Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I will now call the regular planning commission meeting of Tuesday, 05/20/2025 to order, and I will ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Good evening, planning commission. Chair Ruddin? Here. Vice chair Lightfoot? Here. Commissioner Vargas?

Here.

Commissioner Banta? Here. Commissioner Vermont? Here. Commissioner Wilkerson? Here. Commissioner Dingmann?

I'm here on, remote. Thanks.

Thank you. Chair, we have a quorum. Great. Thank you. I'd like

to start off apologizing. I am recovering from pneumonia. I'm okay. It's just, my voice is hoarse and I might start coughing, so I just wanna apologize ahead of time. Moving on, everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance, and I will ask vice chair Lightfoot to please lead us in saluting our flag.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Alright. This evening, we have the election for chair and vice chair of the planning commission for 2025 to 2026. We will first nominate and elect a chair, then do the same for the vice chair. Following the nominations, we will take a brief break to shuffle seats. I will now open the floor for discussion among my fellow commissioners on nominating a chair, and then we'll entertain a motion. I will now take nominations for a chair. We have oh. Commissioner Beaumont?

Yes. I'd like to nominate somebody who's been on the commission for five years. He shows up prepared, shows up every time, has sub for you very admirably, and I'd like to nominate vice chair Lightfoot for chair.

Great. We have a nomination for vice chair Lightfoot, a second by commissioner Wilkerson. Do we have any other nominations? Okay. Let's take oh, clerk, can we please have a roll call vote?

Commissioner Vargas?

Yes.

Commissioner Banter? Yes. Commissioner Vermont? Yes. Commissioner Wilkerson? Yes. Commissioner Dingmann?

Yes.

Vice chair Lightfoot?

Yes.

Chair Rudeem?

Yes. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

We will now open the floor for discussion among my fellow commissioners on nominating a vice chair, and then we will entertain a motion. I will now take nominations for a vice chair.

Yeah. Would like to nominate commissioner Wilkerson.

And I will second that. Okay. So we have a nomination by commissioner Banta, a second by myself, chair Ruddin.

May we please have a roll call vote? Commissioner Vargas? Yes. Commissioner Banta? Yes. Commissioner Vermont?

Yes.

Commissioner Wilkerson?

Yes.

Commissioner Dingmann? Yes. Outgoing chair, Rudine?

Yes.

Incoming chair, Lightfoot?

Yes. Congratulations. Now that this business is concluded, we will take a short break to reset the commissioner seats, nameplates, and the AV system. We'll take a quick recess. Thank you.

Do I have a motion and then a second to approve the agenda? Second. May I have a roll call vote, please?

Commissioner Rakesh?

Yes.

Commissioner Banta? Yes. Commissioner Bermondt?

Yes.

Commissioner Rudine? Yes. Commissioner Dingmann?

Yes.

Vice chair Wilkerson?

Yes.

Chair Lightfoot?

Yes. And do we have any communications?

Thank you, chair Lightfoot. We have received additional communications about the public hearing item for the evening. They have been placed on the website and then also copies have been provided to the commission at the dais.

Thank very much. Next, we'll move on to business from the floor, item number five. This portion of the agenda is available for the public to address the Planning Commission on any issue that is not on the agenda this evening. There will be a limit of three minutes per speaker. I welcome anyone who wishes to address the commission regarding a topic that isn't on the agenda this evening to please approach the podium.

Seeing none, I'll close business from the floor. Next, we'll move on to item number seven, the consent calendar. There's only one item on the consent calendar, which is the minutes from the 03/18/2025 meeting. Does anyone from the commission or the public wish to pull the consent item for discussion? If, if we do not have any, I'll take a motion to approve the consent calendar.

So moved. I have a I have a motion from chair Rudine and a second commissioner Wilkerson. Can I have a recall vote, please?

Commissioner Walkers?

Yes.

Commissioner Banta? Yes. Commissioner Bermond?

Epstein.

Commissioner Commissioner Rudine? Rudin? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Commissioner Dingman? Dingmann?

Yes.

Vice Chair Wilkerson?

Yes.

Chair Lightfoot?

Yes. Motion passes. Next, Yes. We will move on to item number eight, the public hearing on the Vacaville Victory Gardens appeal. We'll first hear a presentation by staff, followed by commissioner questions, and then a presentation by the applicant, Mutual Housing, who will have ten minutes, and finally, a presentation by the appellant, Mark Goddard, who will also have ten minutes.

If commissioners have questions for the applicant or the appellant or additional questions for staff, they can ask those after both presentations have concluded. We will then open it up for public comment, And after the comment period concludes, we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission for discussion about the items that were brought forward. May we please have the staff's presentation?

Thank you, chair Lightfoot. Director Morris, just kicking off our presentation. The staff presentation will go over the history of the project and how it was approved, as well as highlight response to the appeal. I just wanna make sure the commission is aware kind of at the outset that there are many different state housing laws that govern how the city is able to review this project at this meeting. And so staff will provide that information in the presentation, but at any time if you have questions about the legal parameters, we have our assistant city attorney, Annie Branham here, and she's always available for questions throughout the meeting. And so, at this point, I'll turn it over to Eileen, who will do the staff presentation.

Hello. Good evening chair, vice chair, members of the planning commission. My name is Eileen Lee, assistant planner from the community development department. And this evening, I will be presenting the Vacaville Victory Gardens appeal. This evening's request is to rescind the community development director's approval of the Vacaville Victory Gardens project to be located at 5763 Vanden Road.

To the right of the screen, highlighted in red is the development site. Existing single family homes are surrounding the project site to the north, south, and west. Also joining the project site is New Alamo Creek. Here on the slide is a closer look of the project site. Locate along Vanden Road, across the other side will be two future single family projects that have been approved which are Vanden Gate and Vanden Cove and existing single family residents on the other adjoining ends of the site.

To provide some background, back in 02/2002, the property was donated to the city for the purpose of military housing. In April 2010, the property included was included in the housing element for the purpose of affordable housing. In June 2023, the city council adopted the 2023 to 2031 housing element which updated the general plan and zoning for the project site from residential medium density to residential high density which allows for 20.1 to 30 units per acre. In May 2024, the city council approved a exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Mutual Housing California for a new multifamily project with a military focus. In October of the same year, Vacaville Victory Gardens application was submitted to the city.

In 12/12/2024, a neighborhood meeting was hosted virtually. In 02/28/2025, the director of community development approved the project in on 03/10/2025, an appeal was filed. The project request includes a minor design review, a tentative parcel map, and tree removal permit request for 206 affordable units located on 8.4 acres of land. The project includes three three story buildings, 230 283 on-site parking spaces, and associated perimeter landscaping. The request also includes a request to subdivide the 8.4 acre parcel to create three separate parcels, a seven acre project site and two remainder parcels approximately zero point seven five and zero point five five acres in size for future single attached residential housing.

The project would be restricted to allow for units to be rented to households earning less than 80% of the area median income in Solano County. County. Access would be provided off of Vanden Road. Out of the two zero six units, 52 units will be designated specifically for extremely low income households as well as permanent supportive housing for veterans. As part of staff's evaluation for the project, the development review process includes three steps.

To evaluate the request based on compliance with the code, conduct public outreach, and confirm whether or not the project is compliant with environmental review, CEQA. In projects, staff's evaluation of the project, we determined whether or not the project would be compliant with objective standards of the code and general plan. Here on the slide to left is the general plan designation. The project site is designated as residential high density, which does allow for 20.1 to 30 dwellings per acre. To the right of the screen shows the zoning designation.

The project is designated as residential high density which allows for 40,000 square foot minimum lot sizes. As part of the minor design review analysis, staff evaluated the project for compliance with the general plan. As the project did not require any changes to general plan policies, the project was complimentary of adjoining zoning and scale and provides affordable housing opportunities to the community. The project was determined as compliant with the general plan. In addition, staff evaluates for compliance with zoning.

The project design and layout complies with development standards such as building height and setbacks. The site design creates a buffer between land uses by creating two separate parcels that will be developed later for single family attached units. The parking exceptions meets the required findings of Municipal Code. As part of the request, a tentative parcel map was also applied for to subdivide the 8.4 acre parcel into three separate parcels. This request is allowed by the Subdivision Map Act.

Parcels meet all lot size standards as per the code and the separate parcels create transitions adjoining existing neighborhoods to the multifamily site. In addition, the project provides a 15 foot wide dedication along Vanden Road to provide sufficient right of way. As part of the project request, tree removal permits were applied for. In the staff evaluation, the removal of 30 trees were proposed to accommodate the project site. Out of the 30 trees, all trees were non native and either dead or consisting of species such as eucalyptus.

As proposed, the project provides 165 replacement trees. The second part of staff's evaluation for the project included conducting public outreach. In November 2024, a new project notice was mailed out to a 600 foot radius from the project site. In 12/12/2024, a neighborhood meeting was held and noticing was provided for the neighborhood meeting. On February 28, a notice of approval was issued notifying residents with the same radius of the project approval.

And in 05/06/2025, a public hearing notice was mailed to the same radius. The third step of staff's evaluation for the project included determining and evaluating the project for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, otherwise known as CEQA. In evaluating the project associated documents, all previous environmental documents ranging from 2015 to twenty twenty three analyzed medium to high density residential development for this project site. And as per CEQA, no subsequent analysis is required. As proposed, the project would create no new impacts to CEQA and the site can be served by existing facilities as it is in field development.

The project was approved on 02/28/2025 based on the following findings as per the code. The project is consistent with general plan goals, policies, and actions. The project complies with objective standards in the code, and the project will be served by existing infrastructure and utilities and no new impacts would be created. On 03/10/2025, an appeal was filed by mister Mark Goodair. As part of the appeal procedures, an appeal must identify the grounds or reasons for the appeal.

Planning commission becomes the decision maker for the project in appeal. The decision of the commission can be appealed to city council. As part of the appellant's request, they're seeking to rescind the approval due to a lack of review of traffic, safety, and property impacts, as well as an abuse of discretion in the project review process. As part of the appellant's request, they have included seven appeal points. Since publication of the staff report, staff received 30 email communications regarding the appeal.

As a majority of emails reflected concerns similar to the appellant's appeal points, staff's response to the appellant points will cover responses to those public comments. The appellant states as point number one, two eighty three parking spaces will not be sufficient to serve two zero six units and the approval overlooked concerns as there was no traffic impact study. As part of staff's response in evaluating the project, we referred the project to our traffic engineering division for review and evaluation, And in the review, the project does not generate enough trips to require a traffic study. Infill site, such as Vacaville Victory Gardens, can be served by existing roadways and utilities. Affordable homes generate fewer trips per unit than market rate units.

And as per state law, infill sites were deemed exempt from BMT analysis, otherwise known as vehicle miles traveled analysis, if there are at least 20% affordable units. In addition, the project includes a parking reduction of nine spaces, which is permitted by Assembly Bill seven forty four. And in determination, there is not enough to create a significant impact. The appellant's second point for the appeal includes that the addition of two zero six units will significantly increase population density and create crime, overcrowding, and safety concerns. In staff's evaluation of the project, we refer the project to different city departments such as police and fire department for review and comment.

And in their evaluation, they have determined that city staff and resources can accommodate the increased population by this project. And the project will also improve safety in the neighborhoods with various improvements such as the widening and realignment of Vanden Road, and creating a walkway path connecting from the existing residential to the north, to the south, over the new Alamo Creek Bridge. The appellant's third point for the appeal states that the project review did not evaluate impacts to property values of current residents in the surrounding area. As part of staff's evaluation of the project, studies show that improving vacant properties existing in surrounding areas improves the value of properties in the surrounding area and that affordable housing does not lower property values. In addition, as part of staff's evaluation for the project, impacts on property values are not a factor in the decision making process as per the Vacaville Municipal Code.

The appellant's fourth point states that factory built housing design, construction noise, and the addition of two zero six units will alter existing neighborhood character. In staff's review of the project design and layout, the project will provide setback transitions to the north and south to provide single family transitions to the multifamily development that's located centrally on-site. The project provides internal spacing throughout the project site to provide visibility off Vanden Road. And, a majority of the buildings are set back, more than the minimum building set back from Vanden Road to provide a community garden. And the construction hours of operations are controlled by the Vacaville Municipal Code, so they will be subject to construction hours as regulated in the code.

In addition, no construction is permitted at nighttime or holidays and the site will be watered during grading activities to reduce the amount of dust during construction. Located here on the screen is a visual of the project layout. To the north and south will be future single family attached housing that will provide a transition to the centralized multifamily development. As part of the project design, the applicant had noted how they designed the project to provide visibility, to activate Vanden Road by providing their amenities in community garden centrally and towards the front of Vanden Road. The appellant's fifth point states that the approval process was rushed with a submittal date of 10/29/2024 and an approval on 02/28/2025 with one public forum held.

In staff's response to the appeal points, staff followed all code requirements as per intaking and processing a development application consisting with state law. The review process covered over approximately one hundred and twenty two days. A new project notice was sent to residents, a neighborhood meeting was hosted, and approval notice was sent to residents as staff recognized the amount of public comments and engagement on this project. In addition, staff has had email correspondence with residents and public commenters about their concerns and comments on the project. The appellant's sixth point is in regards to concerns on impacts to existing schools, overcrowding of classroom sizes, and teacher resources.

