small homes.

Small homes pay less in taxes. Small homes have families that don't spend as much at the premium outlets or as much in restaurants. So there is a cultural bias and has been since 1992. And if any of you wanna go through the data, I can go through it with you. '92, we imposed tripling of the building permit fees.

And it was when I built my custom home here in Vacaville, the building permit was based on the valuation of the home. In 1992, we changed that to be on a per home basis. So a 4,000 square foot home would have the same building permit fee as a 1,000 square foot home. So imagine what the city of Vacaville was telling developers. Don't build your cheap crap here in Vacaville. That's what they were saying. In the late nineties, early two thousands, we started implementing CFDs. That is a tax on top of your already high taxes. Do you know the people in Southtown pay $14,000 a year in taxes?

Thank you, sir. 14,000.

I pay 4,000 for a million dollar home on the East Side on the West Side of Alamo Drive. This it's we are running folks with small homes out of town.

Thank you. Your time's up.

Well, I have a whole lot more, I respectfully request after forty seven years, I might have a couple extra minutes.

I'm sorry. No. You're we're in public comment now. Thank

I'm representing the applicant. Don't they get extra time? This is another reason why Vacaville is so miserable to deal with. Thank you very much.

Mr. Phillippe, you'd be welcome to submit a written comment, if you'd like, that would become part of the record for this item.

Do you have any other public comment?

Commissioner and commission, thank you. My name is Will Wade. I'm a resident of Southtown, but also a trustee on the Travis Unified School District. And my business today is to speak some education districting questions. I apologize.

It's pretty obvious that I don't know the planning process better. So it's apparent that my question is probably outside the scope of this meeting, but I'd like to put it on record with the city staff if possible. I'd like to request that the city staff review the school district team when appropriate for not only Harvest Grove, but the A and P children development, which will be also on the agenda later. The reason I make this request is because of the neighborhood Vanden Ranch, which is currently the only neighborhood South Of Alamo and Frye and East Of Alamo, is in the Vacaville Unified School District versus Travis Unified School District. I believe that is an error.

I'd like to see that these districts are looked at and consistently applied for the school districting. And in my opinion, I think the Harvest Grove and A and P children development should be in the Travis Unified School District versus Vacaville Unified School District. So again, when the timing is appropriate and the appropriate venue for the staff, I just request that you work with the districts to determine that.

Thank you. Thank you.

I've never done this before. Thank you, commissioners. I wanted to voice my appreciation for all your work towards this and the single family housing plan. Because I remember it was the first meeting that I had been to in Vacaville was when all the residents were getting on Zoom and talking about how important it was for them to have single family housing available. Also, the concern of apartments being so high and looking in the parking water, all of those things are constantly a concern anyway.

But I believe there is something that you all can do to come together and make this happen so it's beneficial for both. The neighborhood is aching for single family homes, so I just wanted to put that out there. Sarah. Thank

you.

I'll be quick this time. Just in response. I know Officer Stone mentioned the parking over driveways and concerns over parking and I didn't get to that point in the first presentation. And as a frame reference, the original apartment side, I also worked on that one had a 1.98 to one parking ratio. Let's call it two parking stalls per unit. With what we proposed tonight is significantly higher. We've added some perpendicular stalls that may have been overlooked. I want to make sure those were called out. We do have some with driveways even as originally proposed, and that ratio would become almost three to one, two point nine eight to one. So it's significantly better than the already approved apartment project.

And the additional if we elect to go down that route with Burgundy, adding the 18 feet driveways. That's 24 more lots for another 48 parking stalls on top of the numbers I've just reported to you. So I want to make sure you're all aware of that. Try to alleviate some heartache over parking.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. For developers actually came to us when they started this process, and they said, let's let's work together and figure out something that'll work. And I hate to say it, but I've got a lot of agreement with even Tom Filippi right now with as much history as we had in the past. I get it. We want safety.

And I don't know how this how this could work because Burgundy was an an issue for me. That's our street. That's in our neighborhood. I live right down the street. That's a that's a concern for the speed. 25 miles an hour is way too fast in those streets anyways. But I I don't know how we move forward where we actually get this project, you know, approved moving forward. But having that variance for for burgundy fix for the streets, and then can't we just make the streets inside the development private? I loved your questions. You guys are all asking way better questions than I had the last commission. No offense, John. But but those are questions. Why can't we privatize that? There's gonna be an HOA. They take care of the streets.

They take care of parking, and hopefully that limits it. Put some speed bumps in. Make it a 10 mile an hour speed limit. Do whatever you gotta do to make that inside protected. Burgundy, you just can't stop. They're building houses, right, that's facing Burgundy. That has to be fixed. I completely agree with the city and the police department on safety on Burgundy. So I don't know. Is that even something that we can that we can do? Is can we approve the the project and then say, well, Burgundy has to be fixed with what they're recommending and then privatize private the streets and development inside. So that's my comment. Like I said, I've been here since since day one. I'm tired. I hate coming here anymore. I got too much work on my own plate, so hopefully we can get this taken care of. Thank you.

Thank you. Do you do you have any more comments, Whoever's next? Yeah, you mentioned you might have public comment.

Whoever.

I just moved because I know you're up there at the that back podium.

Okay. Yeah.

I wanted to rebuttal a little bit, and I'm nervous about ever going against our local. Constable. But one of the things is really data. Yes. Always something could happen, but as as was mentioned that she mentioned, education.

We are willing to do things things with this new type of development that has never been done before. One put up some very big signs, temporary but big signs, that state how you park, how you do, where you park, what you do, and what potential problems may be. And I want to work with the police, and I want to work with the fire department, and Ms. Gill knows that I have worked very close with them before, and we come to compromises. If we can get a how to, the developer is more than willing to to put up a way to where in this new product that we will educate our people, and also, you know, to to minimize all of these problems.

But to just do away with the homes, just to do away with this product that you're 28% short on is not a a the the legitimate way to do it. So once again, I wanna work with the police. I wanna work with public works, and I wanna work with the fire department. We can find solutions to every one of these problems for this new project, this new type of project in your home that in your city that is needed. So that's my comment for the night.

Thank you very much.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Alicia Minion. And like Mike Little said, we've been fighting this for a really long time. So I have some concerns. So number one, the the if if we're out of compliance, say this goes through and we're And a ir own

we're to to

be made in the real estate documents when the home buyer buys the home? Does that relieve the city of liability? And could we I have another question. It's really towards the developer. Know they're behind me. Don't if they can answer the question. When they gave the Livermore example, was the five foot driveway allowed by ordinance in Livermore. That's what I'd like to know. Or was that an exception? Because I think that's important to know.

And then if the city is potentially liable, could that be eliminated if we pass an ordinance to say if there's an because this is kind of an island, the lots kind of agree with the staff. I think it is a safety issue. And I am afraid that another developer will take advantage of this situation. So I I want I would like city staff to find out how can we mitigate that from happening. Can And we're that.

And

do

next level.

And able

fix Burgundy. We can't have five foot driveways on Burgundy. Everybody drives more than 25 miles an hour, and they tear around that corner. So when you get off Leisure Town, you get onto Redstone Parkway, and you're so happy you're almost home, as I live on Cardinal Court. And I'm just like, I just have to make this right on the burgundy. I'm almost home.

