Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I will call the regular planning commission meeting of Tuesday, 03/18/2025 to order, and I will ask the clerk to call roll, please. Good evening, planning commissioners. Chair Ruddin? Here. Vice chair Lightfoot? Here. Commissioner Klein? McClain? Bacchus.

Here.

Levanta. Thank you. Everyone, please stand for the pledge of allegiance, and I will ask commissioner Wilkerson to please lead us in the salute up to the flag. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We will now move on with regular business, starting with communications.

At this time, I will ask Director Morris if there is any communications or announcements for this evening's meeting.

Thank you, Chair Redeem. We had one item of supplemental communication for our public hearing this evening and that was emailed to the Commission and is available to the public on our website. Our staff will touch on that during their presentation. Was the only thing, and That no changes to the agenda. Great, thank you.

We will move on to the approval of this evening's agenda. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda?

So move. I'll second.

I have a

motion by Commissioner Wilkerson and a second by Moving right along, the next item is business from the floor. This portion of the agenda is available to the public to address the Planning Commission on any issue that is not on this evening's agenda. There will be a limit of three minutes per speaker. I welcome anyone who wishes to address the Commission regarding a topic or issue that is not on the agenda this evening to please approach the podium. Okay.

I will close public comment. Now it's time for consent calendar. We have one item on consent, are the minutes from the 02/18/2024 meeting, excuse me, 2025 meeting. Does anyone from the commission or the public wish to pull the consent item for discussion? Okay, looks like a no. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar? So moved. Motion by commissioner Solderson and a second by commissioner Vargas. May we please have a roll call vote? Mr. Vargas?

Yes. Mr. Vargas? Yes.

Chair Lightfoot?

Yes.

Chair Ruddin? Yes. All right, now we will move on to our public hearing this evening, which is to receive a presentation on the McMurray Creek Estates DEIR study session. We will first share a presentation by staff, followed by commissioner questions, then I will open it up for public comment, and then bring it back to the commission to deliberate. May we please have the staff's presentation?

Hi, good evening Chair, Vice Chair, members of the Planning Commission, and the public. This evening I will be presenting the McMurtry Creek Estates Subdivision Draft Environmental Impact Report Public Review. My name is Eileen Lee, Assistant Planner at the Community Development Department. Thank you. This evening's request is to hold a public hearing regarding the McMurtry Creek Estate Subdivision draft Environmental Impact Report, otherwise known as DEIR, and accept any comments on the document.

To the right of the screen is the project site highlighted in black and is located North of Preserve Lane in Solano County. To provide some background, the McMurtry Creek Estates Subdivision consists of a proposal of 34.33 acre site that is currently located in unincorporated Solano County, which is located North of Preserve Lane and West of Whitestone Court. The request of the project scope is to subdivide to create two parcels, Parcel A, which would be 15.73 acres in size and Parcel B which would be 18.6 acres and would remain in Solano County. Parcel A consists of a 20 lot custom home residential subdivision that would designate with open space areas. The project would include environmental review, annexation, pre zoning for residential estates, general plan amendment, a zoning map amendment, and a tentative subdivision map.

To provide some background, on 05/28/2019, the City Council initiated a general plan amendment for McMurtry Creek. In 12/19/2019, the City issued a preliminary comments letter for the McMurtry Creek Estates. And on 08/07/2021, a formal planning application was submitted for McMurtry, and on 08/01/2023, the city executed a environmental contract with LSA Associates to provide preparation for the draft environmental documents. Located on the screen, highlighted in blue, is the existing conditions of the project site. Currently in Solano County limits, the project is currently vacant with native grasslands, a seasonal stock pond, and a few accessory structures for barns.

Located here on the screen is the subdivision layout that is proposed for McMurtry Creek, which would include a new multi use path to Whitestone Court in a emergency vehicle access route connecting from McMurtry Lane, surrounding the perimeter of the project, and connecting to the Whitestone Court area. Primary access for the subdivision would be an extension of Preserve Lane into Preserve Court. For this project, environmental review is necessary and needed to be compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act, otherwise known as CEQA. The reason for this environmental review is to disclose any impacts, identify alternatives, and avoid or mitigate potential impacts to the environment. For this project, the CEQA document was determined to be an environmental impact report as consistent with CEQA section 15,081.