The appellant has noted the project does not include an assessment of school's ability to manage an influx of population. As mentioned before, staff refers each project referral to various departments and agencies. And in this case, the project was referred to Travis Unified School District for the review and comment. Their representative from Travis Unified School District confirms that the school district can accommodate new students, and in addition, the fees accumulated from this project will assist in sufficient funding for new students. In addition, a formal response from Travis Unified School District is included as part of the staff report.

The appellant's seventh point for the appeal states that there is a significant lack of community support, which was not reflected in the community development director's decision for approval. In staff's evaluation of the appeal and the project, the decision for approval was considered on a variety of components, such as compliance with the Vacaville Municipal Code, procedures and standards for processing development applications, compliance with CEQA, and also taking note and account for neighborhood concerns and land use compatibility for the project site. Please note that as part of the staff's review for development review for projects and applications, general public opposition or support does not dictate a decision, and public opposition did not reveal new information or impacts as part of the project. To conclude, in staff's evaluation of the project, all components of the project were compliant with the code and the state requires cities to allow by right developments on vacant properties identified in consecutive housing elements. The project site has been identified in the city's housing element since 2010 as a potential site for affordable housing development.

And when a project site has been identified for two consecutive terms in the city's housing element, that designates any project that comes in that has a minimum of 20% affordable housing as a by right development. In addition, by right designations limits a city's review to only objective standards in compliance with those objective standards. Furthermore, the project was evaluated by city departments and agencies such as our police department, fire department, utilities department, traffic, and Traffice Unified School District. Overall, the project is consistent with the goals and policies established in the general plan and housing element, complies with components of CEQA, and is in compliant with all objective standards in the Vacaville Municipal Code. In addition, an evaluation by the departments and agencies, they have confirmed that in their scope of work for review, the project was compliant with their standards.

In addition, if there were, in the case that there were issues with the project design, those departments have conditioned those items as conditions of approval for the project. Staff's recommendation for the Planning Commission is by simple motion to approve the resolution denying the appeal and reaffirm the city the community development director's approval of the Vacaville Victory Gardens minor design review tentative parcel map and tree removal permit application at 5763 Vanden Road subject to conditions of approval. This concludes my presentation. I do wanna note to our planning commission that we do have representatives from city departments such as police, fire, traffic engineering, development engineering, housing, as well as a representative from the Travis Unified School District for any questions that you may have. In addition, the applicant is here to answer any questions as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We're going to move on to Commissioner comments on the staff's presentation. Didn't miss your question, sorry. Do we have any comments? Commissioner Beaumont.

Yeah. My first question is the 52 units provided for military low income housing, is that because you need that for a minimum or the maximum you can have in order to get vouchers for the the the apartments or some type of supported income to to pay for those units?

I don't know the answer to that question. I know that in order to be able to meet the intent of the original property that some component of the property had to be reserved for military housing as that's the original dedication was for. I don't know about the other questions we do have representatives from the housing department.

Yeah. Just wondered how we got to 52. It's just kind of out in the air as to where that came from.

I don't know.

Alright, Director Morris.

Yes, we do have housing department here if you'd like to have that question answered now or I believe the applicant will also cover how they determine the mix as part of their presentation.

Thank you.

Commissioner Danta.

Thank you for the presentation. To disclose

I just

expert type communication that I did have with the co developer on the project, and I did not learn any new information that wasn't presented in this on the staff report. And as well, before we get too far into the item, I would like to clarify that staff did receive a letter of support for Victory Gardens, purporting to be from the Housing First Continuum of Care, which I am a board member from. Although the letter states that it was sent on behalf of the board, I wanted to provide further context that the letter was written by one single board member, and it was not ever presented before the board or myself as a collective body. Had it been, I would have recused myself from that vote. I have not taken a position of support or opposition for this project, and I'm here to listen to the applicant as well as the appellant in the matter.

Thank you.

Do we have any other ex parte communication that anyone would like to report?

Yeah.

Commissioner Beaumont.

Yes. I talked to Tom Felipe on the phone about this project. Just whatever he had in his letter is all we talked about. Nothing new. Thank you.

I was supposed to have a meeting with the applicant, but I was too sick. But I did have a conversation with Tom Felipe and Matt in his office. I think it's Matt. I'm terrible with names, apologize if I said the wrong name. But I spoke with Tom Felipe in his office.

I have not. Excuse me. So now next, does that cover all of our commissioner questions at So the next, we're going to move on and receive the applicant's presentation as well as the appellant's presentation. I ask that everybody welcome everybody's comment tonight. There's gonna be a variety of them, for and against, I anticipate.

And I'd like to just make sure that we create an atmosphere where we are collecting everybody's opinion and not clapping or or cheering, but basically allowing everybody to feel like they can present and give their ideas tonight. Please. So I'd like to move on to the applicant's presentation please.

Hi. I'm Revathi. I'm the project manager from Mutual Housing. Thank you so much for the opportunity to let me speak here. Today, I'm here with our entire applicant team that is Insight Housing, our co developers on this project, Sarah, the architect team and Philippi Engineering, who are the civil consultants for this project.

Before I get into the project details, I'd love to give a little background about Mutual Housing. So Mutual is a non profit affordable housing developer based in Sacramento. We own, develop and manage affordable housing properties all across the Greater Sacramento region. We've been a mission based organization and have been developing affordable housing for over three decades now. All of our properties are managed by Mutual Housing Management, which is an affiliate of Mutual Housing California. So the question is of

from

of of the the city's RFP, which is back in 2023, we analyzed the need for affordable housing in Vacaville and realized the shortage of affordable housing for veterans and military families, especially enlisted personnel from the military. Hence, we reached out to Travis Air Force Base and tried to understand the statistics of military personnel there. So Travis Air Force Base has about 6,000 personnel and over 1,000 civilians, but there are only about over 2,000 homes and dormitory beds at the base. Hence, the need for housing is about over for about 5,000 personnel, especially again for enlisted members, which is the Kedar E1 to E6. And the proposed development here stands true to this mission.

In our overall unit mix, as Aileen explained, which is two zero six units, we have 52 units reserved for veterans, which is one fourth of the total number of units, and the balance 75 units would be for military and families. Since military since a military group is not a protected group and we are bound by fair housing laws, we are not able to reserve those units for military personnel, but we do have a strong affirmative marketing plan in a plan for the rest of these units. We've used this affirmative marketing plan for another project in our portfolio earlier, which is based in Sacramento, and we have had a pretty good response to it. So that was an LGBTQ senior project where, obviously, LGBTQ is not a protected group, so we were not able to reserve those units. But we went ahead and reached out to several LGBTQ affirming groups, reached out to them ahead of time, did a lot of marketing in those groups, and we were able to sort of have tenants which were LGBTQ affirming, and that's about 80% of the overall mix here.

The reason I just provide this context is because we would be using a similar strategy here and have a strong affirmative marketing plan that we would be doing. We've been reaching out to three years ahead from the time lease up begins. We've started proactively reaching out to this these groups because we we want to stand true to our mission here. I also want to note that the affirmative marketing plan is a part of the DDA that we have with the city. For the veteran population, we would be partnering with the VA, the Vacaville Veterans Building Association, the American Legion in Vacaville.

We would want to highlight the benefits that we would be offering to the veterans. We have a trauma informed design, which our architects would speak to later.

Yeah.

Just in a the the few other things which I would like to notice that mutual housing provides resident services to all of our residents, which are are offered at no cost. We would be doing the same for Victory Gardens project. Some of the services that we offer are employment and training facilities, financial literacy and leadership development. One of the other key features to note about this project is that it would be a factory built housing construction. That would mean that all the units are actually built in the factory and shipped to the site.

This would greatly reduce the on-site construction activity. Thus, it would not lead to a lot of construction and noise issues on the site. We plan this bearing in mind that this is a predominantly single family home neighborhood, and we do not want to disturb the community during the entire construction process. So the actual modules would be built in the factory, and they would be shipped to the site, and they would be set on the site. The setting happens pretty quickly as soon as week's time, and the site based work would obviously be on-site construction.

Some of the other points I'd like to note are that the project would have two on-site manager units. So there would be two full time managers, property managers at the site who would be managing the property at all at all times. For security purposes, we would have cameras located at the property. We have a fencing planned along the site, and we also do a rigorous background checks for all the applications that we receive. So all the tenants that finally move in have already gone through a rigorous background check process, which is carried pleased we And made

very

in pleased our business. Have a lot of of the we our in

And

Sacramento Business Journal's Real Estate Project of the Year Award. We recently also won a Sacramento Valley Local Vision Award for Wong Center, which is recently opened development. We have several more developments in the pipeline, about seven projects right now that we are working on, and we broke ground on one two hundred unit development in Sacramento just last week. So in summary, I'd just like to say that we definitely plan to stand true to our mission here, and we are happy to take public comments and incorporate those in our design as we move forward. Thank you.

Yeah. And I'm happy to answer any questions there are. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

I'll now invite the appellant up to speak for ten minutes as well. And did I pronounce your name right the first time? Excuse me. Great. Thank you.

Good evening, Planning commission members. My name is Mark Goddard, and I live directly adjacent to the property at Victory Gardens Development site. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and to share the concerns that only not only myself, but a great many of my neighbors who are here with me this evening have. We are united in our strong opposition to this project, which we believe is fundamentally ill suited for this location and poses significant risks to our neighborhood's privacy, safety, infrastructure, property values, and overall sense of community. Tonight, I wanna walk through the key reasons why this project is incompatible with our neighborhood, starting with the voices of the community itself.

Let me begin by emphasizing that these are not just my personal concerns, that this is a collective voice from a deeply connected and engaged neighborhood. Before I address the specifics, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that I'm not standing here alone, but that there are multiple local residents in attendance tonight who share these same concerns and have taken time out of their busy lives to be present. Over the past week, I've personally visited more than a 100 homes in our neighborhood and collected a 160 signatures from residents who oppose this project. I haven't spoken to a single resident in the neighborhood that supports this development. We're not a small, vocal minority.

We we represent the overwhelming sentiment of this community, and I have a list of petitions that I'm willing to turn over to you once I'm finished tonight. One of the most immediate and personal impacts of this development relates to the loss of privacy and increased safety risks for those of us living nearby. Let me begin by stating that privacy and safety, which are not abstract issues for us, they're deeply personal. The proposal for a three story apartment building directly by my property means that dozens of new residents will have direct views into my backyard and windows. As a parent with three young children, this raises serious safety concerns about my family's privacy and security.

Our neighborhood was designed not for single family, was designed for single family homes, not high density multistory structures. This is not just an aesthetic concern. It is about the fundamental right to safe in a private home, a principle which I hope this commission values. I've heard from many parents in my area who echo my concerns. We chose this neighborhood precisely because it offers a safe, quiet environment for our children.

This prospect of having hundreds of new neighbors, many of whom, might be transient due to the nature of low income apartment housing is unsettling. It is not an exaggeration to say that this project would alter the character of our neighborhood. Closely tied to the issue of privacy and scale of this development is the height of these buildings, which is completely out of step with the neighborhood and should be addressed. The proposed proposed building height is unprecedented in our neighborhood. These three story structures would tower over the existing homes, destroying the character of our community and setting up a dangerous precedent for future developments.

There should be heights strict height limit in residential neighborhoods to preserve the privacy, neighborhood integrity, and suburban character that the residents value. We are not opposed to growth or change, but it must be done in a way that represents the existing fabric of the community. This problem extends beyond individual homes. They affect the entire community infrastructure, which is already under strain. The strain on the infrastructure is undeniable.

Vanden Road already suffers from potholes, congestion, and heavy school related traffic. Adding 206 units and 283 parking spaces with potentially hundreds of new residents and vehicles will not will overwhelm an already stressed system. I've heardly witnessed in mornings and afternoon traffic jams, and I know many parents who struggle to get their kids to school on time due to this congestion. I'd like to know where the additional funding is coming to widen the roads, repair infrastructure, and expand school capacity to accommodate this influx. Beyond the day day frustrations that this strain may pose is a more serious concern on emergency situations.

The addition of these new housing units and hundreds of vehicles to an already congested and deteriorating street network can raise serious concerns about emergency response and public safety. In the event of a fire or medical emergency, the Vacpool fire department may struggle to navigate the narrow, crowded, and now potholed road along Band Inn. During past emergencies, Solano County in Solano County, gridlock and inadequate evacuations have been documented as serious obstacles delaying first responders and putting lives at risk. Without substantial upgrades to local infrastructure and clear enforceable plans for emergency access, this project could jeopardize the ability of fire department and rescue to quickly and effectively reach their local residents. It's not a matter of convenience.

It's a fundamental issue of safety that should be addressed. Another area of concern that this project has been presented to the public, specifically the designation of military focused housing. The city and the development have described this project as military focused, yet the current plan only lost 25% preference to military families and veterans. If this project actually intended to serve our military community, then at least 50%, if not more, of the units should be legally reserved specifically for military members and veterans and not just given preference. Anything less is misleading and fails to honor the stated purpose.

I wanna be clear that our community has a deep respect for families for military families and veterans. Many of us have neighbors, friends, or relatives who have served, and we'd appreciate that this land be used strictly for that. As I mentioned earlier, these concerns are not isolated. It's a shared concern by the only overwhelming majority of residents in our neighborhood. Like I said, I've personally visited more than 100 homes and a 160 signatures from residents who oppose this project.