Thank you.

So, anyway, so those are my ideas. Thank you.

Do we the

And public. Coming up, and I I think saw and heard I some information about this particular project. First thought, I've been nationally certified city planner since for over thirty years, and I've done hundreds of land development applications in current planning. And when I saw this particular project, I thought this is just hazard to begin with. And I've seen I I'm I'm puzzled how your development application process goes where this safety issue still prolonged itself up to this point where it wasn't addressed during the preliminary application time period?

Or did the developer just say to heck with your requirements, I'm going to do what I want to do. And so Some severe safety issue like this could have been mitigated in the preliminary application stage, where pure communication is given to developers about what the particular standards are. Now, seeing that it's somehow for some reason that unsafe design is moving forward, and if it does move forward, I can only anticipate subsequent developers in the community saying, hey, they got it. Why why can't we have it as well with regard to any any type of design similar to that where these safety issues are then just ignored in subsequent application. So this might be a precedent that could be very dangerous for your city.

And the brief comment about affordable housing and so forth, I wanted to email you guys something separate, but I saw that on the city's web page, they don't provide your email addresses for any of the planning commissioners. And so I don't know how to get information to you guys. Separate and aside because I wanted to just bring up on a separate topic for purposes of affordable housing. Have you guys ever tried? And considered.

Modular housing should be allowed in your city. Modular housing is something guided by the state building code. Not the federal not manufactured, but modular housing. I've seen that to be done very successfully. In other cities, and I would just put that on the table for the city to consider as well for purposes of providing affordable housing. So that's all.

Thank you. Do we have any other public comment? Seeing none, I'll close public comment and bring it back for commissioner deliberation and staff response. Does anybody have anything particularly about stuff to address? Commissioner

commentary and conversations that are going on both sides. From the applicant side, from public safety, thank you guys very much. I Very thoughtful comments. I think common sense at some point has to be thrown into some of these things. This is a great city where we're trying to meet a lot of needs, we're trying to grow, we're trying to take care of that other 28% that's out there.

But you know this isn't going be perfect staff, you guys have done a great job. I think got to figure out a way to meet in the middle and not have let little things provide that divide. What I'd like to offer is that we do need a recommendation here, right? It seems like what was proposed by staff was the information that you were given, there's a little bit information that you guys provided with the page three. We pulled the map out of community, but I think that there are this probably one or two things can happen and whether staff on either side, if you guys could maybe help guide this, I'd like to propose we go to a recommendation phase of maybe it gets to an approval with certain recommendations that we ask you to take the council to help meet some of the need here, because I do think that this is a project that we probably need.

It's way better than the high density apartments that were in there. You've been very thoughtful with that. The applicant has, I think there's been some stuff there. There's some public safety things that are really tough to get around. It's it's difficult.

People speed. They do things that they're not supposed to do, but maybe there's a way to get around that. And I think that there needs to be a little bit more deliberation with city staff, with the applicant, and we need to find a middle ground here so that a project like this can meet a need for this community, but also be done in the best safest way possible because guess what, in two years whether I'm on this commission or anyone else's, there's going to be another developer that's going to you know put something else out there. And you know we're going have to decide what we want to the gentleman in the front row that you know kind of brought that up. I was not here when the last project was proposed, but I think we need to get there.

And so if it's on Burgundy Street, there you guys gave us the map that showed potential 18 foot setback for those homes, and then if we do private streets on the interior where it's a shorter setback, maybe there is a little bit of room that we could you know instead of a five foot setback, it's seven feet and they hit eight feet. Like there's there's got to be some room in here, we have to provide some common sense. I understand that there's a lot of things that I don't know about some of the process, but that's exactly why we're here is to find a way that we can do it safe. We can take care of the the public safety concerns, but also take care of some of the needs that are out there and an applicant that's trying to do I think their due diligence and do the right thing. That's what I got. Thank you.

Commissioner Hampton.

Board of Board municipalities. So with city government Directors commissions, a lot of things even though we're here to listen and to support and to make suggestions and to advocate, you know a lot of things that we can do are really mitigated by what legislation allows us to do. So you know just recently there have been a few proposals that have gone forth that you know our hands have been tied as a commission because of state mandates. This is one situation where I think and what's been lost in that translation is community voice. So even though community has come up with some great commentary and opinions and thoughts, know again we've been limited with what we can do based on legislative mandates.

This is a situation where again I appreciate all parties involved and what they put forth and I also appreciate those members of the community that actually reached out to me. So I appreciate their passion, their articulation, and this is a situation where I think we can validate that voice. And so again I appreciate all the dialogue that's taking place, but here's a situation I think as a commission where our hands are not tied by legislation. We can actually listen to our local community and those constituents and surely that's a broad brush stroke. But I have to tell you the majority of those that have come forward to me support this project.

And so I want to validate their voice and hoping to find some middle ground in some of the issues with safety as well as some of the other positions. But I want to validate their voice in saying they want to approve this versus having apartments. I just simply want to share I'm supportive of that community voice and wants to see these medium density proposals move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Hampton. Staff, is there to ask the

I'm

to to board.

To questions number of different factors. The first is that we looked at the scenario of what if we were to move forward with the short shallow driveways. And at first we were proposing conditions to make the internal streets private. But we noticed that there was an issue on property new that we a have. New property based off of the idea of private streets.

And so when we had the discussions with applicants about this, they were not interested in doing private streets on the internal. Which is why we settled on this issue of having a condition approval just requires broad compliance and allows for some future homebuilder to be able to solve the issue when there's more time provided. The action tonight includes three different recommendations, we bundled it into one recommendation, is general plan, the zoning, and the tentative map. If the commission decides that the tentative map needs more work, you can recommend that you don't think it's a good idea to approve it, but the zoning and the general plan could move forward. And if the city council decides to approve the general plan and the zoning, then the general plan would go into effect immediately and the zoning would have a second reading and then a thirty day and so at that point Anybody who's interested in coming with a tentative map would have to comply with that density.

That's at that. At that point in the future, so you're likely not going to see an apartment project because the range that's allowed within the residential medium that would be an effective is 8.1 to 14. This project is 13.52. So this is the upper limit of what that is. So if there is some concern about what if some apartment project comes down the line line, you're covered with the general plan and the zoning map amendment.

And you just say, you know what? No thanks. We'd like to see some other rendition later on down the road. The scenario of the private streets is something that the commission has authority to make modifications on. However, I don't we're confident that we'd be able to meet the city council hearing date that the applicant is wanting because that recommendation has to be brought back to staff.

We have to review, make sure that there aren't any other issues or any changes to the conditions of approval. And in some of those cases, maybe there might be more conditions that get added to it that would warrant coming back to the commission for consideration. There was a question about what if we looked to able And And do open space yard requirements or private yard requirements for the homes, that we're they have some other avenue to invest in the city that allows them to be able to satisfy those requirements. So that's part of the reason for the open space condition that the applicant mentioned during the presentation. If the commission is interested in going through multiple iterations, I know the applicant had stated we could on solutions for every single one of these items.

Then the commission has authority to say, you know what, we don't think that this is ready. We'd like for you to go back and make some revisions and then come back to us. That's something that's afforded to the commission too. But again, the applicant has indicated they want to get this thing moving forward a certain period of time. I'm not saying that we've looked at everything, but we have done what we could to be able to get this thing in front of the There was a claim against staff or not just generally about the city saying that you know there's a culture in city all that.