The few topics at hand for the staff issued a notice of preparation for the DEIR on 05/24/2024, and held a scoping meeting for the project on 06/13/2024. And on 03/06/2020 city published a draft EIR, which includes a forty five day review period, which is concurrently going on, which will close on 04/21/2025. As part of the draft environmental impact review, the items that were presented as presenting less than significant impacts would be environmental assessment of biological resources and cultural resources, noise impacts, and land use and planning. Described in the DEIR are significant and unavoidable impacts to transportation and traffic, more specifically vehicles miles traveled or VMT. For next steps on this project, staff is continuing to collect written public feedback until 04/21/2025 and preparing the final EIR with responses to comments once that public comment period closes.

Staff is then looking to prepare and finalize conditions of approval for the project and any design items that may need to be addressed. And with this, staff is seeking to schedule three public hearings for project actions for McMurtry Creek Estates, which include: one, an Airport and Land Use Commission public hearing, otherwise known as ALUC, as an advisory body for the project. Then, the project would be scheduled for a Planning Commission public hearing to be a recommending body for the project action. And lastly, the project would be scheduled for a city council public hearing for the final decision on the McMurtry Creek Estates project. To conclude, this is my presentation.

For any questions or comments, we are here and open to answer. Please note that as per the communication with the presentation and the public item at hand. The applicant will not be available to answer any comments or questions at this evening's meeting. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. I would like to correct myself because I said McMurdy, and it's McMurtry. Me. Now we would do ex parte.

You could do it now, or you could wait till after public comment. It's really up to you.

Okay. I'll just do it now. Do we have any ex parte communication?

Yes.

Spoke with the applicant today. I didn't learn anything new, but I didn't have a conversation with Tom Felipe.

Thank you. I as well had a conversation with Tom Felipe. I haven't learned anything new.

I have no ex parte communication report.

Okay. Great. Thank you. So moving on from there, do we have any commissioner questions?

I have none. Alright.

Well then moving right along. Okay. Moving along, I will open it up for to receive public comment. There will be three minutes allowed. Do we have any public comment? No? Okay. I will close public comment and bring it back for deliberation. Who'd like to who'd like to go first?

None? I'll go.

Okay. Commissioner Wilkerson.

Couple couple of questions. Can you go back to the map of just either the area? I think it was slide two or three. I just have a project. In the in the green area where it says project site to the right of that or any of this area, was any of that affected by the LME fire?

I don't know.

Okay.

Just looking at the fire access road and and what that would be able to help with the neighborhood regarding, you know, fires. Obviously, I'm pretty sure it did, but I'm not 100% certain. But so I like that there's gonna be a buffer, and I like that there is going to be the fire access road to allow some more safety measures for the neighborhood. So what I would I I really appreciate that. When was this project when was the Cheyenne project first approved by city council?

Early two thousands.

Okay. Was this a part was this area in these homes, was that a part of their original plan?

This particular project? No. It was not.

And was this area part of the the plan, though? Was there anything like this out there?

No. Nothing was approved.

Just curious because I sat in on the town hall to where people were talking about they weren't informed. You know, we get that a lot with people saying, hey, we don't know. We didn't we weren't told about this or the developer didn't tell us. And so I just wanted to know the process of of when that happened. Pfizer only one way in on Preserved Lane? Why would there not be a way in on Whitestone for for cars and residents?

Sure. And and I I think we're diving into questions about project design, which will be covered as part of the future planning commission. What I think might be helpful for the conversation is you mentioned the LNU complex fire. One of the interesting things that has come out of that scenario is the analysis of how projects are gonna be how be impacted by potential wildfires. And in this environmental document one of the things that was covered with the transportation was evacuation analysis to see whether or not it was going to impact or exacerbate existing conditions.

This environmental document does cover that aspect. Another aspect is required construction improvements that are going to be needed for those future homes. They'll need to comply with the California Fire Code and additional improvements that are within wildfire areas. But one of the key features about the design that we'll cover in a future Planning Commission meeting is the perimeter access route, Sapphire Road, that goes around the entire project site. The main public improvement, yes, to access the site would be Preserve Lane.