Concerns echo my own ranging from increased traffic and safety to declining property values and the inappropriate scale of the project. Without taking into account the local residents' concerns, so we'll see how this commission will take into account the, excuse me, the community's input. Another pressing concern is the potential for increased crime and property is the potential for increased crime, especially if the project is not properly managed. High density developments, particularly those lacking oversight, have been linked to increased crime in multiple peer reviewed studies. Research brought from Suresh and Videot in 02/2007, McNulty and Hollow in February, and in 02/2009, all point to a correlation between concentrated housing density and the elevated rates of violent and property crime, especially when security measures and local support are insufficient.

Historical examples such as City Journal's analysis of the Walkthrough Heights and Fall River show that poorly managed high density housing can become crime hotspots with issues like theft and vandalism spilling into surrounding neighborhoods. While well managed projects can mitigate some risks, the scale of this project raises serious concerns. Without a robust enforceable security plan, tenant screening, and on-site security, and ongoing oversight, this project could introduce long term safety concerns into community. To make informed decisions, I asked the planning committee to consider, commissioning a local crime impact study, similar to what doctor Wu's 2016 study from Texas A and M University suggests. Studies on urban development and crime are highly content specific, and the local data could provide critical insights to the safety risks that this project may pose.

We are deeply concerned about the property values as well. Many residents, including myself, feel that the city has not prioritized this issue in the past. This history makes us question whether our financial security as homeowners is truly to be considered in these decisions. Research from the Manhattan Institute notes that affordable housing in higher income areas can depress home values due to the perception of reduced desirability. Introducing such a development next to single homes single family homes could lower property values, impacting homeowners' investments and financial security.

To be clear, we're not opposed to development. We support responsible development, and we understand the need for growth and providing housing options for all members of the community, including military members and veterans. However, this pro proposal falls short. Responsible development means listening to the people who live here, respecting the character established of the neighborhood, and ensuring that infrastructure and public safety are not sacrificed in the name of of expediency. Expediency.

In conclusion, Victor Gardens is too large, it is too dense, and it's too poorly planned for the site. It threatens privacy, safety, infrastructure, and property values while blatantly disregarding community input. I urge the committee to reject the proposal and seek alternative locations better suited for high density housing with infrastructure and community support in place. Let's protect the neighborhood's quality of life and ensure the truly reflects the residents their respects truly reflect reflects and respects the residents' rights and voices. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. I'll now move to commissioner questions again if there's any questions the commissioners would like to. That that includes you, Commissioner Dingmann. If you have anything, please speak up.

Thank you.

I recognize that chair excuse me, commissioner.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you as well to the appellant and the applicant. Crime, I read through all 30 of the emails that we received. I read every single one of them because I take this very seriously. And also this is in my district. Crime is something that keeps getting brought up, and it was brought up by the appellant. I was wondering if somebody from PD can get up come up speak about that. But is there a correlation between high density and crime? Is there a correlation between low income and crime?

Sorry.

You. Good evening. I'm Brian Larson. I'm a captain of the police department. And I'll try to answer your question best I can.

I did listen to both presentations, and I will say that the police department was part of the project review process for this project. We did not have any significant reservations to prevent the project from continuing. As far as the crime rates with different levels of income, I don't have any data to support a claim either way. I don't have the information to say that crime rates are increased or decreased within different levels of income or housing densities. Logic would say that more houses in smaller area may cause increased calls for service to the police department.

However, I don't have factual data to state that that is in fact true. It's one of those situations that it's impossible to predict what types of calls may or may not come from a particular residence, complex, or area. So I answer with a definitive yes or no because there's not enough data that I have. I'm not familiar with the appellant studies. However, I don't have the data to support finding either way.

And sir, if if there is a change in crime in a certain area, do you modify your patrols to accommodate or and does

this project have do you have enough support to to accommodate the project after it's built? We do. Our current staffing levels would support the additional residential neighborhood proposed here. And with any area of the city, if we see an increase in criminal activity, then we address that with a focused policing based on data driven facts. So we look at historical crime rates, and then if things uptick, we adjust our policing standards to try and combat those.

Understood. Commissioner Wilkerson? Commissioner Wilkerson.

Thank you so much for being here. Does crime happen throughout the city?

It does.

In every neighborhood?

Yes.

Regardless of income?

Yes. Okay.

Thank you.

I just I wanted to add, and thank you for being here in person. Our Housing and Community Services Director, Tamara Colden, who could not be here this actually sent in an inquiry to the Vacaville Police Department about crime data with four different apartment complexes, including affordable housing. The data we got back, which I think myself might have on a slide, indicates that there isn't data supporting that there are more calls for service or more activity. That was the data we got from your team. Probably should have coordinated ahead of time, but we're very vigorous in our organizing, so anyway. And my staff can put that slide up that has the data that we got from the PD.

So the data shown on the screen will show three different slides. One shows from 2023, and we also have 'twenty four and 'twenty five. With the the help of the police department and the housing department, we were able to pull up a number of different examples. On the top end, you have Rocky Elle Veterans Housing, Kimmies Place, Alamo Gardens, and Pony Express that are all affordable housing projects. And then you have River Oaks, Sycamores, River Run, Creekside.

And so the intent behind this slide was to show the comparison between the affordable housing projects as well as the market rate. Now we will note that there is one odd scenario that you'll see on the screen, which is for Alamo Gardens. The police department could probably elaborate as to why that's the exception to the data that we found in this scenario. But for the affordable housing projects, what we find is that there are similar calls for service if it's initiated by an officer or if it's initiated by citizens as well as for medical. On the next slide, for 2024, found the same similar amount of data, Alamo Gardens showing as the outlier in the scenarios for the affordable housing, but largely similar calls for services associated with either officer incidents or citizen incidents as well as medical.

And this is as of recent January through April. So this was additional information that we wanted to be able to provide for the commission to help complement. When we get towards the end of the process for deliberation, we'll also make some additional comments about the scope that's limited for review. As our director had mentioned at very early onset of this presentation, because of current housing laws that are in place right now, the scope of review is limited to objective standards, compliance with our existing general plan and with our existing zoning. So staff is prepared to answer questions related to those particular topics, but we've gone above and beyond to try and provide some additional information that goes beyond the normal scope of what falls within objective standards.

Thank you very much.

Yeah. You kind of thank you. You kind of touched on what some of my questions were going to be about what are the objective standards that the design review process would look at to approve this process and is asking PD and fire to do analysis and asking traffic to do analysis? Is that typical of development projects or minor design review projects, or is this above and beyond?

All of those departments do review them, but they review them for compliance with existing policies and codes. So for instance, the fire department will review a project to see if it complies with the California fire code. Same thing for our building colleagues and the community development department. And when we have affordable housing projects that are on by right development, the view is very narrow to make sure that we're reviewing those projects in accordance with previously adopted standards, such as building heights, setbacks, and other similar requirements.

Thank you. The building heights for residential high density, what is the building height limit for residential high density?

Yes, thank you for your question Commissioner Banta. So for this property, is zoned residential high density which allows for a maximum building height of 44 feet. As proposed, the project site will be providing 43 feet in building height which meets the compliance for building height standards.

Thank you. And then one of the appealing points was that the project was rushed and that the review process was not long enough. And in your report, was stated that it covered the one hundred and twenty two day review process. What is the objective standard for the time frame for a review process for a buy write project?

Permit streamlining act requires that we determine completeness within thirty days and that for a buy write development that we conduct a review and render our decision within sixty days for a total of ninety days. The reason why you're seeing 122 was because during that first thirty day completeness, there were pieces of information that we were working with the applicants to acquire so we could determine compliance.

Thank you.

Commissioner Wilkerson.

Thank you. Elaine, thank you so much for the presentation. You discussed AMI. Can you tell me the actual dollar amounts for those numbers for low income?

MS. Hello, Commissioner Wilkerson. So for reference, I will pull back a few slides to identify a response for that question. Give me just a moment. Thank you.

No. Thank

you for your question. So the project would provide housing for those who are making less than 109,000 for a household of four. These units would provide studios, single one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom homes or units for households of four that make less than $109,900 a year based on Solano County.

Thank you. Commissioner Beaumont.

Thank you. Just a quick question to mister Goddard and some other people that are here, I guess. There was a neighborhood meeting in December '24. There were three public notices sent out for a 600 feet radius, and I'm trying to figure out why we're getting all this late appeal if all this was sent out previously.

Thank you for the question. I'm not sure why there weren't enough or there weren't very many people initial meeting. Every household that I talked to either had very little or no knowledge that this project was moving forward. And so part of the the process of going around to different neighbors was informing them of this project, and the vast majority that I spoke to had no idea that this project was happening.

Thank you.

Commissioner Vargas. Hi. Right right now right now, you can address us in public comment. We'll have public comment after the end of this question. We can take your comment and you can explain during a couple of comments, please. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Vargas. Actually, had a question, a couple questions questions

for the applicant, if possible. Vargas.

Thank you. I had a question on resident services. I think you alluded to that in your presentation. Can you describe how that works for the resident services? Is that something that's going to be long term? Can you talk about sustainability? Because I think my guess is for affordable housing, if it's operating something to the effect of like maybe Community Housing Opportunities Corporation CHOC, where you have resident services, social workers delivering services. Who's delivering the services and how long does that go for? What's the sustainability for that?

Yes. Thank you. Sure. So we would have two so we would also have Insight Housing, who's our partner and co developer on project, who would be offering a

That extension is not valid.

Sorry. Who

would be supportive services for the formerly homeless veteran population.

Okay.

So they would, specifically, provide case management services, services regarding health and wellness, financial literacy, and such services. This would be for a long duration, so they would sorry.

It's not you. It's okay. Go.

Sorry. Sorry. I

believe we're trying to get Commissioner Deenan back.

Don't know

what's happening right now. Yes. He got disconnected. He's coming back.

Right.

Commissioner Dingmann, are you there?

I am here. Thank you very much. I don't know what happened there. Just safety call dropped. So thank you.

Thank you. Apologize for the technical difficulty. Please proceed.

No worries. For the other population, which is the non formerly homeless population, Mutual Housing California would be providing the resident services. We would have a full time resident services manager on-site, so that would be forty hours a week. And we provide this for all of our projects. And we provide services such as, say, environmental justice. We do art workshops. Again, like, we also do a lot of financial literacy programs because that that's something that is essential. And, And, basically, all of these services would

be One one follow-up question, if I may. Does that come at a at a cost to the residents to

the No.

This is offered at no cost, no additional cost to the residents.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks. Do

we have any other commissioner questions? Okay. So next, we're going

Mr. To Chairman Lightfoot, this is Joe Dingmann. Sorry about that.

Yes. Sir, please go ahead.

Yes. First question, I wanted to say thanks first to staff and to the residents for all being there tonight. Really good presentations for the applicant and for Mr. Goddard and the residents that are affected by this. I think everybody wants state neighborhoods with common sense growth and no doubt about that for sure.

But my first question is really related to the history and the timeline and maybe this is a staff or an applicant answer. But in 02/2002, we talked about the land being donated for military housing. I was just wondering if there were any other requirements or stipulations by by the donor for this land. As we talked about the military preference, we got to a 25% piece, which is where I think we got the 52% number, 25% of 206s, 51.5s. So I think that's where that number did come from.

But I'd just like to understand the military preference piece for and the land donation, if there's any stipulations on that.

No additional stipulations. I think the origin came from in 02/2001. The staff report identifies that there was a general plan and a pre zoning request at the time when that area was being looked to for an annexation. And at that time, there was a potential for it to be a military housing project. But subsequently, in the very next year is when that property was or given to the former redevelopment agency.

So that's where it's coming from, is from the historical context of those previous projects. But to our knowledge, there's no formal statistic that identifies it's got to be x number percentage for it. It was 25% was the attempt to interpret the original intent behind it. As the applicant had mentioned, because military is not a protected class, they cannot explicitly reserve it as part of this, which is why they suggest taking an aggressive approach to reaching out to that particular class.

Okay. Yep. Appreciate it. You know, 25% seems pretty low after spending twenty four years active duty, the last four and a half years out of the base as a civilian. I know that in this category of low income housing, it's a tough one for them too.

But it sure would be nice if there was a way to get that preference number higher. I appreciated the applicant and then marketing plan on their Sacramento project where they had an 80% strategy to get the right people in there. I'm interested to know a little bit more at some time their communication strategy with the base, but also some of the other groups on just how to do that. But that number of 25% seems woefully low especially for a piece of land that was donated specifically for military housing. So I don't know if that's something in the future or even marketing strategy for the applicant, but 52 out of two zero six just seems really low.

There's such a need for our young airman and families that don't want to be on that spectrum of the low income peak. They're serving our country. They're a volunteer force. They're doing the very best that they can with so little. It sure would be great if we could get that preference up to 50% or 75%. So thanks for the time. I appreciate it.

Commissioner Deaman, we're going to have the applicant respond.

Thank you.

Yeah. I guess I'd just like to clarify. I think maybe there is some confusion about this. So we would have we have 52 project based vouchers for this particular development. And those 52 project based vouchers would allow us to have 52 units reserved for veterans.

That would be about 25% of the overall development. And for the rest, 75% of the development, that would be the affirmative marketing plan, which would military personnel. So, I mean, we would have loved to have the entire 100% of this development for veterans and military. But as I mentioned earlier, we we cannot reserve units for the military personnel, and that is the reason why we would be doing the affirmative marketing plan and the outreach for the balance 75% of the units.