We don't want small houses. I don't know if that's true because you have a project like this that got submitted on November 7 and here are, you know, two months later with the general plan amendment and a zoning and a tentative map in front of the commission. I'd say that's a pretty good testament to us wanting to fast track these types of projects to be able to get you in front of a decision maker to be able to make a recommendation. So there's a bunch of avenues that are available for the commission. Our staff is here. You've heard from traffic, police, and fire about this particular issue. We've got a recommendation for the commission. Certainly if there's further discussion and deliberation, we're happy to answer any questions and help lead and guide.

Thanks. Then there's just a couple of things that I just want to make sure that everybody's clear on. So currently in front of us, streets, Crimson and Kevin, are currently public streets. And in the packet, also you mentioned it as well, like there was a time where you floated the idea of doing those as private streets, and that didn't move forward with the applicant, correct?

Correct. Those conditions were in discussion with the applicant, and they wanted those removed because they didn't want to entertain private streets for this development.

Okay. And the if a deviation is approved or is approved for the drive areas, does the city have the liability on something about deviating from a safety standard?

Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that. So risk is part of what this body assesses when you guys are making your determination on specifically on when an applicant is requesting deviations from city standards. So it's an option that we offer to the applicants that they can make their case and staff can make recommendations and this body can ultimately decide. What I would say from a risk and liability perspective from our office is that we evaluate each claim or potential issue that might create liability for the city on a case by case basis, so it's hard to say you know if we grant this deviation then we will see an uptick in cities claim liability by such and such percent. I think as you heard from PD will continue to enforce the laws and you know you may have to hear from us at a future date if that's impacting staffing levels or city spending a lot of extra money out in that neighborhood or something like that.

But I think it's difficult to forecast and you probably have all the best information that we have at this time.

Great, thank you. Do homeowners have to receive a property deviates from city standards when they purchase that? Is that part of?

City staff added a conditional approval for an HOA to be created and for a property manager to be created for management of those individual parcels. That they would be created those seven parcels that probably would be applicable to private street scenario. But right now there's no deviation that there's no disclosure about a deviation that would be required in the conditions for this project.

Got it. In your research, every representation that we received tonight of the shorter driveways, those were all private streets from your research?

Correct, yeah. We had done that research and I think that applicant's comment about maybe there's not a lot of uptick in calls for service or issues occurring from this scenario. And that may be accurate, but that's part of the reason why that's accurate or may be accurate is because this scenario does not occur anywhere in the city. We can isn't an obstruction.

And it the setbacks we talked about. But just to be clear, the current plan that is in front of us and a part of our approval right now, it does not include any it includes the short driveways on Burgundy, correct?

Correct.

So

I will say for the commission, the approval recommendation that includes that condition number seven that requires the driveways, subsequent submittals to say public works on a final map or maybe even a housing developer that comes in. If they fix the issue, they don't really have to come back to this commission. It allows them to be able to solve that problem without having to go back to the public hearing process. And so I think that the Burgundy Street example is just a perfect example of we're of do

that's

with those driveways on Burgundy. How much more can be solved if we stick to our guns about just making sure that the city stays safe? Maybe something greater can come up.

Thank you. Commissioner Banta.

Thank you.

My comments kind of echo the sentiment of Commissioner Hampton and Commissioner Dingmann on like, really we enjoyed it, I enjoyed this project, I really enjoyed the missing middle and I appreciate that. I hear the concerns of public safety. Like you said, it looks like the solution has almost already presented itself. I believe Commissioner Demon kind of asked like what are ways, what are avenues that we can make a recommendation to continue moving this along? And so correct me if I'm wrong, but what I heard almost sounded like it was going to slow it down more.

So how can we approve this to if that's the entire sentiment, how can we continue to approve this? Would it be with a modification of more conversation around the condition of seven approval, so not requiring that condition but modifying that as to have more conversation, is that an option? What are the options to continue moving this along but continuing to look at public safety?

Yeah, so just to use condition seven as an example, think it's probably the most pertinent here, what the commission could do is, because obviously we want the applicant's input and buy in on the ultimate condition, so the commission could recommend you know approval with the suggestion that staff applicant get back together before the council meeting that would keep it moving towards council and you know attempt to resolve any discrepancies in their approach to condition seven with commissions comments from this evening mind, and see if we can't get to something in that window between now and city council. If we can't, then I think we have this discussion again with city council. They've got the record of this body's thoughts, and then they can make the determination at that point. Thank you.

So here, here's my thoughts on that. So what I think is most important in particular parcel is the history that we've had here. I was a public is okay with because of what was presented to them before, they were not okay with. So what fellow commissioners like, so if we, with what's presented in front of us here tonight as with following staff recommendations, if we accomplish a couple of things. So the the tenant parcel map is we're recommending approval of that with the way that staff currently has it presented to us.

We're recommending the change from high density to medium density. We are acknowledging the deviations that staff seems acceptable. And the one that they are not acceptable with is the five foot driveway, right? So to me, when I see multiple city departments saying that this is not something we should do, whether it's our police department, our public works department, they're identifying a unsafe, our traffic department, unsafe condition. The way that I feel I should go about it, we should go about it is recognize that I'm not okay with that deviation.

I'm okay with the way that staff represented. It should be noted. But we really need to make a recommendation to counsel that when they're reviewing this item, that we've taken in all the public comment and the public's desire to have something other than high density apartments. And I think we're doing that. I think we're doing that. I think we're giving them the opportunity to address it further and decide if that's something that they want to take on. Commissioner Wilkerson?

Yes, thank

you so much for answering the don't want to see the city get back to a place

like that.

If we have neighbors that have sat down with the developer and we're able to have common ground, break bread it sounds like, and civil conversations, we the commission have to understand and recognize that. I understand city staff's point. I'm not here to do their job. Our job is to look at the process. Can we make certain recommendations community has told us that they're okay with and the developer has told us they're okay with.

To me, that's where I sit on this moment. It's a crazy place to me to see the community and the developer working together to be okay. That doesn't happen very often. That's a moment that I think we need to recognize, and we as a commission should internalize that to say, what can we do? What can we do to have this process move forward to get it to the finish line because someone does want to build homes, it sounds like, the very near future. And so to me, that's important. I'm not disregarding staff. I understand the process that you guys have a job to do, but I'm also listening to my community. And I'm also listening to a developer that said, we sat down. We don't wanna go back to where we were.

Nobody wants that. Developer has said, if this project doesn't pencil, we're going back to there. We'll be another s p three thirty. There'll be 400 people in this room, and we'll be getting yelled at again. I don't think anybody wants that. Period. Maybe there's a recommendation out there that someone wants to throw out and we could see.

Commissioner Vargas.

I was here long night if you're a Game of Thrones fan. And so we had several concerns that

were expressed

from teachers, administrators, citizens who live in that community. I live in that community, although my son goes to Markham. I drive through Cambridge and it's a madhouse. We're not here for the school issue. We get that.

