Planning Commission - Special Meeting

good evening everyone and anybody online today is June 29th of the year 2026 and this is the special meeting of the director for the community development department in the city of Ventura And the city of Ventura acknowledges that we are gathered on unseated Chumash land and to read the city council adopted Chumash land acknowledgement in full, you can visit the city's website, cityofVentura.ca.gov forward slash Chumash land acknowledgement. And first item on the agenda are public communications. Public communications is the time set aside during the hearing for members of the public to address the hearing officer on planning related business other than scheduled agenda items. I do not see any members of the public outside of city staff in the audience. Madam Clerk, is there anyone online?

Thank you, Director Clancy. There's no public commenters.

Thank you. Moving on to our consent calendar, I have the approval of the minutes from the June 15th meeting. The recommendation is to approve as presented, and I move to approve the June 15th meeting minutes. next is our um singular item tonight is the form under formal item is project 261102 ventura ninja academy located at 4450 dupont court this is a request for a use permit to permit an indoor sports and recreation use within a 7584 square foot portion of a 20 688 square foot building and a minor variance to reduce the amount of parking from 38 to 15. And the planner of the staff report is Tyler Walter, but today we are joined by principal planner Valerie Dubois. Did I say it? Sorry. Who will do staff's presentation. Thank you, Valerie. Please proceed.

Thank you, good afternoon, Acting Director Glanzay. This is Valerie, as you mentioned, and the case before you is project number 261102 for the Ventura Ninja Academy, which is represented by Madeline Scarpulla. So the subject property is located at 4450, 4450 Dupont Court in the Arundel community on the south side of Dupont Court, Caldezac. A little bit of a delay. There we go. The Arundel community consists primarily of industrial uses. The surrounding properties are also developed with one story tilt up construction with surface parking similar to the site in question as shown on the photographs on the screens. So the property is a zone manufacturing plan development, or MPD zoning, which is intended to accommodate a mix of wholesale distribution, office commercial, and other similar uses. The zoning district also permits other types of uses such as daycare centers, recreational uses requiring discretion or approval. The Ventura Ninja Academy is classified as an indoor sports recreation use and as such the project requires the approval of a use permit. It is also subject to the parking requirement of that specific use. So the zone remains compatible with the new general plan 2050 land use designation of general industrial. So the 47,000 square foot lot or 1.1 acre property is shown with a dash line on the site plan on the screen. And that exhibit was submitted by the applicant. The existing building outlined in a light blue and light blue, is a little over 20,000 square feet with a proposed Ventura Ninja Academy tenant space outlined in pink, totaling a little over 7,500 square feet of space. The applicant will occupy that suite, which is located towards the front of the building closest to the street. suite a under the lease agreement the tenant is allocated 15 of the site's 41 parking spaces while that existing parking count was sufficient for the previous warehouse use the proposed change to an indoor recreation use increases the city's parking demand 238 spaces as a result the applicant is requesting a minor variance to reduce the required parking for this business from 38 to 15 spaces while maintaining access to 15 and 16 spaces for the other tenants as originally approved. So the applicant has provided a floor plan showing an open floor concept where the equipment will be placed. The remaining space would be used for training classes. Other partitioned spaces in the tenant suite will be used for equipment storage, office space, and restrooms. The business would operate Monday through Friday afternoons and Saturday and Sunday all day. So the slide summarizes the applicable development standard for the MPD zone. The proposed project complies with all applicable development standards since there are no physical changes to the site with the exception of the parking. As I mentioned earlier, under the municipal code, an indoor sports and recreation use of this size requires a higher ratio than an industrial use, causing the increase in the parking demand. So as a result, as I mentioned earlier, the applicant is requesting that variance for the reduction in parking. The proposed operating hours generally do not overlap with the peak industrial business activities or hours of other uses on site as well as in surrounding properties. Also, it is worth noting that additional parking is available on the street. So the proposed project was determined to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act section 15301 under class one for existing facilities. This is because the project consists of the use that does not alter the building footprint within an existing building and site. The project is consistent with applicable general plan and zoning regulations at the exception of the parking. Therefore, no further environmental review is required. so before i conclude uh move on to the recommendations staff's recommendation slide i'd like to point out uh that we would like uh staff and the applicant are requesting to make a revision to condition number 19 that was attached to your resolution of approval to correct an error and also to change the hours of to extend the hours of on sundays saturday and sunday so the CONDITION 19 READS THE BUSINESS SHALL OPERATE WITHIN THE HOURS PROVIDED IN THE APPLICATION AS MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY 3 TO 7, SATURDAY FROM 8 TO 5, AND SUNDAY FROM 9 TO 4. WE WOULD LIKE TO REVISE THAT FIRST SENTENCE TO THE BUSINESS SHALL OPERATE WITHIN THE HOURS PROVIDED IN THIS APPLICATION MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY 3 TO 8 AS THE OPERATION PLAN which was attached to the report due to a staff's error. And the applicant is requesting to change the hours on Saturday and Sunday to 8 to 5 instead of 9 to 4 and 5. So with this requested change, we would like, we, staff recommends that the community development director approve the use permit as well as the minor variance subject to the revised conditions that is attached to your report. And that concludes my presentation. The applicant is available for question as well on call. Thank you.

Thank you, Mallory. I don't have any immediate questions for staff, but I do want to check with Madam Clerk, are there any members of the public that wish to speak on this item online?

Only the applicant.

Only the applicant. Okay, great. Thank you. Would you mind pulling up an aerial, Valerie? Oh, that was exciting. Everybody's awake now?

Yes, definitely.

Yeah. Okay, great. So just for purposes of the record, being that there is a minor variance requested for the parking, I'm able to support the minor variance for the parking because the hours of operation appear to be complementary to what would be office uses or a warehouse uses, you know, typically eight to four, eight to five. This is three to eight. So I don't envision an impact with parking. As staff noted, DuPont Court is available street parking and I can see just on this aerial shot, don't know the time, but it's obviously during the day and there appears to be ample street parking as well available. There is probably no concerns with weekend use as well to create any concerns with parking for neighboring businesses and absent members of the adjacent businesses who are noticed here i anticipate the neighbors do not have any comments or concerns as well so with that i move to approve the use permit with the minor variance acknowledging that there is an opportunity for a temporary use permit or special events permit should there be something requested beyond the proposed hours of operation connected with that permit so to close the item i move to approve as presented thank you so much staff for your presentation And congratulations, Ventura Ninja Academy. Wish I had that when I was a little bittle.

Director Clancy, they are online, and they do have their hand raised.

Oh, wonderful. Yes, please. I'm sorry. I should have asked if the applicant would like to share anything prior to my making the approval.

You should be able to speak now. Hi there. Can you hear me?

Oh, yeah. Thank you, I will only raise my hand so that you knew that I was here was not expecting to not have any visuals so I just wanted to make sure that you knew I was here in case you had any questions, but thanks so much for your approval and I can't wait to get started.

Thank you and apologies for not giving you the opportunity to say anything ahead of my motion. Great Thank you and congratulations. With that, that is the one and only item for tonight's hearing part of staff communication. We have our next meeting will be July 20th, 4 p.m. Have some more items to be presented at that time. And so with that, I will adjourn the director's meeting of June 29th, 2026 at 4.13 p.m. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Thank you, ladies.