And Commissioner Lehman, do you have any comment to that?

I do. Thank you for that explanation. I think I understand the 52 vouchers. Could you speak a little bit to your discussions with the Deputy Mission Support Group commanders and Travis Spouses Club. If it is 25% and you're putting them in a facility that is deemed extremely low income housing, was there any discussion or concern on that end integration of our personnel, those 52 vouchers? I'm just interested in the overall discussion that you have with the base. Thank you.

Okay. So in those conversations, there was no particular concern that they raised regarding the 52 project based voucher units for veterans. So we've had preliminary conversations with these various groups at the moment. Considering that we are almost three years away from the when these units will actually be leased up. I was also explained by a person in the Travis Air Force Base.

I'm sorry. I do not remember the exact designation of that person, and I do not want to misspeak. But they they mentioned that by the time the actual military personnel who we would be targeting would would sort of not be at the base anymore. So if we start our affirmative marketing plan and outreach three years ahead of time, we would not be reaching out to the exact target audience because military personnel change every few years, and we we would not be reaching out to their exact target audience at the at the moment if we start the the overall outreach process process so well in advance. So we started preliminary discussions, but it was their suggestion that it would be wise to sort of wait for a couple of more months, check-in with them, and that that that's how we plan to proceed.

But we definitely plan to have robust engagement and continuous engagement and sort of share with them the progress of our project.

Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate your explanation there. And I just have one more question for staff, Chair Leifold, if that's all right.

Yes. Please proceed.

Yes. The question is just regarding schools and the growth infrastructure. There's been a lot of growth in that area of the city recently. I know that there is land set aside, believe, for school and everything else. But I am the this is my first meeting as a commissioner. Could you just briefly discuss the big picture for schools and expansion for infrastructure in that area, please? Thanks.

Do we have would you like to respond or would we like to bring up somebody from the school district?

We do have a representative from the Travis Unified School District that can speak on that question.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right. Good evening.

My name is Gabriel Molesen. I'm the Chief Business Officer with Travis Unified School District. Few things with respect to kind of how we're preparing

for growth.

So first off, we always have a good relationship with well, we actually cover three different municipalities, Fairfield, Vacaville and Travis Air Force Base. So we always have a very good relationship with all three of those entities to make sure that we're preparing for all the growth that's coming in. So in terms of this project specifically, so we have one high school, one middle school in the district, and we have multiple elementary schools. Currently, we are kind of consolidating all of our sixth grades into our middle school. So that's going to take some of those students from those sixth grades on the elementary campuses, bring them into our middle school.

To accommodate that at the middle school, we are building brand new classroom buildings. They're half erected as we speak. Excuse me.

Sorry.

Just getting over something. That project is actually being funded through developer impact fees. So whenever we have any sort of large development, whether it's single family homes or it's high density residential development, those developers then have to come to the district, pay a fee, and we use those fees to put down new classrooms to accommodate growth. So as we stand now, we are able to accommodate growth from this particular development. We do have some capacity, mostly as a result of those fees that we collect that have given us that ability to grow our facilities.

Thanks for that. Do you know big picture how many teachers that would also bring? You talked about infrastructure, but what does that look like for teachers?

Sure. Well, that's a little bit more complex. So we have set staffing ratios that we have to follow by California law. We make sure we stay within those ratios. If more teachers are needed, we hire more teachers. So the way school districts are funded is we get funded primarily on what is called ADA or average daily attendance, not enrollment, but how often those students are actually in the classroom in their seats every day. So with more students comes more funding, which we then use to hire more teachers.

Thank you.

While we have them, is there any other questions about schools?

One question. You had developer impact fees, one time fee, right? Is that correct?

Yes. Developer impact fees are a one time fee.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Do we have any other commissioner questions? Okay. So next, we're going to receive public comment. Everybody's invited to come up to the podium. You'll have three minutes to speak. Like I said before, we're gonna have a mixed variety of positions on this. Please be respectful. We really wanna welcome everybody that wants to say something tonight. So if you please line up at the podium, I'll start public comment.

Coming up earlier.

You're okay.

I just wanted to state a few things that I'm concerned about. I live in that neighborhood. I walk every morning, and I know that the traffic is a huge issue for me, especially because there's no stop sign from or stoplight from Alamo all the way to Cogburn. It's probably like a quarter mile. And in the morning, there's so many people commuting on that coming out of all the different homes.

So my concern is definitely stop signs, you know, to put maybe one or two down that street. And the widening of Van Den is a little vague, so I would like to, you know, get more clear on where the widening is gonna be on Vanden. My other issue is safety. I walk every morning. We walk a lot of times during the night to the canal or the new Alamo Creek that you guys are talking about or that they're they're talking about.

I've seen kids down in there and putting an apartment complex with more kids. I'd like to know, is there gonna be any kind of barrier? Or because just a couple days ago, there was kids down there. Luckily, there's not water down there. But when there is water, when it rains, that level gets pretty high.

So that is my other concern. And my other concern is about crime, an apartment complex. I know I'm all for helping affordable housing. But for instance, the veterans home down in Rocky Road, you know, it was specifically supposed to be for veterans also, and then it ended up being low income, Section 8, and then there was, like, a murder back in 2021. So even though the police department says that their crime happens everywhere, crime does happen everywhere, but I think in apartment complexes, it brings a lot more people into one area.

And then my other question was in 2010 when this was approved to put affordable housing on that property, when we bought the homes back in those days, why weren't we informed? Why wasn't it informed that that area was French Camp near Stockton. It's 49 units. 49 units, and it's not even in a neighborhood. It's in some out kind of area where there's not tons of neighbors around it.

So safety and traffic is really my concern on this project.

Thank you very much for your comment. I got you. One second. There

you go. Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Chris Palomo. I'm a field rep with the NorCal Carpenters Union at a local one eighty representing Solano County. I'd to first thank you guys for allowing me to speak tonight. I'm here tonight because I care deeply about our veterans, those who put everything on the line to defend our country. We at the Carpenters Union believe that when they come home, they deserve more than just a thank you. They deserve real opportunities, real dignity, and a real future. That's why our union proudly works with helmets to hard hats, a national program that helps veterans transition from military service to a career in construction. Through this program, we provide training, career pathways, and a livable wage with benefits and security.

Beyond that, we've established a valor valor committee within the NorCal Carpenters Union, which is dedicated group of members that ensures our veteran brothers and sisters continue to receive the support that they need long after they hang up the uniform. So when we heard about the Victory Gardens Project, we were excited. This is the kind of project our veterans would be honored to build and our union would be proud to support. But, unfortunately, Mutual Housing has refused to meet with us, not once, not even not and not even to have a conversation about how we can help bring this project to life. That raises serious red flags, not only about their intentions, but about who they plan to hire the general contractor and whether this project will uphold any real labor standards.

This is a publicly funded project. That means taxpayer dollars, and that means a responsibility to ensure that those dollars are not used to fund wage theft, misclassification of workers, tax fraud, and low quality construction. We support affordable housing, especially for veterans, but we cannot, in good faith, support this project while mutual housing refuses to sit down with the skilled workers of veterans who want to build this the right way. If this project is truly for veterans, then let's make sure it's built by veterans and workers who are treated with the dignity that they've earned. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Please.

Sit on.

There you go. Good

evening. My name is Brianna. I am a lifelong resident of Vacaville. Just after reading about this project and living near the area, I believe that the city council really needs to consider about the safety and take the priority and thinking about the communities of or the members of this community. I believe public safety is clearly declining following the trend of Fairfield and Vallejo already as it is, and I feel having this already will decline it as well.

Previously working at the Vacaville storehouse, I have seen what low income does to individuals, not just by their choice, but also just by addiction and just by, you know, things that they have gone through, and I can see that. So I do know that low income housing is needed for individuals living through poverty in the past. I can understand that, and I know that living through that. So if it is needed, we should take it to where the sources already are. The Vacaville storehouse, the opportunity house, around those areas.

So if there is property there, which I've seen vacant lots, why don't we build there where it's needed and take it to where their other sources are? Because a lot of these individuals don't have means of commuting or anything like that. So we should take it to them if low income housing is needed. I do feel after the presentations and everything, the real goal is low income housing. And I feel that this property was donated for veterans, which we respect and I have a great honor for.

And my husband works out at Travis Air Force Base. And I think veterans do have a right to have affordable housing, but nice nice homes, not a bunch of apartments. And they need to come home to a community with other kids where their kids can make friends and also be able to make friends with school, which the schools are already so overcrowded. And after hearing from Travis Unified School District and just knowing that money is what drives them, I'm proud to say I'm now homeschooling my children, and I've pulled them from Travis Unified School District because of this. My children have suffered.

I have a son who has special needs, and he wasn't getting the help he needs. And I couldn't allow my children to also go to Golden West where they have crime and they have other things, and they're putting things in schools that are just not okay. So I just ask you guys to please view this community as your family. This community was built on a family finding, and my family lives here. And I wanna stay here to take care of my grandparents, and I also just generation ally wanna stay here. But I just really ask you guys to really think and consider about your kids, your grandparents, your parents, and just think about that when you think about I know it's just an apartment building, but affects a lot of families. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Blank Commissioners and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Chris Winters and I'm a resident of the city and I would like to state my support for the projects. As someone who's been looking for apartments and affordable housing in Vacaville, I need to say that the average rent in Vacaville, at least the units I was looking at, was about 2,300 or more for the units I was able to look at. And not including, of course, luxury apartments that I can't afford in this city. That is half my income, and it's not sustainable for people like myself to pay, especially many of the complexes in this theory raise their rents yearly.

So that even increases the amount of people that may not be able to afford apartments in the city. People need somewhere to live. Affordable housing is needed in Vacaville. As someone who is raised in this city, I will love I would hate to have to move away from this great city simply because it's too expensive. Affordable housing provides an opportunity for people like myself to save money and build my credit to hopefully own a home for myself and my family in the future.

Not only and I urge the city council to approve this project. Not only will it help veterans in securing the housing they they earned with their service, it will allow people like myself to build and save and grow to eventually own a home and support myself and my family. I'm not a criminal, and the majority of people seeking low income housing aren't criminals either. Thank you for your I wish you to support this project. Thank you so much. And I would like to say that 25% isn't enough by opinion either. So at least 50% or more would be great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. I'm Diane Leslie. And I live north of the project in Village Estates. And I've lived there for forty two years. I also went door to door to talk to my neighbors in that neighborhood and visited with probably about, well, over 45 people.

I made a point to talk to them all and to see where they were coming from as well as for them to hear where were coming from. And I only found one person that was okay with the situation. No one else was. And so I do agree with Mark in regards to his position and stand with him. So I don't find that it's necessary to repeat what he had to say to you.

But I I'd see that the concern is more low income. And instead of burdening one area with low income, I've thought to myself, why not have a certain percentage required from all apartment complexes where there would be some low income in regards to the building of those apartment complexes, as well as it would help the community's efforts in regards to just community awareness and caring about people and being there for them instead of creating a burden that nobody wants to live with or live next to. Also, my other concern is the traffic. When the road went through when Van Den went through, it sounded like a freeway out there because everybody was using it to go to the back gate. And so Magnolia closed off the road, then it did slow things down for a little while.

But the people continued to speed. There a traffic sign not far from Alamo that says 40 miles an hour, and I don't believe that anybody should be traveling at 40 miles an hour on that stretch of road. So that's one concern. The other thing that I found out was that someone said that Providence Road would go through to the other side, which would create a four way right there. And if there was a four way stop or a four way light, it could slow the traffic down.

Many of the neighbors that I talked to said that as it is right now, they have a hard time sleeping at night because they can hear all the noise from the road and how busy it is.

Your time your time is up. What? Your time is up now.

Oh, my time is up. Okay. And I just wanted to say, I went to the base today. They don't deal with vets. They deal with active duty personnel. I went to housing. And You're taking your I appreciate it. You know?

We got you.

We're ready? Good. Good evening. Excuse me. Good evening, commissioners and staff.

My name is Jack Bachelor, and I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the Victory Gardens development to be located at 5763 Vanden Road in Vacaville. This evening, I am representing Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity. To be clear, Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity is no longer involved with Victory Gardens, but we remain totally supportive of this development. I am familiar with the need of affordable housing as during my tenure as mayor of the city of Dixon, we partnered with Solano, Habitat for Humanity and the county of Solano to build a six bedroom, three bath shared housing complex for veterans within the core of our downtown. Change and new beginnings purchased this home.

Following my completion of my term as mayor, I joined Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity as a board member and ultimately served as its president, and I continue as a board member today. Affordable housing is paramount the city's obligation to provide a variety of housing opportunities for its citizens. This project provides active duty personnel, military personnel, and veterans the opportunity to live in modern, safe, and secure rental housing. I am familiar with Mutual Housing, excuse me, of California as I toured their completed Cornerstone Project in Sacramento. The affordable rental housing project is well designed and offers spacious floor plans for individuals who qualify for affordable housing.