But to go back possibility of apartments, which is I think what the commission is alluding to is going to be a hard pill to swallow for this community. I wonder if because I heard developers' comments, and I wonder if there's a common accord we can come to. For example, privatizing Crimson and Kevin and then extending Burgundy Street driveways also recognizing that apartments going in there is just going be an added stream. We have to come to some common accord. So I wonder if that's it.

And so looking at the developers and staff,

I don't know if that's possible yet. I'll throw it out there. Yes, Kevin and Crimson could be privatized, correct? In the plan in front of us, they're not. It's something the developer elected not to do. Clearly, apparently, the developer has presented to us that there is adequate room to make Burgundy meet standard. If they change Kevin and Crimson to private, they would be allowed to do this entire project like it is. That is what they we're are going

that. To going able

And

I we're

to that point and we recommend that the applicant and the staff get together. We move this thing forward, but staff and the applicant talk as this goes to counsel about a recommendation that they can bring to counsel that can address those issues since they weren't put into the briefing.

It seems like there's a way to get this done, but it's not in front of us right now. Sure.

The commission would continue deliberation. I might be able to draft something that would help put into words what the commission is thinking?

Commissioner Beaumont is sometimes fast, but we'll see. I'll get right back to you. Let me let me see.

What I'd like to propose is that a hybrid where we don't approve five foot driveways the whole way, but we approve 18 foot driveways on Burgundy and approve five foot driveways on Interior Street. Because it's an HOA, they can put up signs, they can do that as a hybrid. And the liability is a liability. This is a project that needs to go and for the missing middle as we say. I think it's reasonable to have that because it's an interior street.

The neighbors know each other. They know what the hazards are, and they can deal with that. But on Burgundy, it's a different story. That's my thought as what we should do. So and the city council can do what they have. I

need to ask it.

I actually have a comment for you that that may help with this. So what we can't do, and I don't think this is necessarily what you're saying, but the city can't require the developer to take on private streets. They can can ask that of us in exchange for, for example, deviation being rented for the five foot driveways, right? So in the examples you've seen here in town where they have the short driveways, my understanding is that those were approved as private streets or those little alleyways in between. So it's possible that there is a potential compromise.

It's not necessarily clear yet whether public works would support them as private So we can have those discussions if the applicant is not interested in private streets at all, then I think if the direction is to keep this moving forward, we will have that discussion, we will present that information to City Council. But we can with your guidance now from the dais, we can return to the applicants and say, are you open to private streets or not, have that kind of discussion.

Well, and my point being is what's in front of us right now doesn't include any private streets. But it seems like it could be feasible. But right now, I'm not prepared to make any sort of motion that says you need to pursue privatizing these streets. It's just that it seems like, as staff has said, if given some time, there are solutions that aren't in front of us. It is whether the type of units they're building, this is a medium density project that is something Albert, that

do you have a proposal for is that For a type of do? For type of Well, I mean, it sounded like he wanted he had a proposal for a recommendation that might meet that need.

This is really about condition number seven. But as the city attorney mentioned, privatization of streets is something that is asked by the city from an applicant or property owner. This scenario really works as a revision that's on the screen, provided that the applicant is in agreement about doing the private streets. I've got something for you, but it does stem on hearing back from the applicant for the project.

Hearing. Can we hear from the applicant?

What I

would say is to reopen the public hearing and then you can pose the question directly to the applicant. And then if you know, it's sort of like he's getting another bite at the apple, right? So if anybody else has additional comment they would like to make that doesn't replicate earlier comments, they would be allowed to do that.

So we have to open up to public comment to everybody, correct?

Yes. If anybody has something new and additional they would like to add as a result of the new comment from the developer, that would be the preference to allow additional public comment as well.

Is that what you want to do? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna Is everybody in agreeance with that? Sure. You sure?

Yeah. Okay.

So the way that I'm going to do it is I'll ask Commissioner Dingmann to pose this question to the developer. Okay. So I'll reopen public comment. Commissioner will make his request for the comment. And then we'll open it up to public comment. Anybody would like to speak on what was brought up in that specific comment and answer. Question Robert B. Is of is

first over from

ahead.

I'll turn

Albert a proposal recommendation

for it the motion to potentially. Albert, do want

it first?

The question should be asked if the applicant is agreeable to having privatized streets?

Perfect. Thank you, Albert. That's the question to the applicant.

The applicant is that question is is that can call him. I want to make of what I've heard everybody speak with. And the recommendation is a combination. I've heard some very, very smart things said tonight. One from our city attorney and about the hybrid.

We do a hybrid here. We have a new project. And the recommendation I'd like to make is that you approve this with the hybrid of burgundy being 18, the interior being public. And the I will commit to it. I'd love to sit down to a meeting with public works, with planning, with the police department, and with the fire department so we can create solutions to this issue for this new project.

That's what I would like to see completed tonight. Does that make sense? Any questions to that? Sorry, I didn't answer your question a 100% there, Albert. But no, we do not want private streets. Once again, it drives the cost up. Everything is cost that will eventually end up, and I live in a world of a spreadsheet. So, everything that that you do, public streets, private streets, all ends up on a spreadsheet and then it drives it up to where first home buyers cannot buy. We're trying to reach FHABA buyers, Travis buyers. We're right there in that route.

That's who we're trying to reach. But we're willing to work and try and make this thing work, I'm more than willing to sit down, but I'd like to have the whole crew at the table.

Thank you, sir. Yes, please approach the podium.

Thank you for opening up the public hearing. Okay. So so if you did privatize the streets, the cost of replacing that road, it would it could go over 1,000,000. So I'm in the Travis Unified School District, and Markley Lane the the initial be like, fine. I'm gonna go buy a McMahon mansion instead because basically gonna be the same cost because of the HOA.

But I'm in full agreement of changing the Burgundy Street. I love that. Thank you to the applicant for fixing that. My neighborhood want wants this over apartments. That's and I live right around the corner from it. I do prefer this, but I I grew up in a world of laws and and telling firms how to comply with the law. So I'm with you, Ralph. Like, it's so conflicting. But overall, is this better than the apartment in terms of hazards? Maybe.

Maybe it's around the same hazard because there's hazards with the apartments. But if if between now and city council, the applicant and the city can meet to think of every mitigating anything for that five foot driveway, that would be awesome. Thank you.

So just to comment on the cost of the HOAs. I have a unique understanding of several HOAs in the community that have built up the reserves that aren't being used. So I don't know if it's a pricing of how the HOA is done. I have no idea how that goes, but I know firsthand that a lot of them are using their funds as as needed, as proposed because rebuild or redoing the street for a longer time, just having a slurry seal is gonna help protect that over having to redo the whole streets. So there's a big development in this town that's trying to think about, well, how much is it gonna cost to to do the slurry seal?

Well, that slurry seal is gonna make it last another five to ten years. So is it costing upfront for the HOA? That's what's figured out. Or is it, actual cost? Because I'm seeing it that they're not actually spending that money, which means how much is really HOA fees gonna go up. I never even thought about the whole private streets. We didn't talk about this. We didn't have that discussion. But and I know that they're opposed to it. But it seems like the fixes that we talked about tonight work.

You know? And then didn't you say that we could support the two, you know, adjust the amendment, the the general plan amendment, the rezoning, and then not the, what's it called, the the plan. I don't I don't want to stop this process. I don't want three story townhouses. I don't want, you know, I don't want apartments again.