But along the left hand side of the project limit there is a drive aisle and what that will do is provide a secondary reliever route in case of emergency to McMurtry Lane and then another reliever route to Whitestone Court. Again those are for emergency vehicle accesses in case there is an emergency. The main reason why that improvement wasn't done as part of this project was concerns from the public about creating another drive all through that particular cul de sac because it's a very short cul de sac, but also the topography. It's nestled between two knolls that are between that area and it would make it difficult to try to preserve that hillside design.

Thank you. I know it's a little farther ahead, I just wanted it on out in the conversation now for people to be aware of why that's happened. I appreciate it. I am good.

Great. Thank you. Do you have any okay. Bring it back to myself. Read through the most of the EIR, and you know, looking for any kind of significant impacts, and the only one of course is going to be vehicles miles traveled, and in so many areas outside of Metropolitan Bay Area, it's going be an issue, which I do not think is significant against this project. So I am definitely in favor of this, and with that said, can we get a motion? Just

as a reminder, this is a public hearing to announce that this document is out for public circulation, that anybody who is interested in reviewing this document and sending public comments as part of the administrative record can do so in writing at this particular public hearing. Those communications can be sent to myself Albert Enald at the email that's identified on the screen as well as calling in. You can find a project information at the link that's also there. We've sent public notices to the residents within the Greater Cheyenne area announcing this and that public comment period will end on April 21.

Great. Okay. I've got to make a mistake at least one meeting. So there we go. Okay. Thank you very much. Lost track here where I'm at. Okay, so moving on to our Director's Report.

Thank you, Chair Reddin and members of Commission. While the Planning Manager loves my presentation, I want to thank you all for being at this meeting. We did want to provide multiple ways for the public to comment on the EIR, and although we didn't have any takers this evening, my experience experience tells me that some people just want to come in and talk and provide verbal comments, some want to write, so this gave everyone that opportunity to come in and talk to you. Which we didn't have any takers, but thank you. Thank you, Pimon, there's my presentation.

So since the last Planning Commission meeting, or actually the February council updates, on February 11 the council actually upheld the appeal of the Brown Street Park, and ultimately required some changes consistent with the appellant's request. The second thing the council did on February 11 was approve an engineering services contract for the East Of Leisure Town project. This is yet another developer funded, no city funds to provide additional resources for staff to work on a fairly complicated specific plan and to keep up with the schedule. On February 25, the council had a very long meeting and at that meeting, they had an inclusionary housing study session. They did not give staff direction to move forward and develop an ordinance, but rather they asked us a bunch of questions, and essentially we're now in research mode trying to come up with the information they've requested, mostly about incentives for affordable housing, and there were some other detailed questions that we're working on.

So more on that probably later this year. And then the council considered a request to initiate a zoning code text amendment to allow animal boarding in commercial general zoning districts, And they did discuss the initiation request, and ultimately they approved the initiation, so we will be working on that zoning co text amendment. Upcoming commission meetings, and there's one missing from this slide that's pretty notable, so I want to let you all know. We still have the Orange Drive Apartments and Retail. We've got conditions of approval written, and we're actually currently meeting with the applicant to talk through some topics of we're trying to get to agreement on them.

We will be having a Peabody Allison specific plan study session, and we will be bringing you the annual CAP consistency, discussion. But most importantly, we did receive an appeal of the director's decision to approve the Victory Gardens housing project on Vanden, so that will be on the April, Planning Commission agenda. So we're gonna really request those of you that are on the commission to, as best you can, be part of that meeting. So I think it's gonna be, a popular meeting. Pending, we still have quite a few projects pending.

We have the North Village SB330 applications on a couple properties up there. We're kind of waiting for Clear Channel on their digital billboard proposal. Fields at Alamo Creek is kind of active now. They filed development agreement application. We're working through that right now. And then the other projects listed. So still busy in my department, but still looking for items for future planning commission agendas. Go to the next slide. Building division was a little less busy in February, but still very busy. So two sixty six building permits issued, 30 new single family homes, coincidentally not related, 30 homes finaled.

They continue to not have multi family units issued, some ADUs, good fees, 2,200,000.0 in impact fees, over 1,000 inspections, and that was a slower month, so it wasn't that slow. If we go to the next chart, this shows our activity trends. It shows again that February was a little slower than January but still really solid as far as building permits issued. And then if we go to the next slide, this shows our inspection activity again isn't as high as it was in January, but it's still really steady and definitely better this year than last year by a couple 100. This shows our solar permits in relation to building permits.