The other partner on Victory Gardens, Inside Housing, purchased our second six bedroom, three bath shared housing facility in Rio Vista and combined with Dixon shared housing facilities, 12 veterans in Solano County are in now safe and secure and affordable housing. During my involvement in Victory Gardens development, members during our involvement, members of our team met with representatives at Travis Air Force Base who emphasized the critical need for affordable housing for their military personnel Travis Air Force Base, they were very excited about the prospect of the addition of available for the housing for military personnel. At this time, I would like to introduce other Habitat for Humanity board members who are supporting the Victory Gardens Project. Tina Norman, our board president Herb Cross, our vice president Janie Davis, our board secretary Andrew Colleen, CEO and Deanna Mott, COO and Jerry Castagnon, construction supervisor. In closing, I strongly encourage the Vacaville Planning Commission to reject the appeal that is before you this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, commission. My name is Cole Johnson. I'm a Vacaville resident, so a voting member here. I am a US Air Force veteran, and I recently joined the union through the helmets to hard hats program that Chris was talking about. And that that was a couple months ago now. So I wanna be clear that I'm not here to speak against affordable housing. That is a cause which I, agree with and which I stand for and I think is important. But I am here to to kind of address my my concerns with the way that the project is going forward, the fact that, mutual housing has refused to meet with the union reps in this area whose job it is to to get union work for for our members that live in the community like myself and a few of my brothers that

are here

with me tonight. And I think the the city of Vacaville really prides itself on supporting one another another and also supporting our veterans, whether that's, you know, at our our Veterans Day celebrations or veteran owned, businesses in the community, that that kind of bless our veterans throughout the year through outreach. So, if if we are that that city city we we claim to be, which I believe we are, wouldn't we want this project to be done in the most up to the highest standards of quality and craftsmanship and safety? And I believe that the union is in the perfect position to provide those things to make no one on the job site is misused or make sure everyone gets fair pay. And I know personally as a as a member of the union, as a carpenter's apprentice, I'd be honored to work on this project to serve my my fellow community members.

But, unfortunately, Mutual Housing hasn't even given us that shot. They haven't given that they haven't heard us out up to about what what kind of value we could bring to this project. So thank you for your time. Thank you.

How's it going? Jason Roberts. It's kinda weird being on this side of the diocese first time since I left council. This project was actually pretty important to me. This is my last motion serving on city council.

So I'll be a little bit agnostic about it because I do agree to some parts of the appeal and not others. Staff know that I've always criticized the way BMT and the way they address parking is, I think, outdated and needs to be updated, especially for when it comes to emergency services. The other part was for the project itself is the percentage for veterans is quite low. When I moved this forward, our council was under the impression this was veteran housing, and 25%, this is low income housing with a piece of veterans in it. So for it to be for me to consider veterans housing, which should be at least 51% majority serving veterans.

For reality in this project with the way the state is, if it does if this appeal doesn't or if this appeal goes through, likely, the state will come back. And for staff, I'd like to know what the potential density of the project could be and what the potential parking could be if it goes to the state. And that way, some people here would know what would happen if this thing go through as it is. And there's a couple other pieces of it with brought up for low income housing, high density housing. All those statistics only apply when you aggregate those projects in one area.

Myself, couple other council members, some people on this commission have been in low income housing. I'm currently commanding officer in the military, served on city council, hold numerous degrees. So lumping low income housing and with crime and drugs and anything else is a bit insulting. So I'm gonna be a big agnostic because I think some things could be reflected with appeal to maybe accommodate them as well as push the project through. But also, they need to understand the reality of what could happen if it doesn't go through. And you.

Thank you very much.

Yep. Hi there. My name is Skyler White. I just have one or two questions about, road expansion. So off of Leisure Town Road after the roundabout and in between one, like, it's a two way road, and there is a lot of congestion right there.

And with the increase of students going to Vanden and Travis Unified School District, I was just wondering if they're talking about expanding that road as well, as well as Peabody after the prison, all the way up until that light. I don't know the I think Summit Hill, I believe, that intersection right there. It's also a two way road. So, a couple years ago when we had the emergencies, the fires, they were completely blocked up. So I can't even imagine the amount of blockage that would happen with the increase of students going to Travis Unified School District. That is all.

Thank you very much.

My name is Jason Quartaro. I'm a resident here in Vacaville. I didn't plan on speaking tonight, but after what I heard, I have to say something. I've heard this project or I've heard military and veteran thrown around in this project. My question is, is this project project for for military military veterans veterans or for active duty military?

That's two different things. Number two, I don't appreciate how the term military and veteran is being thrown around. To say this is a project for our military or veterans, still not sure which one, at 25% occupancy is an is insulting. It's absolutely insulting. I don't I'm a veteran myself.

I'm a combat veteran. Eleven years in the Marine Corps, glad get out with some injuries. And when I hear somebody trying to build a project, trying to profit off our neighborhood, and say they're gonna take care of our veterans, our military, and all that, at 25, unacceptable. Just trying to profit off the backs of the word because it's respect, and I appreciate the respect of the military. But to throw that around at 25%, that's a nonstarter.

Unfair. This project is clearly not in the interest of our community, and I hope you will respect the will of the people. I don't live within 600 feet of the project. I moved there in the area last year, so I didn't know about this until tonight. If you do decide to move forward with approving this project, I'd hope you would delay that and let of the community, people who live around Mount Magnolia Park that I go to. That's our primary park. I knew nothing about this project. I would like to know more. I'd like to have more to say about this if this is considered being moved forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey. How are you how are you doing today? My name is Jeff Jewell. I've been a resident of for going on almost sixty years when I moved to the great state of California to Wisconsin and came to Travis Air Force Base. I'm a retired VA I'm a total support of this project, and I'm a retired VA director.

And I've run a homeless veteran stand down for the last twenty years in Dixon. I'm the executive director of that, and I've worked closely with Travis and the entire community. There's no question that we need more housing for veterans, but we also do need housing for other low low income housing. We we need all of it. And I would hate to see this project die be because of a few squabbles that I'm hearing tonight.

You know? And I've I've spent my entire life dispelling myths about, because I'm a middle I am a, a retired marriage and family therapist with the VA. I've spent my entire life dispelling myths about, folks that are homeless or have mental health issues or whatever, you know, that somehow there's more crime in the community because crime or or veterans of post traumatic stress disorder. I just wanna make sure that folks understand that that this is this is all are all missed, and the media in this country tends to exacerbate that, with almost every movie that we see, you know, when they speak about veterans and about those that are homeless, in the community. So total support of this project.

I'm with the American Legion, and and if this project was in my backyard, I would absolutely I would absolutely support it. We we we definitely need housing for veterans and for those less fortunate. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Please don't comment while other people are speaking.

Good evening. My name is master sergeant Paul Shope, retired United States Air Force. I've been in Vacaville for thirty one years, and I do live within 600 feet of this project. Along with many of you tonight, I am having a problem with the numbers here. 25% for military or veterans is not enough of the 206 units.

It also sounds like there's some concerns from the board that maybe some things weren't answered ahead of time. It almost feels like this project has been rushed. So I'm hoping that through time that we can maybe relook at this project and maybe answer the questions properly. Sir, to answer your question, I didn't receive my notice earlier until three days after the initial notice or public hearing. So to answer your question, I didn't know in time.

Also, good a point by this lady back here. When I moved in in 2015 in my house, the only thing that I received was that we live in a flood zone. Nothing about a low income potential development being built next to us. So that brings up my next point is I haven't seen anything on the flood zone. Where this development's gonna be built, it's right in that flood zone. We have the canals right there. What happens when you build all that asphalt, cement, buildings? What happens to the water if there is a flood? We're already paying premiums on our insurance for this. So what's gonna happen to that?

Unfortunately, high density 43 foot houses do not fit in our neighborhood. We have one and two story homes. They're single family homes. What they're trying to build here does not fit. Kudos to the contractors and the I'm sorry, the union construction people are here. I love that they're here because these manufactured homes are built in factories brought in, and it doesn't do anything for our local workforce. So once again, 43 foot home buildings do not fit in this. I wanna say thank you to mister Goddard for putting this together. You've done a fantastic job, and I hope that you guys will reconsider or at least put this out for further review. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi. My name is Matt Ellis, and I work for Philippi Engineering, who's a civil engineer on this project. I moved to over forty years ago, and I've been with Philippi Engineering for over twenty five years. On a personal note, my parents actually met while they were both civilian contractors for the Department of the Navy at the former military base at Mare Island. I want to say thank you to staff personally on working with us on the design team on this project.

And as a whole, we agree with the project and the approval and the conditional approval as written. Couple of items that came up on a civil engineering question this afternoon or this evening. The first one I'd like to address is New Alamo Creek. The New Alamo Creek is actually under the jurisdiction of the Solano County Water Authority and known as Squaw. And they were also notified by this project and had conditional approval through this project.

One of those conditional approval is to build a fence to keep people out of the creek and also to increase accessibility for their maintenance vehicles to the creek. Additionally, some comments came up about this abandoned road. The both this project and the projects across the street are both conditions to build the full width of Vanden Road and rebuild Vanden Road, which would involve fixing all those potholes and things that are questionable. They also have to build curb and gutter on both sides. And our project is specifically conditioned to build sidewalk along the west edge of Bandon Road, including across the bridge that crosses New Alamo Creek.

I want to point out that Phillip engineering has been crucial to the development of the entire Southeast abandoned master plan community. I remember when the Zocke family donated this property some twenty plus years ago. And, also, mister Cogburn, who has sadly passed, and Cogburn Circle is named after him. So we have been involved in in this for a very long time, and this is the last one of the last few remaining parcels to be built out. And we're very proud to be working on this as well. Again, I appreciate staff and appreciate you as the planning commission. And if any commit questions come up at a later time when it's appropriate, I'd be happy to answer those at that time. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Shweta Mathri. I'm with Sera Architects, the architect for this project. Along with me today is my colleague Arthur. We both are gonna talk about a few points. I'm gonna into details of building design and sustainability that is proposed on the project. If you could go to slide 19, please, I'd highly appreciate it. So we've heard a lot of comments about the height of the buildings. I want to point out that both on the north and the south side of the property, we have a gradual increase in scale and height. So we are flanking the north and the south by single family homes, which are grayed out in this in this little image here.

And that beyond that is when the three story component of the building starts to show up. The distance between the buildings and the neighboring property lines is a 140 at the least, so it's more than a 140 at many locations. The site is fenced, ensuring that, you know, there's no access to the creek around it. We've maintained view corridors from Vanden Road. So that's the dashed red lines that we're drawing up over there, which allow connection and views from the Vanden Road to further out.

Our activity zones are courtyard spaces within the buildings, ensuring that none of the noise from the community would go out to the adjacent single family homes. We have a large community garden along Vanden Road that really allows and fosters environmental justice. And then we have a walking and a bike path all around the site for the community. Moving to the parking. We have adequate parking provided on the site.

Permanent supportive housing units typically have a lower unit ratio to parking and we are within that. Beyond resident parking, we have guest parking also on-site and ample bike parking provided. Also important to note that the parking is well integrated, so on the north and south side of the site, allowing the Vanden Road frontage to be where the best views are, where the gardens are, and allowing community connection along the roads. Thank you.

Thank you. Before you start, I'm just going to check on Commissioner Dingmann. Commissioner Dingmann, Dingmann, I just wanna make sure you're still on the line.

I sure am.

Alright. Thank you.

Alright.

Hello, commissioners. Shweta mentioned, my name is Arthur Guchowski. I'm a project architect at Sarah Architects, and I've been leading the design of this process. So I wanna talk to you a little bit more about the design process. The the big challenge here, as everyone knows, is how do you place this within its context of two and one story 30 foot tall buildings, and then how do you place these larger buildings in there but still match the match the surroundings?

So so we took a good number of we we made a number of moves to try to do that. So the big one is obviously pricing those the single family component as a buffer between the existing homes and then hours and then parking after that, so creating as much distance. Other things we did, we we really looked at the materials of the building and trying to separate things vertically so it's not just a three story tall single mass, but it's broken broken up up into multiple layers. There's a base layer that's much that has a wood material that's much more warm. And then after that, we also use the window sizing and shading to break up the mass horizontally horizontally so so it's it's not a really long big building.

It's broken up into these smaller parts and then further by insets and then further by window sizing and shading. I think beyond that, we we looked at the sustainability of the site, which was one of the questions that came up. And I think we're looking at a very long long term building here that has really high quality materials. And we're looking at, you know, solar as you can see in the image, but we're also looking at at an all electric building, trying to get as efficient as possible. Denser housing is more efficient generally than than spread out housing, uses less energy.

So that's something we really wanted to focus on. The the other key piece here, I think, is we are providing shading, solar shading, and a lot of tree coverage. As you can see in the rendering, we've we've really focused on trying to use trees as effectively as possible and providing more trees for the community on the street, more for the farm in the central space, and then in the central play areas in the back, and then along all the parking, along the the creek. So really trying to to step that scale down from large buildings surrounded by trees, parking, and then some smaller development, and then finally, the neighborhood. So I think I think with those were kind of the moves I just wanna make sure everybody knew that how that laid out.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Rebecca Gigi, and I'm a project manager with Insight Housing. We are a codeveloper along with Mutual Housing and a service provider for the Victory Gardens development. Insight's housing mission is to ensure that everyone in our community has a home through supportive, equitable, and sustainable housing solutions. Despite being a project manager for Insight, I have some personal connections to the roots of this project.