I don't want any that stuff. We want it to move forward. So I'm just trying to figure out how do we get this going and how do we know how we get this get this fixed because we don't want to lose this opportunity. And but I also don't wanna, you know, have to deal with well, I guess, I I like the idea of the industries being private and Burgundy being fixed. But so I'm gonna keep rambling. Thank you.

Thank you.

So to the point of HOAs, I've worked with developers and a lot of homeowners associations and set up plans. So to Mike's point about a little of a a little of bit of of a little bit you're waiting for that twenty year mark when you're gonna spend it all. So there is a real cost to private streets. The other thing that hasn't been talked about is the city public works department. If I understood it correctly, they're going to want a second water line in there for fire hydrants and and others outside of the typical design of a public street, which has a public water line, and they're all off of the same line.

So we're talking about some additional costs potentially, and I haven't clarified this yet with public works. But I think there's gonna need to be two water lines in there plus the the cost that has to be built up to a certain point when then you repair repair all those things. Now don't forget, the homeowners in there are still paying property taxes as though that street were public. So they're paying, in essence, twice for the street that's in front of their house because they're already paying property taxes that the city would normally do. So all we're talking about is semantics. What is it called? Private or public? And you made a point earlier about what are

the

design standards. Public works requires private streets like that. It's the same width. It's the same structural section as a public as a public street. It there is no difference between a public the design of the street in terms of thickness and width and all those criteria. Thank you.

I'll make it short. As a private citizen, I really appreciate the commission's, due diligence and the staff's due diligence. Also, the developers' due diligence as well. I would caution the commission though, as you talk about the next three developments on your agenda tonight, if I'm a developer, I'm gonna be listening to the output of this meeting and what the city council decides and revising my plans accordingly. I caution you against the precedent that you set, not just for this development but future developments as well. Thank you.

Any other?

If I may, thank you chair. I would just like to reiterate that staff did meet multiple times with the developer to brainstorm possible solutions to this deviation. It is our job when we are required to review projects compliance with our code. And so we don't really have that flexibility to say, sure, we will accept this deviation for this or that. We also discussed with them the requirement of making these streets private. As you heard, that was not amenable to the applicant. But we're more than happy, per your recommendation, if you would like for us to speak with the developer and try to find other ways to brainstorm with all of the representative departments to see if we can find other options that they can bring to the table share with the decision makers.

Thank you. I'm gonna now close public comment. So, and we'll

make a motion.

Okay. Does anybody have prior to making a motion, anybody have anything to add to the session? Commissioner Dingmann.

All right. I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to recommendation for the applicant to meet with staff for further preparation and discussion for the council meeting so we can keep this thing moving, where they can talk about financial costs, the private versus public. I know you've had a discussion on that already. But if you decide to bring a different recommendation to counsel, my motion here is going to be for this to be public on the interior also. Okay, if you guys want to bring a different recommendation that is okay.

But I want to keep this thing moving and I think it's important to push this motion with an approval towards council. If there's something or you find out something different because this is a new plan, we take it from there. So I know that's a lot of words, but I want to get this moving. Go ahead, John. There we

go. So

what I'm hearing, I and I don't want to put words in your mouth, me know if I'm hearing you right, Is discretion for staff to have that conversation on that particular deviation. Otherwise, everything is approved as recommended. But it is okay, and this is the vote that you will take. It is okay with the commission if the condition, let's say, seven that goes to council looks different than what you guys have seen here tonight? Or would this body prefer that we come back to them for specific yes or no before it moves on? I think you could direct staff either way.

I would like to make the motion with a deviation and that being okay to take forward to council.

With the hybrid?

Yeah, with the hybrid as we spoke.

With public streets? Correct. I'll second.

Okay. So just to get it right. So I have a motion from commissioner Damon to approve. So can we can we get the Albert's picking up before us.

Making you earn your money, Albert. Thank you.

Real time. Real time. Is not 60. Can we get the original motion up there too? So, okay, first let's review this. Sorry. First, let's review the recommendation. Does this meet your does this meet the recommendation that you're requesting? Yeah. But this is going to go in conjunction with the original recommendation.

I'm gonna make you read up this too.

So the recommendation on the top is the original one from staff, which requires them to comply with that 18 foot front yard setback. Then the commission's recommendation from commissioner Deenman tonight is the one on the bottom. So that's the motion that's been put in front of the commission. It would require a second, unless I didn't missed a second.

All right. You guys, we have a second. And then do you want the original recommendation read as well?

So procedurally, well, okay, I think two things. Number one is everyone's understanding this encompasses all of the pieces of this item to the resolution on the CEQA and all the pieces of it. And then I guess what I would say is the motion that's been made and seconded is, I'll just say option two up there on the slide. If there's interest in also having a vote on option one, then what I would ask is somebody make that motion, second it, then we would take them in reverse.

So right now, all I have is a motion and second for item number two. And I'm fine with proceeding Does with the motion item number two also include the original recommendation text as an adopted resolution of the city of Backville, Council considering the self hold that?

Yes. My understanding is it would be everything except for that change on the driveway specifically. So if that is the intent, it looks like it is, that's the intent of the seconder, then I you can move forward with that vote.

Do you want that write off?

And it would have everything included in the recommendations with that one change.

Okay. So from here, we're ready for a local vote.

Commissioner Bacchus?

Yes.

Commissioner Banta? Commissioner Vermont?

Yes.

Commissioner Dingman? Yes. Commissioner Hampton? Chair Wilkerson? Yes. Chair Lightfoot?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay. Thank you all very much. If everybody is okay, I'm ready to just go right on into the next one.

Sure.

Yep.

May I take a break? I've got the next item also.

Just a second.

We'll we'll take a ten minute recess.

Thank you.

We're gonna bring the meeting back to order. So next we'll move on to item 7B. Is a public hearing to receive a presentation on the battery energy storage systems best ordinance. We'll first hear a presentation by staff followed by commissioner questions, and then we'll open it up to public comment. Anybody no. Please, staff, please proceed.

Good evening, Chair. Planning commission. Item before you tonight is the battery energy storage systems ordinance. This is a request for the planning commission to give a recommendation that the city council introduce and adopt the draft ordinance for best facilities within the city of Akita. This background, I'll just briefly cover over it.

It started in 2018 with SB100 and really we've had a sequence of events occur over the past six, seven years of activity that's been going on. The culmination of this is what we're observing is that the state needs to try and find ways to make renewable energy happen within the state. And battery energy storage systems is one of those ways that they're looking at. And they created a separate system the California Energy Commission to go through that and approve new power plants. And so we're finding ourselves without an ordinance that's that state process doesn't have to refer to any of our standards.

So really this is coming up of us being able to create standards that allow for if any project were proposed within our state limits, we have protection for those scenarios. And then if a application does go to the CEC for their process, that we have standards in place that they have to consider whether or not they comply with those standards. That's really what's before the commission tonight. All the history that's in the background is a culmination of where we've gotten to. For the commission, I'm sure you're familiar with our study session that we held in November where we were discussing with battery energy storage systems.