Again, they're trending similarly. And then let's go to the next slide. Your finger is just very good. Good

evening Commission. So just a quick update on current planning projects, so for District 1 received the Weber Road construction, the RDA amendment. We didn't have any new approved projects for District 1. For District 2, we approved the Eleanor Nelson Park master plan that's on Marshall Road and Nutri. For District 3, we received two new applications for the boys and girls club, but also a Brendan Theater murals.

None were approved for District 3. District 4. Fairmont Square modification and time extension was approved for District 5. But a couple of projects, Fire Station 71 telecommunications facilities and a policy plan amendment for Lower Green Valley to introduce hotels as a a conditionally allowed use in the policy plan. And as director Morris mentioned, we approved the Vicry Gardens apartments, which has been appealed, and they'll be coming back to the commission.

And then no new applications or approved ones for District 6. So advanced planning, we have a lot of stuff in advanced planning. Housing element implementation, that's going be ongoing obviously. Peabody Allison specific plan, there were some interviews that were conducted with some of the business owners that happened in February east of Leisure Town. As Director Morris mentioned, a couple of contracts were approved and we kicked off the fiscal CFD methodology on February 20.

Inclusionary housing was an interesting meeting at Council. There's some work for us to do, as the director mentioned, to bring some portions back in a different way. Mark McCallon Neighborhood Plan, we have outreach plan for for March and for next few months. That's gonna be happening both within the neighborhood, but also at off-site locations that can accommodate more folks. And then downtown lighting study, we met with the Buckingham students which was very cool.

That is also sort of ongoing. We had a a walk shop planned last week, but because of the rain, it's gonna be rescheduled, so that's again a lot of home homework for us to do, but also our consultant out of Colorado to prepare some information for us. So those are just updates for advanced planning.

I'll tag back in. Staffing updates, our third and final vacant building inspector position. We have someone who's starting on March 31, so we'll be fully staffed on the building inspection side of things, which is awesome. We had a tremendous response to our vacant permit technician positions in the building division, like, 90 candidates, whittled down to 15 that were interviewed, whittled down to, like, six or seven that are being second interviewed. So really a great response. That's that's new, so we're gonna be excited about that. And then once we hire those building permit technicians, my department will be fully staffed as long as no one leaves. My goal is that no one leaves. So things are looking good on the staffing front. And I think that concludes the presentation.

If you have any questions for me or my team, please feel free.

Thank you very much. Do we have any questions?

I have no.

Okay, well then I will move on to Commissioner comments. I will start with vice chair.

No comments.

No comments. Commissioner Vargas?

I do. Staff, thank you very much for the presentation. Always a treat to listen, folks. Please forgive my appearance. I came straight from baseball practice. I will put a plug in. It's baseball season, so the baseball fields are gonna be packed. That's Pony, where my son plays, Vacaville National and Vacaville American. So it's it's really super cool. So I encourage even if your kid doesn't play, it's always fun to watch. Thanks.

Great. Thank you. And commissioner Wilkerson.

Yes.

I do have, one item. City of Vacaville, Sunday night lost someone who's been very impactful in the real estate community and in the kickboxing arena. Eugene Ray was a local name of someone who's in the real estate community for over fifty years, and then the kickboxing and martial arts community, he passed away Sunday night. And so Eugene was just first of he's a great person. Had a great smile.

I have not ran into anyone that has had ever said a bad thing about him. And so, it was it it's it's been awesome. Awesome. I had to lead a meeting today, and we had to discuss it. But just the impact he had, even if he disagreed with you, he would always value your opinion, sit down with you, and ask where you got that from. And then as as a past president, he's been leaving words to me of just always of encouragement. And so the the Us who aren't weren't as experienced in real estate as Eugene, he was always very encouraging to us. Get involved. Be involved. Say your opinion.

Be respectful, but be be mindful that there's always work out there to do and that the consumer is most important. And so he passed away Sunday. He was a great mentor friend, and so I just wanted to make sure I I I said that. So thank you.

Great. Thank you. And with that, we've reached the end of our meeting. As a reminder, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, 04/15/2025. Thank you. And this meeting is adjourned. Good night, Vacaville.

I can put it on.