My father is a veteran of the Marine Corps, and I have personally worked in affordable housing development for the last seven years. So I've witnessed firsthand and spoke with residents in our communities how deeply affordable housing changes lives communities for the better. Insight Housing is committed to the city of Vacaville and its community members to being active members of your community. We will not develop this property and disappear. We are your neighbors and are equally invested in the issues of safety, privacy, infrastructure, and overall prosperity of the neighborhood that's been discussed this evening.

I urge our new neighbors to remember that this development will not only house members of the US military, but also members of your existing community. I'd like to highlight to those with perceptions around what low income housing means that in the state of California, based on the twenty twenty four state income housing limits, low income housing or being considered low income in Solano County are those making under $70,000 a year, which is not an insignificant salary. All of us in this room and those outside of it deserve to live in dignified housing no matter what our income levels are, which this development will provide.

Opportunity to come and speak with you today. I have to write this down or I will forget what I am gonna say. So I'm a proud resident of the area that is being directly affected by the proposed project in Vacaville, and I'm speaking tonight to express my deep concern regarding this development. This three story structure is set to overlook directly in my backyard, which would significantly impact the privacy and quality of life for me and my family. But outside of that, when I purchased my home four years ago, I was not informed that any plan of a high density project was happening in this area.

Furthermore, I also learned about the initial hearing in December during the busiest time of the year, I think we can all agree, after it had already taken place. Holding such an important meeting during a time when most residents are unavailable feels both rushed and deliberately exclusionary. I would also like to point out that North Village in Vacaville was proposed in 1995. It was completed, and some of the funds from that particular area were supposed to go towards the growth of the Vacaville Unified School District, funding that residents in that community are still waiting to see realized. There is no homes that have been built in that North Village or, excuse me, schools that have been built in North Village.

And, unfortunately, from hearing from the Fairfield Sassoon School District, it sounds like their solution is to add more portables on top of already impacted school districts and classrooms. It's not sustainable or an equitable solution for our students or our community. I come from a long line of veterans as well, and they would be outraged by a proposed military housing that is only committing 25% of that housing to military. I urge you to reconsider the scope and impact of this development on long standing residents in our privacy, our schools, and the promises made to this community that we have not seen fulfilled. Thank you.

Thank you.

Having us today. My name is Noah Nap. I come to you guys as a both a husband and a father of young children who I feel will be impacted by this construction. I agree with everything everyone has said in terms of the appeal, but I did wanna kinda point out a couple things that I think that are missing. One of the things that I really kinda took an interest in when reading the reporting that was on the website was in regards to the city's own staff report confirming that no true traffic study was conducted.

Despite the potential for over a thousand additional vehicle trips per day, that seems pretty egregious in terms of just the density in the area of which a one pretty much a one way street kind of going in and to and from that era. Now there's been streets kind of interlocking, but I would tell you I experienced this as a father who takes their kids to school every day. It's madness, frankly. And if I'm out on the road in a good amount of time, I am fighting for space just to kinda get my kids to school on time. I think the other thing that I would mention again as a father, really important.

I got young kids who are just starting in the Travis Unified School District. One of the big issues that I've had is with the overcrowding and the staffing shortages. My kids were in TK last year. They experienced a lot, I would say, in terms of hardship, not so much because they weren't getting a good education from the woman who was teaching them, but she had over 28 kids that she was teaching. No dedicated resource resources to herself in order to do that throughout the full year, and then two TK classes that she had to teach.

This was at Cambridge Elementary School. So adding an estimated 100 new students from the project, I think, risks further degradation of the student teacher ratios, curriculum quality, and available resources. Your report asserts that a 2% enrollment increase is manageable, but it lacks transparency about which schools will absorb this influx and how. I don't see a disclosure of class capacities, no mitigation plans, and no commitments in terms of timing for the school's infrastructure to improve in order to match the project's phasing. I think that by claiming the school impact fees alone will address this fail still account for delays between the revenue collection and the actual tangible school enhancements.

So in my estimation, approving a project of this scale without a detailed education capacity plan would be a little bit irresponsible, especially as someone who prides themselves on being a local resident and someone who has made California my home in Vacaville. I I feel rather strongly that there should be a little bit more oversight in terms of that. Otherwise, thank you for your

time today.

Thank you very much.

Richard Scanderette. I'm maybe a little have a little dementia going on, so hold on a a little bit. I live in the neighborhood on what's our street name? Via Del Sol, Highway To The Sun. And we are being impacted now about safety and about that the road there.

People, when they come off the the widened part and onto the narrow part, which has no no apron on either side, no sidewalk, but there's bike lanes on both sides. So someone intended that there be bike lanes there, and someone intended that there would be sidewalks there. And the people, when they get on that rough portion, when they see the sign 40 miles per hour, they don't go 40. They go 50 to 60. And I walk on that adjacent pathway just beyond the bridge that goes around that entire development area.

Sometimes I will I have have my dog with me. I take one step out, and I see it because you see the car, you think it's you can get across. But they're going so fast that by the time I get my foot on the pavement, pavement, the car's there, and I have to jump back literally. And it is a safety hazard. I think someone could be could be killed.

It might be me sometime. And I I feel that you are neglecting public safety, not only for the residents on the other side of it, but for us. And and we there are lots of walkers that walk that hole and have to cross, and there is a dip in the curb there because they recognize people want to cross there to go to the other side of end, and they continue to walk around. And and then as a veteran, I totally think that you are violating the the donor's request. That should be totally veterans and low income military people.

Don't violate his donation.

Thank you very much.

Deputy Jean Pierre, retired air force twenty four years, and sit on the board of traffics regional force committee, the executive board. I want to say 25%. 25%. To me, that's a slap in the face, a stake in my heart. When we go to war, we don't give 25%. We give all of ourselves to our country. Without the United States military, you would have no United States. Thank you.

Commissioner, chair, vice chair. Well, everybody's talking about the 25%, but I'm I'm I'm just coming up here for a clarification. Because if you tell me 25%, that means if 52 houses are filled by veterans, there's nothing for Travis Air Force Base because you don't have any need to have the the whole purpose is have the base have housing outside of the base. But if you do it the way that you're doing it, there's no there's no way of knowing how. Because if you fill that 52% up I mean, that 52 housing facility out with veterans, which we needed as veterans, you have nothing for the active duty people.

So I think there should be clarification on exactly who's gonna get who's active duty and who's veterans because I'm a veteran too, and I love my veterans. And like mister Pierre said, you know, we need it. And the safety thing, years ago, the thought was the reason people didn't want it in their backyard was because of that prison. They thought that people would move from that that that are housed at that that prison. Relatives would move into these housing areas and that it'd be a crime ridden area.

I don't know that to be true, but that was the thought years ago in these houses in areas like that. And the last thing is, this was tried before it when when they used military housing in Fairfield. The the table East Tabor housing area that's written with crime and everything, that was originally for military. And I really don't want that to happen in my district. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there. Commissioner. Commission. I wonder if you could pull the slide up of the rendering. My name is Larry Coyle.

I live in Vacaville for twenty, thirty years, something like that. When I saw the the mailer, I actually received it after the the meeting was held as well. But when I saw the mailer and it talked about the military or the the, you know, VA acts aspect of this project, I was impressed and in favor of it. But then as I read through this, mailer, and got a little bit more into it, I realized that, it wasn't really for veterans. It was being pushed through as a VA project in order to provide low income housing.

If I read the article correctly, and this is just for memory, it was like the the first lowest income project like this in Solano County. Correct me if I'm wrong. There was a term given given to the project, TT or LT or something like that, which designated as the first project of this type in Solano County. So this is not just, as I understand it, your typical low income project. I believe it's very low income.

But my big issue with the project, and I live not too far away, is that I feel like it's completely out of character for the neighborhood. This is not something you see nestled down in a quiet little neighborhood. This is what you would see on Nuttree Road or on Alamo or Peabody, you know, somewhere like that, in a adjacent to a commercial district, where they have buildings of this size and this this scale, not nestled into this quiet little one and two story house houses, neighborhood. This is a very quiet area, and they've got a brand new park, which, you know, everybody that's low income and and whatnot would enjoy. It's not really gonna be much for the veterans, I don't think, but maybe a little bit.

And and I I, resent the fact that they're trying to sell this as a as a VA project and and even labeling it Victory Gardens. I mean, what is that? Do they? You know? Kind of trying

to

tug at our heart's rings there. And I realized that a lot of people have spoken in favor of it, most of whom are able to gain financially from seeing it go through. And and I just wanna point out that, you know, you guys represent the citizens of Vacaville more than you do represent anybody pushing some project through so they can make a buck on it. Thank you. And

Your time is up.

You know, this is like they've taken 10 pounds of stuff and shoved it in a five pound bag and shoved it on Vanden Road. And I also wanna say Vanden Road has changed substantially.

I apologize, but your time's up.

Okay. Thank you very substantially since this was initially proposed. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Angela Upshaw. I'm the COO for In Site Housing. Before I give some comments, I'd like to just thank everyone for being here. Our veterans, thank you for your service, thank you for being here, and our community members. We appreciate the civic engagement. This is important to hear how you feel. We are looking forward to partnering with you. Inside Housing, we have been serving people in our community for over fifty five years. We have been a service provider and we recently got into affordable housing development because we realized there's just not enough housing inventory to permanently support and house the people that we're serving.

Of those fifty five years, the past twenty years, we've been veterans, focused on veteran housing. The past ten years have been here in Solano County. They mentioned the Rio Vista project, which is a permanent supportive housing for six veterans in Rio Vista. We also have a 53 permanent supportive housing building in the city of Berkeley, which also has 12 units for veterans, and a commercial kitchen. We really focus on housing and food for those that we're serving.

We don't do anything in isolation. Everything we do is in partnership. We partner with local providers. We partner with Solano County Continuum of Care, CANB, Nation's Finest, Solano County Veterans Service Officer, and of course like other developers, because we know you can't do anything in isolation. Everything has to be done and worth the community.

In my experience serving veterans in the Permitted Supportive Housing, they are some of the best residents. Really low crime, making sure that the units are kept in best shape and condition, really connected to the community. We have some of the best residents in our veteran population. Order, discipline, and I just want to say everyone wants a safe neighborhood where they can feel safe, secure, and affordable. I hear the word low income thrown out a lot, but it's really about affordability and that's different for every single person.

What's affordable to one may not be affordable to the other. As a person who has faced housing insecurity, I understand that firsthand. I would like to say inside housing, we not only serve veterans, but we partner with them and we hire vets. We are committed to those that we serve. I do want to talk about that 25% that's thrown up a lot.

We would love a 100% project, but there are fair housing housing laws that don't allow that unless you have vouchers. We are thankful for the City of Vacaville and the Vacaville Housing Authority to have secured 52 vouchers. That's why we're able to make sure that those are specifically for vets, but we are conversation with the VA and the housing authority to ask for more. We want more. If we can get 200, hey, we're there for it. It's not us saying we don't want that. We want the full project, but we have to work within the confines of what's available and what the law states.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Do

we have any further public comment?

Thank you for giving me a chance to speak. I want I'm in opposed to this for several reasons. I wanna echo Mark's new one that's been approved, Garden Grove or whatever the name is, it's another 150 homes. So you're gonna add roughly 400 plus vehicles traveling a short distance from where this is located to Alamo, which is less than a quarter of a mile. So for me, personally, I can't even even if I tried to say, oh, I could put something together and plan this out, and this is gonna work, and we're gonna have traffic come this way, and everyone's gonna exit in a in a, you know, in accordance and smoothly.

I don't see how that's possible. If you visually picture that many cars coming out at any time of the day, especially in the morning or evening, people going to and from work, how is that possible? I I don't know. That is one of my concerns. The other one, we talked about this percentage at being at 25%.

Unless I'm misreading this, the original document indicated the 25% also includes extremely low income households. So what's the actual percentage? Is it truly 25%, or are we talking less than that? Because if we're including extra low within that 52, it is not 25%. Just a quick question.

How did we shift from the intended use to high density? Last comment I have is with respect to the environmental assessment that was performed. I know you had mentioned something in regards to there not being a need for an, as part of that assessment, traffic impacts or noise impacts. And it said something with reference to the amount of trips. Can you explain that? I wasn't quite clear. So There's an earlier slide.

Is is there a slide with traffic There was

a slide that or a comment that she made with respect to there was no traffic impact study done as part the ESA.

I'm gonna give you a little more time after or after your minutes up just because we've taken some.

Yep.

So make your comment, and then we'll make sure that we take it take it down, and we'll address it and have staff address it at the end. But I'm gonna give you an extra thirty seconds.

Okay.

Just last closing comment question. Diminution and value, we talked about this as well. Who's gonna fund for that if this actually takes place? That's gonna affect everyone whose asset is their home. That's all I have. I'm extremely opposed to this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Do we have any other public comment? Thank you, everybody. I'm going now close public comment. Okay. So, I'm gonna bring this back to the commission to deliberate and give feedback to staff. Commissioner, you are also involved in this, and we'll make sure that you get a chance to speak. I'm gonna start with vice chair Wilkerson.

Yes. Thank thank you for everyone to come out and speak. And first, I I think you with with the topic of this housing, it would be re re it would be not right if we didn't acknowledge the veterans in the room. And so I wanna thank everyone who served the military and has served our country because that is the purpose of why we're here, but there's there's people on both sides of the argument. I wanna make sure you're all acknowledged, and I greatly appreciate your service. For staff and for the developer, a couple of questions. I think a major concern I heard was, can we add a stop sign?