We also helped them with city council briefly talk about what their comments were as part of this public hearing. Some of those other applications are already on the books for the California Energy Commission include the Cal Peak, McA Dickson substation Middle River, and then the Corby Bess Kilkenny Burns Road project. Those are a couple of battery energy storage systems that are already on the docket that the California Energy Commission is reviewing right now. So this ordinance and the adoption of that ordinance is imperative to make sure that we have those standards in place once they get through that or they start going through that process. Since our last item before the commission where we had that study session, some new information became available.

And this is a technology that occurred where the city had originally contracted in January 2024 with Larson and Tubro. What we were looking for was analysis of how the city could maybe do energy, our own energy feasibility. How could we create our energy to help save on cost. That's really what that study was originally commissioned for. We modified that scope once battery energy storage systems became popular and became a big news.

That scope was amended May 24 to really include an assessment about battery energy storage technology in that assessment. We recently just received this report in December about that assessment. Really there were two main findings that we identified in the staff report, which confirms our initial concern and confirms what city council was saying about this, is broadly you'll find that there are two commercially relevant technologies that are out there. One of them is ion, lithium ion phosphate and nickel manganese cobalt. And then there's also this vanadium redox flow batteries.

And so what we found was those are the two most relevant technologies that are out there. Although this lithium ion technology is widely deployed, it is prone to thermal runaway. And this other battery, vanadium redox, it's an emerging non flammable alternative. And really what this is trying to convey to the commission as well as the council is lithium ion isn't the only way to go. There are other technologies that are out there.

And so what this led to was some changes to our ordinance based off of public feedback, based off of city council feedback, And the conclusion from this report that's included in the staff report is that there's safer technology that's available out there. So we had that planning commission study session last year where we received the public comment ers provided feedback. In our study session with city council, we also received public comment and council gave some direction. What they directed us to do was permit any chemistry that has that volatility of thermal runaway. It's They also provided some feedback about the proximity to the town of Elmira that they didn't want to burden that town with any more issues that they've been experiencing over the years.

So there were really two sites that were out there that we had mentioned as part of the suitability analysis during that study session. It was at Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant and then the Brighton Landing parcel. I'll refer to it as E95. It's an eastern parcel that's 95 acres. And so what city council identified was that there's just too much risk to site a battery energy storage system next to that, our facility.

And that we just cannot deal with the potential of there being a fire and having to close down a major facility that is necessary for treating wastewater treatment. It's also land that's necessary for potential future expansion. Ultimately we feel comfortable with the idea of there being no battery energy storage system on the site because it is city owned land and we have the ultimate say about what goes on city owned land. The other Brighton Landing parcel, we had spoken with the property owner about that site and they have no intention of doing it using battery energy storage systems on that site. They really intend for residential development when the time is right.

So those are some of the recent developments that have occurred since our last time with the study session. So we'll get into the ordinance. This is a revisit of that framework about the definitions and planning standards, development standards, permitting process, well as public benefit agreement criteria, commissioning and decommissioning. As a reminder, this is generally modeled off of Solano County ordinance. And here's where the changes are primarily identified since the last time the commission saw this ordinance.

We've added in our definitions and applicability of prohibition on lithium ion battery chemistry. Just not allowed. Land use and citing standards, we increased the buffer from 300 feet to 500 feet for sensitive uses and we'll go through a more narrow suitability analysis about the one remaining site that we identified. Our ordinance considerations for development standards as well as the permitting process remain unchanged. Ordinance considerations for the public benefit criteria remain unchanged.

Really the biggest change after those other previous sections comes in the commissioning and decommissioning. We bolstered the financial assurance because we had heard back from city council what assurances do we have when somebody starts this project and then they just take a hike. Have bankruptcy issues or whatever. So ordinance requires them to provide bonding assurances to the city so that way if there is an issue that we have the money with those bonds to be able to clean up the site. The same thing happens for decommissioning.

If there's a site that's been completed, running and they can't get rid of it, we also have those bonds on hand that would allow the city to deal with the process of getting rid of a facility that is a bit of a hazard or if there's an issue. One other thing I wanted to add in there, city staff drafted a memo and published it after the report and it was because we received a very helpful comment from an interested person about our tier three definition and really the concern was that this tier three definition was going to be too narrow to where if you get a facility that was larger than 200 memo in front of the commission includes a revision to this particular section in definitions. Really we're just asking the commission to strike the language in front of the commission on the screen that's highlighted in yellow from that definition and we feel that that's going to allow the city to be able to say anything that any battery energy storage system that is greater than 600 kilowatts per hour would be defined as a tier three facility. So the suitability analysis we had gone through this exercise at the last planning commission where we had run through scenarios of what other remaining sites occur.

If you apply 100 foot buffer, if you omit developed land or other unsuitable land like hillside areas, if you omit the Northeast growth area because we don't want it to be eligible until there's a specific plan shows how development occurs. And then other future known developments such as the East Of Leisure Town growth area. On the screen in front of you is we wanted to identify that Easterly wastewater treatment plans and that E95 parcel. There's a red X through because we've rolled out those sites would work and that's directly consistent with city council. But there is one other site that's left on the docket that would be unaffected once you increase that buffer to 500 feet.

And that's the city's former Gibson waste water treatment plant. That site is 52.4 acres. It's city owned. And so we are going to run through a couple of a few different scenarios with the commission. What happens if you apply a 300 foot, 500 foot and 700 foot buffer away those sensitive uses?

So this first scenario looks at that site. If you apply a 300 foot buffer, you really have 42 acres that would be remaining. But if we increase that buffer to 500 feet, that brings it down to 33 acres. And if you increase it to 700, you still have 20 acres remaining of city owned land that could possibly accommodate a better energy storage system. And so our observation is that one, it's city owned, so it allows the city council to decide whether or not to allow the best on that site, which requires separate public hearing and outreach process.

We think that it's additional coverage is provided because we're now prohibiting lithium ion batteries that have the greatest impact for thermal runaway. And that increases safety considerations. The site still contains significant land with an increase of 500 foot buffer. And the site still holds value for those other non volatile battery chemistries that are out there. And so what we're saying is don't change the ordinance to prohibit any development on that.

Just leave it open so that way the city council at some point future could decide if council wants to. Only public hearings, public outreach, or battery energy storage system. That isn't volatile. And just allow the city council to decide for the future. For reference, the Middle River project that was submitted to the CC, that's a best project that's on nine acres.

And so if we've got a nine acre best project, it's possible accommodate something on this side but again, city owned property would be subject to city council review. We also stopped off at the Solano Airport Land Use Commission. This one is required to be reviewed by that commission because it's a zoning ordinance and it's also located in Zone E and the ordinance affects properties that are located in zoning of the Travis Air Force compatibility plan. They heard the ordinance, reviewed it, liked it, found it consistent with the compatibility plan and we got the recommendation included with this. Here's the public outreach that we've done for the project.

Just reiterating our activity that's going on. There's more public hearings to be had with the city council. That would be the next one. The comments just to reiterate are there's concerns about thermal runaway, potential impacts toxic from toxic gas, and proximity to other sensitive uses that we've heard. This project subject to the California Environmental Quality Act.

We find that under common sense exemption. CEQUA that the ordinance, the creation ordinance is just exempt from environmental review because the creation of standards protects the city doesn't actually approve an impact on the environment. Subsequent projects that would be coming into the city limits, they would be subject to that California Environmental Quality Act to make sure that they're being consistent in disclosing all those potential impacts onto the environment. And then just a refresher on the milestones of where we've been, where we're going. And so with that, I'd like to end with staff's recommendation for the commission.