Can that can that be part

of this development agreement to where there's a stop sign somewhere add in so cars aren't going so fast? Is that a condition we can add in, or is that something the developer is willing to do?

Or or do problem. Do we do or do we have information on the traffic study that was implemented?

We have the city's traffic engineer that is available to answer that question. Okay.

Sir, please. Sir, please. Sir, please.

I guess

I'm sorry, here you go. One more time.

There you go.

No. How about you give it a go?

One more? All right. I'm here to answer your questions regarding traffic. As far as your question about stop signs, the way we install stop signs, we have to do an engineering study. We just can't install and stop sign where people request them. We have to go through an engineering study that looks at volume, traffic, accident rates, those kind of things. Again, we have to go through an engineering study not just based on somebody's request.

Okay.

I heard a question about a gentleman asking about trip rates. To require a development for traffic study, are two different ways we were looking at it. For CEQA, it's based on VMT and since this is an affordable housing project, it's exempt from VMT. We can look at it from that perspective with CEQA. However, that doesn't preclude us from looking at it for general plan consistency.

And our municipal code says if a project generates over a 100 vehicle trips in a peak hour, then we require a traffic study. This doesn't reach that threshold, so we didn't require a traffic study. But even given that, we did look at what traffic this would generate and based on what we looked at and based on the, what's we usually look at in traffic engineering, what this project would generate basically in the peak hour, you're looking at adding one car northbound every minute and one car southbound every two minutes. So it's not a significant impact. I

don't know if there are other

How how does the widening of Vanden Road and the improvements that are gonna take place? Is that going or is there additional lanes added or anything?

Well, as far as Matt Ellis from Philippi addressed some of those questions. Gardens is conditioned to install curb and gutter and sidewalk on their side. And and they're required to install curb and sidewalk on their side.

So is it gonna remain a two lane road?

It's gonna remain a two lane road.

And are they gonna be

That's pretty much mirroring. If you look at how it's you know, it narrows down on the southern part, south of bridge. Essentially, essentially, it's it's gonna gonna narrow narrow down down towards towards the the bridge. Bridge, you know, on on the other side as well.

Okay. Narrow it down.

Okay. Thank you. I think I think I'm good with traffic. Thank you so much. Questions for the developer.

You spoke briefly about your successes Sacramento in terms of housing units and how you were able to outreach to communities. I think it'd be important for you to one one minute of just how you plan to do that here. I don't think that's very clear to the public and not to myself. I do have some concerns that, yes, you do have a marketing plan, but it wasn't detailed, I guess, explained to us how you plan to be successful so that what you want to happen in this neighborhood does actually happen, which I think would help ease a lot of the concerns that the residents have. So if you could highlight your successes of how you're you do that, I think that'd be very helpful. I think you had one area where you said you had 80% effectiveness. So if you could just quickly

Sure. So for this particular project, we would, as I mentioned, be partnering with several organizations. We've reached out to Travis Air Force Base, as I mentioned. So one of the items would be that we would we plan to list weakened units on the Travis Air Force Base housing site. We would be partnering with the department that actually helps place new arrivals within the base into housing.

So that would be a part of our outreach. The part of our outreach for the veterans would be that we would say market provide marketing material with veteran testimonials so that it provides, you know, like, generates a build and builds trust in the veteran community about our proposed development. We also plan to speak about our trauma informed design and inclusive design features in all of this marketing material so that, again, it builds trust and ensures that it ensures that we can reach out to the public and they understand that this is a bit veteran and military focused housing development.

Okay. Thank you. Is the guy from Travis Unified Survey? Okay. Just wanted to clarify. There were concerns of the TK classroom had 28 kids in it and just what the letter we got and he said, so I just wanted to know if you could clear that up for us. I'm good. I'll I'll

Thank you. Do we have any other commissioner comments?

Yeah. Can staff answer first?

Sure.

What I'd what I I have a list of questions. If you have a list of questions, I'll run down with staff.

If I have questions, I have comments.

Yep. If you have comments, we can take them now and have have

I'll always

answer questions. Okay. Do have questions? I have questions. Yep.

My questions are for the co developer that was speaking about the vouchers and the number how we got to 52 and how you get vouchers. Can we can I ask some of those questions?

Through the chair, yes. We also have housing staff here that can explain more about why 52 vouchers.

Perfect. So my question is, like, how do you get to the fifty two? How do you get the vouchers? Are those the only way those are the only from my understanding, that's the only way to put a preference on the housing is to have a voucher. How do you get those vouchers? What is the feasibility of getting more vouchers, and what does that process look like? And then the experience of insight working with Vacaville and Solano County veterans. How many veterans are they currently serving? Because my understanding said that do services in this city. And do they currently work with the VA, and have they spoken with our veterans authority about any data that would support the need of this price point of being the 30 to 80 AMI.

Does the VA have veterans that are currently needing housing in that, income bracket?

We are having conversations with the VA about the vouchers requesting more. It's a collaboration in partnership with the housing authority, so the VA can say, Hey, we think there's a need. We've got because they have an interest list that they hold for veterans, and they can share that with the housing authority, and the housing authority actually has to make the request to HUD. The VA for the VASH vouchers, which are the HUD and VASH supportive the VA covers the case management support, but the housing authority does the rest of it. The voucher still is issued through the housing authority, so it's a collaboration between the two.

I have spoken with the VA and they said that they actually have more veterans who are at the 50% AMI because they are receiving their veteran benefits. That's what we're targeting. It's not the extremely low income of 30%, it's really the 50% that's what the VA is looking for. We'd like to partner with this one. Did I miss some of your questions? I'm sorry.

My questions were, so the 25% is for those vouchers, but the other 75% is still below the 80% AMI. Does the Veterans Authority have individuals that would qualify for that income level as well?

Yes, they do, but more I think are in the 50% to 80%. But then that would be open for those who are active service members who are at Travis. We would think would be able to qualify for the rest of the units that are not the 52 set aside for the project based vouchers. Those project based vouchers are really for folks who are exiting homelessness.

Okay.

Hello. My name is Celinda Aguilar Vasquez, and I am the Housing and Community Services Administrator for the Housing and Community Services Department. I'd like to address the question of why 52 vouchers were issued. So the applicant in response to a request for proposals, they requested 52 vouchers and that's what they were awarded. I'd like to have the applicant explain as to why only 52 were requested.

But I do want to say that the remaining units that are not covered by the project based vouchers can be covered by a regulatory agreement and can include language that the units outside of the project based voucher units also have a military preference. The housing department is currently in discussion with the developer to finalize any language that might mention that preference for non project based vouchers. We cannot legally reserve units outside of the project based voucher units, but the project could have an informative marketing plan not just for vets but also for active military. In response to there's a couple questions that I believe were kind of addressed to housing that I'd like to answer, if that's okay. So in response to the labor standards and the union, because the project is receiving project based vouchers, they have a pay prevailing wage, and the city is responsible for ensuring that labor standards are monitored and followed.

The housing department has had conversations with the mutual housing regarding collaborative collaborations with the union, and it is our understanding that we are in a very early stage of the process for these discussions to happen. Once the project gets closer to the construction, mutual housing would have the conversation with the general contractor and with the unions, but I would also defer to the applicant if they have anything else to add on that. I also wanted to add that veterans also includes active military. Active military would also be considered. In a call that our executive director had with Mutual Housing and Representatives of the military, it was discussed considering civilian members of the community that work on the base as a possible eligible preference for applicants as well.

Further discussion will happen with the applicant about that possibility. You also had a question about getting more vouchers. So the vouchers go through a request for proposal process, and so it's it's a public notice posted in the paper. The applicants apply. There's a panel that reviews the applications. Interviews are completed, and then vouchers are possibly issued. But there are a certain amount. My apologies. I do not remember off the top of my head what there's like a 20 or 30% limit of what we can have as project based. So if we're at our cap, then we can no longer issue the project based vouchers. But when we do have them available, then it is through a request for proposal process.

Just just one second. So, Steph, do you do you have any comment or response on public comment or what we didn't just cover?

Is the commission asking for staff to cover everything else that hasn't been discussed yet just yet?

Why don't you start with what you've got, and then I'll fill

in. In.

All right. I'll start from the top. I've got 23, but not every single one. I think there's been some discussion already that's covered a bunch of them. Clarifying the improvements mainly related to safety, adjacent to the creek, grading, and front edges, reiterating what mister Ellis said from Philippi Engineering.

Site will be raised. Perimeter along the creek fencing will be required as part of the Solano County Water Agency. And then the frontage improvements will include a separated sidewalk. They'll have to widen it to be able to provide that connection of pedestrian circulation that's currently existing to the north. They'll come down in front of the property, and then there's a requirement to add a bridge that crosses the creek.

So much of those concerns that are experienced right now along that section of the roadway would be improved with this project. There are questions about the percentage. I think that our housing colleagues were able to address that. There was a question about the speeding, whether or not to incorporate a stop sign. Traffic engineer addressed that.

That has to be supported by a engineering study. There was a question about road expansion and the potential blockage of emergency access because of the population increase this goes back to the objective review by our traffic engineer and our colleagues and as well as the fire department and police department to determine whether or not access was gonna be provided to meet city standards and fire code and building code. They did review it. And so the draw vials that are gonna occur around the buildings will provide our fire and police services enough access to be able to get around the entire project site. The frontage improvements as well as the widening of the roadway along also provide improved access for those emergency vehicles to be able to access the site.

I think the applicant spoke about the quality of the buildings that will be used. There were questions about the overreach of privacy and looking over the backyard. The nice thing about being with the city for as long as I have been, I have the context of a couple of different projects that we've had in the past. One of them being Southtown apartments that had that exact same concern. As a result, City Council directed staff to develop a set of standards explicitly dealing with multifamily housing in close proximity to single family development.

Those standards were adopted within our municipal code in June, and this project complies with those very standards that city council set us out to do which is part of the reason why you see single family attached housing in between those existing housing products and where that multi multifamily project is located. There are questions about whether or not Travis Unified School District has the capacity, and I think that you've already heard from them. There are questions about public outreach, and one of the things that we wanted to clarify was that after the neighborhood meeting that occurred in December 12, we did post the meeting online so people could watch the Zoom meeting. We did post our information online so that way people did wanna reach out to us. They could and we did receive correspondence post that meeting with people expressing their concerns.

Applicant answered the question about or sorry. Our colleagues in the housing department answered the questions about are the 52 units explicitly for veterans, and they can be available for active military service members. I believe the applicant or sorry. The representative for Insight Housing clarified that it's the the affordability range is really 80 to 50% of what is really needed to be able to reach the military housing and veteran housing. That's all I have.

Does anybody else have something that they'd like staff to respond

to? To?

Commissioner Commissioner? Beaumont.

Albert, you said you've raised the site. Does that take you out of the flood zone? Or how does how does that work?

The applicant's engineer, Philippine Engineering, is an engineer. I'm not. But one of the things that we look for as a requirement is that they they have to prove that the project that they're going to build will not place future residents in a flood zone. So that is one of the standard requirements that's required for constructing sites. But I would defer to the applicant's engineer to talk explicitly about how they usually solve that issue of raising the site and controlling drainage. Anybody

else?

So this is a very difficult question because FEMA is unsettled at the moment. And additionally, there are actually lawsuits being involved where raising the site is now under lawsuit in the state of California. So FEMA is no longer is not currently allowing what are called Lomar and Clomar Fs, which are for fill. This site specifically is in FEMA zone A, which is an undetermined elevation of flooding less than one hundred year flood event. We have hired a flood engineer specifically for flood who is not here, unfortunately, tonight, so I'm gonna try to do my best to speak to that.

But we are working with them. We are also working with the public works department and the city engineer's office to determine exactly what we can do to get this project out of the flood zone. These units are also on a raised foundation, so that gives us some ability to get out of that flood zone without raising the elevation of site specifically. But we are working with FEMA, the city, and the design team to make sure that there are no impacts from flood on this project site. Does that answer your questions? More or less.

Commissioner Dingmann? Yes. Do you have anything you'd like staff to respond to?

I have nothing at this time. Thank you very much.

I'd like to address the canal and the fence barrier. And can you go over what's in place now and what's what's proposed?

Certainly. As part of our development review process, we do notify outside agencies like Salon Irrigation District and Salon County Water Agency. When we first received the project, we sent out a referral to Solano County Water Agency, and they provided comments back to us. Those comments are memorialized in the staff report and the director's original approval. The conditions of approval that Squall put on, what you'll expect to see for the improvements is that the developer will have to provide a driveway that allows for their vehicles to be able to pull off with an automatic gate that opens up so that way their team can get to that current access road.

And then they'll have to reconstruct that perimeter fencing that's along the back so that way they don't have any issues with residents accessing that Creek area.

Can can you go into on fire access and evacuation, and what was what was researched in finding that everything's adequate?

Tonight, we have the pleasure of having our fire marshal present to help provide some clarifying answers for that question.

Welcome. Thank you very much.

Hi. I'm Jill. I'm the fire marshal. I'm here to answer any questions you might have.

So how was the project reviewed by fire for evacuation? That was something that was brought up by public. And the current roadways might be a traffic combo.

So current roadways on-site current roadways do comply with the California Fire Code as they're designed based on building height. And they are over 30 feet in height, and so we do have the minimum of a 26 foot wide drive aisle around perimeter of the project. As far as response, there were some questions that came up about our response times. We do currently meet response times visiting this site with our emergency responders. Station 75 is right down the street.

Evacuations also got mentioned. And so I think you've all heard about our know your zone program through Zone Haven. And so we ask residents to go in and visit Zone Haven, out what your zone is. And as a result of several fires, the county and all the cities have now coordinated together with these zones so we can have a more efficient evacuation process moving forward should we have to use them again.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Does any while we have her, does anybody have any questions? Thank you. So can you so I think it was mentioned briefly. So in terms of wages, because this is a low income project, will there be a state prevailing wage when building it?

I'd like to bring up our colleagues from the housing department to help answer that question.

Because it is having the project based vouchers, the city will monitor the Davis Bacon Davis Bacon, I can't remember the rest of it, but it will be monitored. And the applicant will have to submit their payroll documentation to confirm that they are doing the prevailing wages.

Great. Thank you. Can staff explain to us and the public the situation that we're in with the state laws and how this project is a by right project? And can you explain that to us a little bit?

Yes, absolutely. So because this project is an affordable project, it is subject components of the Housing Accountability Act, which is state housing law. It covers all kinds of things, but affordable projects in particular are entitled to certain protections. So I'll start with the site has been zoned high residential and is designated in the general plan as residential high density. I think that's been for fifteen years now.

That means it's appeared in two consecutive housing element cycles, which means that a multi family project that is proposed for the site is by right, which means the things you can look at for that project are objective design standards, which we talked about things like height, building setbacks, anything that is clearly laid out in our existing code that is an objective standard that can be applied to the project, so that was what staff reviewed it for. We can look at compliance with the general plan policies, we can look at compliance with other portions of our code, but because the city has not met or exceeded its RENA numbers for the income levels that this project is going to serve, we are very limited in terms of denying this project. A denial of this project on the grounds that have been raised tonight would represent a violation of state housing law, and so I think, you know, that the guidelines around your decision tonight are limited by state law. And this site has been vacant, zone high residential for a long time, and so that's a piece of the puzzle, but in general, affordable housing projects are entitled to a level of protection that is the sort of bumpers that you're seeing around this objective design standards, height, building setbacks, parking, you know, fire safety, things like that.

But that's really, we're kind of limited to that world.

Thank you very much. Is there anything that we can do to modify or change the requirement for veterans or military for the vouchers or to increase that percentage?

Yeah, I can speak

a bit to that, although maybe not from the ground level. I think what you've heard tonight, which is correct, is that it is not that this project is going to be limited to 25% veterans or active military, it's that that's what the vouchers exist for currently, and so the project applicant, the builder, is not allowed under state and federal fair housing law to preclude other applicants, except for the vouchers, the 25%. All that means is that if they market more heavily to military, to active duty, to veterans, they are allowed to take as many of them as apply. They can 100% fill the project with veterans active duty, anyone who works at the base. They can state a preference for those applicants.

They just can't turn away individual applicants who come and apply, and that's for reasons of state and federal fair housing

law. Thank you very much. I think that that covers all of my questions. We'll bring it back to commissioner deliberation. Commissioner Rudine.

Okay. I'm gonna try to get through all this. Again, I listened to every single thing. I took notes on what everybody was saying and their concerns. I read every single email that we received. However, as it was just explained, we are working in the confines of state law. This isn't a Vacaville thing, and I understand. This is state law. This isn't a Vacaville thing. This isn't a Solano County thing.

The state has made it very, very clear on their housing. And because of percentage of affordable housing, this is by right. And we learned some important lessons with SB three thirty and denial. And if it goes to the state and it comes back, it would be far worse. Anyways, the land was zoned medium density back in 2001 density, the density of the project has been brought up and how it doesn't suit the neighborhood.

In 2023, the City Council is who changed it to high density. Within high density, as it was mentioned, you have to build 20.1 to 30 dwelling units per acre. You can't build less. You can't build more. Just if you have low density, you can't build more than what that allows. So if we were to downsize this project, because it is at 24.5 units per dwelling acre, if we were to downsize this project, then we wouldn't be compliant with zoning. So changing the size of the project it's not as simple as, Well, we don't like this. Can we change it? It is zoned high density. It has been zoned high density by our Council.

Another thing that was brought up was moving the project. It doesn't work that way. In one of the emails that we received, somebody had mentioned the vacant lot behind Lucky's on Peabody. Just off of Peabody, excuse me. There's actually an approved project for that. You can't just say, Well, we don't want it here. It should go here. That's owned by somebody else. It doesn't it doesn't work that way. Impacts to schools. I have three children. I completely understand how impacted schools are. However, that is not our purview. That is Travis Unified. That is, you know, of course, you know, let us know Travis is here, but that's Travis's purview, not the city of Vacaville's.

Traffic, yes, there's going to be an increase in traffic. If you look at our housing element, which I understand that most people don't. I've been involved in local politics since 2017 and understanding how housing works. If you look at the general plan, if you look at our housing element, you can see how the city is zoned for housing, where future housing will go at some point. Cities don't build houses, they zone land.

City, Vacaville is going to grow. It's just California is growing, bill is going to grow traffic is inevitable. Not okay, then the argument of not considering neighborhood opposition. We can consider it, but we still have a very narrow path in which we which we have to navigate. Again, it goes back to state law.

The state is very serious on housing because for so many years, cities did not build housing, and the state's very serious about it. If you look at HCD and understand how the RENA process works, it's an onion you're going to start peeling, but that explains how housing allocations work. Property values going down. That one I heard a lot. That's there is nothing that supports that.

In fact, high interest rates right now, that is making property values go down because I'm currently trying to sell my house and I've had to lower the price. So an apartment complex that looks quite nice, they're going to have two property managers. There's really nothing that supports that property values will go down. And an increase in crime when I graduated college in 02/2006, my first job out of college, I earned $35,000, and I thought that was awesome until I tried looking for somewhere to live. Just because you don't make much doesn't mean you're a criminal, and that is just nimbyism at its finest.

And I understand the concerns. I understand that there's an association, but it doesn't mean it's right. Therefore, I am in full support of this project.

Commissioner Banta.

Thank you. I just wanted to thank staff for, all of the work that they did on the project, on addressing this. What our purview in here right now is to discuss the appeal, of a previous environmental assessment, a minor design review, a tentative parcel map, and retrieve removal permit, which by right, by state law, it fits the general plan, It fits the zoning. It fits all the state law. So the fact that you don't like you want traffic you want things to be done, I understand all that, but that has to be put into a general plan or an ordinance or something else or a state law.

It's not we don't want low income housing near us, and so we're not gonna have that. And it's just kinda sad that that conversation continues to go that way. So I thank staff for going, I believe, above and beyond in, thoroughly looking into some of the concerns on top of that. So going into the safety concern, they didn't have to pull up all the the safety concerns from the PD. They didn't have to have the fire do all those safety concerns. They didn't have to do public works, do all those things, but they did all of them because they are listening to the concerns, and they are caring. And so I just wanted to thank staff for that, and I as well am in support of the project and would deny the appeal.

Anybody Commissioner

Beaumont. Yeah. Thank you. I just wanna say thank you for the passion that everybody showed. I mean, it's it's true. You have those feelings, and you have those feelings. But we represent the city of Vacaville, all of it. And I'm a twenty six year air force veteran, retired colonel from air force from Travis, so I understand the veterans' perspective. And, you know, that lot's been there for twenty plus years deeded to the city. The developers and the builders who sold you those homes should have told you about that.

It was there. If they promised you a school because they had a school lot, you knew they're never gonna build there. They never do, and that's a builder's fault. And so you've been deceived a couple of times with different things when you brought in when you bought that house. And, it's this has been evaluated by the police, the fire, the traffic, the utilities, Travis Unified School District.

I believe the 25% for military is the minimum. I think if they go out to Travis, they could fill that place up in a heartbeat, and you wouldn't have the other people there that you say, you know, low income, whatever. So I just think that, overall, I think that when this is built, five years after it's built, you'll you'll have none of these concerns. And it I've been up here long enough, and I know that I've seen projects that you've told me about that you have all these concerns. Not one time has anybody come back and said, see, I told you so.

It just doesn't happen. And so for me, I think this project has to be approved and for the all the reasons that the attorney said because, we're obligated in our arena. We have no low income housing in this city, and this supplies some of it. So I'm gonna vote yes.

Commissioner Bargas?

Sure. Just a comment.

Thank you, staff, for the information. But most importantly, I wanna thank those that came out to speak today, listened very intently, appreciate appreciate the the thoughtful response. I'm not going to lecture anyone on anything. I just want to say thank you. Even to those who did not speak, thank you for being here. It's very, very important to us that we see we we don't get to see a a packed house very often. And so the passion and the delivery of the concerns were heard, and I wanna thank you for that. That's all I have.

Thank you, Commissioner Vargas. Commissioner Commissioner Wilkerson, Dingmann, Vice Chair. Do you have anything you'd like to add?

Thanks, Chair. Just want to say thank you to the staff for the extended amount of work that went into this, to the residents and all the folks that showed up to talk about the community they live in, they love. And I think we've heard just about every single side that's out there. A lot of really compelling things here and just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this and to continue to look out for the best interest of not just the local neighborhoods, but the city itself and growing in a common sense way. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Commissioner Dingmann. So for me, I too echo the words of my fellow commissioner Vargas. I appreciate everybody being here. I appreciate taking part in what it is that we do. I I I'm so glad to see people respond.

I think that your your comments and questions brought up were were all necessary necessary for us to discuss, necessary to show everybody's opinion. And the I hope that the developers that are in the room, they they took they took your words into consideration. I I think that we've overwhelmingly expressed to them our desire for them pursue veterans or military people in this, and I'll do my best to make sure that they follow through with what they say they're going to do in that regard. And I think that you've expressed expressed how important it is to our community that they do that. Do do you have something?

K. Had, commissioner Banta first.

So I'd like to make a simple motion to approve the resolution denying the appeal and affirming the community development director's approval of the Vacaville Victory Gardens minor design review tentative parcel map entry removal permit at 5763 Vanden Road subject to conditions of approval.

I'll second.

So I currently have a motion from commissioner Banta and a second from commissioner Ruddin. Can I please have a roll call vote?

Yes. Commissioner

a I

important

think

Yeah. They deliver pizza. We

we will take a ten minute recess. We will now bring the meeting back to order, and we're

we

we'll will open open it it up up to to public the comment. Then Staff, please proceed with your presentation.

Good evening, everybody. Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners, and everybody else in attendance. My name is Adeline, and I am an Assistant Planner with the Community Development Department. This evening, we will be presenting the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six Fiscal Year Capital Improvement Program and General Plan review. For some background on this, the official request would be to determine that the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six capital improvement program is consistent with general plan.

And over here on the right hand side, we have a map that lays out all of the proposed projects on this year's list. For some additional background, for a capital improvement program, this sort of serves as the blueprint for building and sustaining infrastructure within the city. This includes most major improvements for city facilities, and it focuses on implementing general plan goals, policies, and actions. We are required by several government code sections to review these projects for consistency with the general plan on an annual basis. This consistency determination with the general plan will cover topics such as circulation improvements, open space areas, and public facilities and services.

The summary for this year's list is that there are 13 new CIP projects proposed for this fiscal year. And some of them include things such as a new well, fire station renovations, fuel and maintenance tracking, septic and playground replacements, and I-eighty over crossing upgrades. To go in a little bit more detail, some of the improvements related to fire stations includes things like building training grounds, studying water runoff, fixing some pavement, installing apparatus bake cooling equipment, fuel tracking, and general remodels. In addition with Parks and Recreation, they're proposing a replacement of Nelson Park Playground, as well as a septic system in the Pina Adobe Park area. And for utilities, they are going to study the courtyard access and space planning.

They want to install a computerized maintenance system and improve the Lagoon Valley I-eighty over crossing and equip a new municipal well, which would be number 20. Tonight's recommendation by staff would be, by simple motion, to recommend that the city determine that the capital improvement program for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six fiscal year is consistent with the Vacaville General Plan. And now we are going to open it to any questions and comments. And just to let you guys know, we also have a representative from our Public Works Department to answer more specific questions regarding any specific proposed projects.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, staff. I appreciate it, and welcome. I will open up to commissioner questions, and I have commissioner Beaumont.

Yeah. I have four questions. A couple of them may be stupid, but I'm gonna ask them anyway. On the well 20, is there any chance that the state can take some of the water from our wells like they're trying to take from Berryessa and Pewter Creek if they want to?

Hi. My name is Brian Oxley. I work for Public Works. I don't work for utilities, so I'm not a 100% sure, but, that is highly unlikely that that the state could take from our wells.

Okay. And another question I have is on the fire station asphalt repair. It's in two different requests. My question is since the asphalt is continually getting ground down by the heavy equipment, was there any reason other than cost that we didn't put concrete in rather than asphalt so it wouldn't get ground down? We have these continual repairs.

That is something that we would look at with this project to determine what would be the pavement that we would replace it with. But, typically, that is the reason asphalt is put in instead of concrete because of the cost. But there are things that we can do adding geotextile fabrics and things to strengthen that.

And that so that

would be something that we would look at.

Yeah. When you're dealing with such overweight equipment, I mean, it just seems asphalt is not very a good good option. Option.

Yes.