Is by simple motion recommend that the city council would adopt the resolution and introduce the ordinance. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Do we have any commission questions? Vice Chair Wilkerson.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Albert. The staff have an update on the actual three projects right now from the CEC, Middle River, Corby, or CalPig?

Just that, to our knowledge, those projects have not been deemed complete by

the

CEC. One of them, I think, has published a notice of preparation that they plan to start the environmental review process. On the Middle River one, I don't think that it's gotten any farther than just the application submittal, considering that it was submitted on the sixteenth.

The hope is that

this ordinance is in place before

at least one project is deemed complete, right? And then maybe the CEC takes some consideration?

We intend to notify the CC about this ordinance to help solicit that connection between the projects and the city to make sure that we're at least being considered, even for those ones that may have been deemed complete.

Have they been receptive to comment from the city Iowa? The CEC specifically?

I don't have any correspondence from them indicating that they are acknowledging of this one being spent. There's still more communications to occur.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Beaumont.

Thank you, Albert. I appreciate it. I do have one question on right under table one. It says that energy storage with little to no thermal safety concerns doesn't say none. And then it says water based electrolyte characteristics nearly eliminate. It doesn't say does eliminate. So my question is why does it say that it does have no significant effect on the environment period? I just wonder can we make that statement?

The commissioner could pinpoint exactly what page on the report?

Under environmental impacts, page three zero six, it says since there is no possibility that the addition of regulations for VES facilities to the VMC may have a significant effect on the environment. I'm just questioning when it says will not have any effect on the environment, can we be that specific with everything?

Yes, because we're creating regulations. The adoption of regulations does not approve It doesn't create an impact or change in the environment. What it does do is it requires a project that decides to go to the CC or maybe even submits an application to the city itself. It requires those projects to have to go through the California Environmental Quality Act and maybe even conduct environmental impact report. So the creation of regulations in itself, it doesn't affect or create a physical change on the environment. And that's the why we're saying that it would qualify for that common sense exemption.

Okay, thank you. Director Garcia, do have a comment?

I was basically going to reiterate what Albert shared. The before you is the ordinance that is not binding the city to actually allow for the construction of a facility. So that's why it's exempt from CEQA. Do

we have any other questions for staff? Okay. So seeing none, I'm going open up public comments. Anybody would like to speak on this item, please approach the podium. You have three minutes to speak.

Hello, I'm Wendy Brecken. I wanted to thank everybody for all the hard work on this ordinance. I think it's really good that city of Vacaville voices its opinion on we don't we want to keep Vacaville safe, and that includes no lithium ion. I do have a concern in the ordinance that and I don't know if this is a legal question. In the definition of, BESS, in the ordinance, it it includes excluding lithium lithium ion from the definition of BES.

So later on, you're if you have a BES, you you want to apply for a conditional use permit for a BES. If you are not lithium ion, then you're not a BES. So maybe you can apply for a conditional use permit under maybe a utility or something else, but not a BES. That's kind of the way I read it if I'm gonna be critical, I guess. But I maybe others wouldn't read it that way.

But I was just thinking maybe it shouldn't be included in the definition because then you later on exclude lithium ion from, you know, like saying that no best can include lithium ion. You say it a number of times. So that's my only comment, but thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. First, I want to acknowledge that the revised ordinance is significantly better than the one that you had originally received. It reflects not only the residents views, but also directives from our city council and the residents. This has been a time consuming yet thoughtful and necessary endeavor for the residents and the city, but one that we feel is probably near completion. That progress deserves recognition.

That said, however, I do want to raise some concerns that I believe need some clarification. First, the ordinance prohibits lithium ion technologies for tier two and tier three systems, yet it still requires a hazard mitigation analysis for lithium ion BES. But if lithium ion is not permitted, why is the ordinance requiring a study for it? Does this create confusion and ambiguity that may be exploited by a developer believing that the door is still open for a lithium ion project? Second, the ordinance imposes financial consequences specifically for thermal runaway events.

Events overwhelmingly associated with lithium ion systems, which again are not allowed. More importantly, the ordinance seems to be a little light on financial responsibility for other types of accidental or incidental discharges into air, soil, or water, risks that exist with other battery chemistries. There's probably no, quote, unquote, industrial scale public utility grade storage solution without some kind of risk. Shouldn't accountability extend to any hazardous release regardless of the chemistry? Third, the ordinance requires neighborhood notification during the preliminary application process, but it does not define what that means in terms of a perimeter of interest.

Is notification measured in blocks, feet, miles? Is there a city standard that should be referenced? Without clear definition, this feels arbitrary and subject to either the developers or the city planners to decide. Subjective assessments may either by either the developers or city staff could minimize outreach, thus leaving nearby citizens uninformed about projects that may directly affect them. In summary, this ordinance is much stronger than the original draft, yet with some additional revisions, we can

number directors members of the board. Commission. Thank you, for the

presentation that in and the updated version of the battery energy storage system ordinance. I wanna extend my full support for this ordinance. This is a balanced innovative approach. It allows, the priorities prioritizes the safety of our residents and businesses while keeping Vacaville at the forefront of energy storage technology. The public and the council have made it clear that lithium ion batteries in these systems pose an unacceptable risk of thermal runaway, and this ordinance listens to those concerns.

By banning lithium ion in the city limits and only allowing safer battery types battery types, we're choosing innovation without compromise on safety. And we're setting a standard for the city to enforce and try to enforce within the framework of the state applications. The city's ordinance doesn't say no to best, but it says yes to doing it responsibly. And there are many other types of batteries as mentioned for doing these kind of projects. Some that weren't mentioned on the presentation would be other types of flow batteries, iron air, zinc air, and others that are coming up and emerging.

And many of them don't pose the same risks, and these are the batteries of the future. These are actually long duration storage that can power longer duration of energy. Lithium ion only powers four hours when these other types can power up to a hundred hours. So I really feel like lithium ion is gonna be something of the past. So I feel the the ordinance is kind of innovative in that in that way.

This ordinance provides a clear path for developers while ensuring those high risk systems stay away from our sensitive receptors, our residential school and hospitals. If a developer insists on using the lithium ion technology, there are 39 viable locations already identified and zoned in that specific use in the county. And these are in remote industrial zones away from populated areas. And finally, this version of the ordinance is built with significant protections to shield our city and its residents from liability and harm. It

is

a common sense approach that balances the energy needs with the fundamental duty to protect public safety. And I ask you to approve this ordinance as written, and let's make Vacaville a leader in safe, smart energy. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Are there any other public comment?

I thank you. Let me see Pam Beringer and I am with keep Vacaville safe. Sarah Dunn, she's just the best. But in any case, lithium ion is the biggest the biggest word here today. Lithium ion.

If we could get rid of lithium ion, the way it's mined by children, I mean, it's it's just not safe. I know that some of these companies have their deadlines and they have things that are that have already been all set up. And I'm sorry that they jumped the gun on all of that. But but I do think Vacaville safety, safety of your residents is what's more important here. And lithium ion is not safe. And there's new technology, and I really, really pray that you all will ban send the recommendation to ban lithium ion. Thank Thank you.

Mike Geller, I live on Kilkenny Road and I was here December and suggested that you increase the setback, which was then 300 feet. And you've done that to 500 feet. And the second thing was, of course, no lithium ion batteries. And you've done that. So I want to give my whole hearted support to the council or the planning commission and to the staff for what they've done. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi. Alicia Minion again. I was and and I'm sorry. I didn't read the the proposed ordinance word for word, but I I wanted to get some more clarity on the disclosure requirements. And one of the things that I thought was interesting with regard to the Corby project is that the owner of the ag land entered into a purchase option agreement in 2018 with NextEra.

And so it would have been nice to know as early as possible the intent of an energy company coming in to put in a lithium ion battery project. And then in 2022, NextEra was communicating with Marin Clean Energy, which is a community choice aggregator that has a contract for the COR B project. And so we were just all everybody left in the dark. And so I I was wondering, we require that when an energy company goes to CAISO to get interconnection approval, can we mandate them to notify the city? Additionally, the ag owner also sought transmission line easement that was actually recorded.

That would have been I think we need to require that when there's a transmission line easement that the city be notified. And so I mean, that way we know as soon as possible. And the other thing is I made a record request to Marine Clean Energy who provided a list of available stand alone lithium ion battery projects within the state. There are more planned that are available currently in Solano County. NextEra has two additional ones.

One's 300 megawatts. One's 400 megawatts. And then Menard Energy has three. And next slide.

Back

the 19. Be

very much. Are there any other public comment?

Hi. Good evening, everyone. My name is Rose. I've lived here for twenty one years. The people of Vacaville understand the importance of energy storage, but what we are opposed to is putting our lives at risk with these, lithium ion lithium ion batteries. We don't wanna end up with, lung cancer. We don't wanna end up dying from any type of cancer. We don't want our agricultural land to be contaminated. We don't want our water to be contaminated. So what we're asking is to support us in requiring a safer source so that we can achieve the goal of energy storage without putting our lives in danger.

And that's what this ordinance does, and I am in support of it. So please approve it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I meant to say at the beginning, but I really appreciate you all staying here this evening and giving your comments. I mean, it was a ride, but I appreciate you being here. So I'll now close public comment. Commissioner or Vice Chair Wilkerson. Thank you so much for the

public comment. To address a couple of those comments, the second gentleman spoke about notification and how the radius is. But doesn't the city have a log of everyone? I think when this issue first came up, you could go to the city's website and request information. Is there a way that you could use that log to then blast out to everyone who's asked that question or are we already doing that?

We do have a log of that's interested in the project that has submitted a comment. I will say that the reason why you don't see anything specific in this ordinance is because we do have city council in 2020 adopted a public outreach strategy that identifies small, medium and large scale projects where you're holding community meetings for the types of large scale like these best projects. If people aren't getting it in the email, they're seeing it on the website, they're seeing a social media blurb about these types of projects. And we're holding community meetings if something were to be proposed.

Thank you for that point. Think it's just clearly this is a hot topic and a

big issue. So the more we can do as a city, I

think the better. So I think yes, because not everybody can make us two meeting when most of us are working. It's two to six. Yeah, okay, I get it. Or not everybody can make the seven to nine because of family obligations. So I think if there was just a way that we could continue to communicate to the constituents who can't make would be a really good point. I want to make that on the record. I understand the frustration we have with local control in the state. To your point earlier, we just had another item where after years we had a developer in the city and constituents actually be able to sit down and talk and work something out.

And so I think we're, quote me, two and a

half years, four years into this process. Constituents are trying to reach out. Would be nice to see if there's a way that we had on the previous item, we could have that on this item. Just maybe throw that out there. And then the, Ms. Middard, to your point regarding Casio and stuff like that, are there city staffers who have lobbyists or interface with it's their job to be in touch with them to have that relationship to get that information? Because clearly that's an issue, right? Like we're playing catch up. And we're not even playing catch up. We're it's a whole other game.

And so to your point, I believe I've seen the city have lobbyists before. I believe I've seen the city hire a company to do research and stuff like that. Would it be amendable for the city to think about that, to say, hey, you know what, we've got to get in this game too. We can't just continue to see something in 2018 and it's 2026. What can we do and what laws can we follow to where every January we get an update of the new laws in the state of California, what is the city doing to proactively be part of that process? In my association, we're doing that. So I'm just curious, is there a way for the city to do that? It sounds like that's what the constituents are asking us to do. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Vice Chair Wilkerson. Commissioner Vargas?

Thank you for the public comment. It's always a treat to hear folks come up and speak and advocate on behalf of the city. Albert, thank you for the presentation. I think you jotted down some questions, and I don't know if you have any

responses to said questions. That would be

great if you could answer those.

Yeah, the first question was about the definition about lithium ion batteries and whether or not it was enough to really say that. On page three nineteen of the Stafford boards, under fourteen oh nine two seven one zero one zero C, it's about three quarters of the way down. There's a of Akko. I believe that addresses entirely. There was a comment about why are there standards being adopted for lithium ion battery when we aren't allowing them?

And the reason why is because if there is a project going through the CEC that does include lithium ion, that we have standards that deal with those types of applications that we're not left with nothing. There was a question about what happens if there is an accidental there is an accident or if there is any remediation. I would point to page three twenty seven of your staff reports. We have a section in there and that is under F for financial insurance plans, including liability insurance that includes coverage of thermal runaway events and other hazardous incidents, pollution and other environmental damages, decommissioning bonds, battery cell manufacturing responsibility agreement, an agreement the city of Acton and all emergency response agencies in the event of an incident associated with the best facility which causes environmental damage or causes injury to persons or property. Insurance shall address all phases of construction development.

Then it just keeps going on. So really that financial assurances. It's got to cover everything. Remediation plans and all that. We mentioned about the notification strategy. We already have one on the books. It's been adopted under resolution by city council that we would follow. To my knowledge, the only way that we can require a private property owner to provide disclosures to the city is when we have an agreement with those private property owners. So development agreements typically include disclosure requirements where you sell that property, got to notify the city within thirty days. We don't have that authority to be able to have private property owners.

We don't have an agreement with to require them to provide disclosures. And then there was a question about how are we measuring megawatts per hour? Are we measuring the right thing? On page three twenty one, the tier definitions say an aggregate energy capacity. So it doesn't matter if it's one side and they're separating it outside.

Combined together is how we measure it. So if tier three, six hundred and up. So that's the way that it's measured. And then on Commissioner Wilkerson, I'll have to get back to you on the lobbyist question.

Are there any other questions? Ms. I

can provide a little more color on that. So the city is, I think, in process of adopting its legislative platform overall. So that's one avenue through which this might be a priority in that platform, I think we can share that with council, certainly. The city does work with Cal cities and their lobbying team, so that's always an option that's available. We can speak with council, manager about using the resources that we already kind of pay for our contracts with Cal cities for. And hopefully that addresses your question. We also will continue to try to bring legal updates from the state as they come so you guys can get those in in real time as much as possible.

Thank you very much. Not to prolong any further, but the measuring about cost of cost system is applied to and how they measure of the megawatts. So whether it's distribution line or total capacity or anything like that.