Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All righty. Uh, good evening. Uh today is Wednesday, January uh January 14th, 2026 and the time is uh 5:00 p.m. The regular meeting of the City of Victorville Planning Commission uh will come to order. Madame Cler, will you kindly take the role? Commissioner Marshall here. Commissioner Thomas here. Vice Chair Messen is absent and Chair Marsh here. We have quorum.

All right. Thank you. Oops. Okay. Okay. At this time, we'll have our invocation uh led by Commissioner Thomas and then uh following uh with the pledge led by Commissioner Marshall. Heavenly Father, we come to you this evening just thanking you for your bountiful blessings over the past year. Thank you, Father, for allowing us to get through this past year, show progress, and Father, serving the citizens of uh this wonderful community. Father, we just thank you. Father, we ask, as your servant Solomon did for wisdom as we move forward, guide us in our decision making, Father, help us to do things that will benefit us all. Let's b I ask that you bless the city uh city of Victorville's leaders uh its citizens and everyone father here within this great city and father we ask that you continue to allow us to progress and help us to do things in your way. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

All right. Uh place your right hand over your heart. Uh, I pledge of 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. All righty. At at this time, uh, we have some special orders of the day. Um uh in particular uh this will be the reorgan uh reorganization of the planning commission members uh which will be the selection of chair and vice chair. Uh madame clerk, would you kindly preside over the nomination process for the office of chairman?

Thank you, Chair Marsh. Nominations are in order for the office of the chair. While nominations do not require a second, any member may offer one to signal endorsement and may also vote for him or herself. I open the nomination period. Are there nominations for the chair? Commissioner Thomas, nominee Paul Marsh. Commissioner Marsh, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Are there any further nominations? Uh, second. Are you seconding for Paul Marsh? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Hearing no further nominations, the nomination period is now closed. We'll proceed to appoint a chair. When called upon, please vote by stating the name of the nominee you wish to hold the office. Commissioner Marshall. Paul Marsh. Commissioner Thomas. Paul Marsh. Commissioner [clears throat] Marsh. Paul Marsh. Member Marsh has been appointed to the office of the chair. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay. And at this point, um uh now the um I would ask the uh uh madame clerk, would you kindly preside over the nomination process for vice chair?

Certainly. Thank you, Chair Marsh. Nominations are in order for the office of vice chair. While nominations do not require a second, any member may offer one to signal endorsement and may also vote for him or herself. I open the nomination period. Are there nominations for the office of vice chair? Um, I would like to nominate uh, Commissioner Thomas for vice chair. Commissioner Thomas, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Are there any further nominations? I'd like to second for uh, Bill Thomas.

Okay. Thank you. Hearing no further nominations, the nomination period is now closed and we'll proceed to appoint a vice chair. When called upon, please vote by stating the name of the nominee you wish to hold the office. Commissioner Marshall, Bill Thomas, Commissioner Thomas, Bill Thomas, Chair Marsh, Bill Thomas, Commissioner Thomas has been appointed to the office of vice chair. Congratulations.

All righty. Now, moving on to uh uh public comments. Uh this would be the time th this would be a time for the public to speak on agenda items or on issues not posted on the agenda providing those issues are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the planning commission. Those who desire to comment on a public hearing item may wish to reserve their remarks until that particular public hearing has been opened. Uh madame clerk uh may we have our first speaker? We do not have any requests to speak.

Okay. And with that, I'll go ahead and close the public comments. Uh and we'll move on to our first agenda. First item on the agenda. Agenda. Um, agenda item number one, an amendment to title 16 of the Victorville Municipal Code with an environmental exemption introducing changes including but not limited to chapter one relating to definition um definitions and various changes to chapter 6 relating to code enforcement procedures including the update of residential rental property inspection requirements. intro um introdu introduction of commercial rental property regulations and the regulations of vacant buildings. Mr. Higgy, uh would you kindly introduce uh this item? Thank [clears throat] you, Mr. Chair. Uh agenda item number one is case number PLN2-000023. This amendment, as you know, uh our zoning [clears throat] code includes various aspects, uh not just land use. We recently at the end of 2025 reviewed uh code amendments related to uh building standards and business licenses. Um this uh specific case relates to uh property uh inspections and maintenance requirements. Um as such the author of this item or authors I should say are our city's code enforcement official Mr. George Duran and our senior planner uh Daisy Kawasaki and they will provide an overview of this item for you tonight. Good evening, commissioners. Item number one on tonight's agenda is case number PLAN25-000023. The city initiated amendment to the Victorville Municipal Code with an environmental exemption. This amendment introduces updates to chapter 1 regarding definitions and several

changes to chapter 6 related to code enforcement procedures, including revisions to residential rental inspection requirements, new regulations for commercial rental properties and standards for vacant buildings. As Chair Marsh and our city planner noted, this amendment was co co-authored by George Duran, the city's code enforcement official. I will provide a brief overview of the proposed changes before turning it over to Mr. Duran who will present additional detail and context regarding the need for these um updates. The proposed amendments to chapter 6 are organized into three sections each associated with an individual resolution for your consideration tonight. Collectively, these updates aim to strengthen property maintenance, support neighborhood aesthetics, and reduce blight associated with vacant or poorly maintained properties. First resol resolution P-26-00001 would update existing article 5 titled residential rental property inspection requirements by requiring all rental properties to undergo city conducted exterior inspections establish clear procedures and enforcement actions for non-compliance and remove the current self- inspection option. Second, resolution P-26-00002 would introduce article 14 titled maintenance of vacant buildings, establishing new standards for maintaining and securing vacant residential and commercial buildings. This includes requirements to keep vacant structures safe, clean, and secured, additional standards for commercial buildings, and a new standardized boardup permit process. Non-compliant properties may be subject to escalating enforcement actions, including citations and nuisance abatement.

And finally, resolution P-26-00003 would introduce article 15 titled commercial rental property inspection and licensing program, creating a new inspection licensing program for commercial rental properties. This program would apply to a wide range of commercial uses and require annual city conducted exterior inspections with violations subject to reinspection and potential license suspension or revocation. Property owners located more than 85 miles away would be required to designate a qualified local representative and complaintbased inspections would continue under existing municipal code requirements. The proposal is the proposal is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act under section 15061B3 as it does not authorize physical development and involves administrative updates related to enforcement of existing developed sites. Staff recommends that the planning commission conduct a public hearing, receive testimony, and take the following actions. recommend that the city council find the code amendment exempt pursuant to seek section 15061B3 and adopt resolutions P-26-001 P-26-002 and P-26-003 recommending city council approval of development code amendment case number PLAN25-000023 with that I will turn the presentation over to Mr. Duran who will provide additional detail and answer any technical questions the commission may have. Thank you. [clears throat]

Thank you.

Good evening commissioner chair commission members. Um we have we've prepared a presentation to outline some of the changes of the proposed ordinances and so I will go through that here here quickly here again it uh aims to review the three ordinances uh and updates to the residential rental property inspection program ordinance which we've had in in the books for some time and the introduction of the two new ordinances vacant property ordinance and the commercial rental property inspection program. So, I'll start first with uh reasons for updating the residential uh rental property inspection program. And the current challenges that we were finding uh was one allowing self- inspection self- inspectionled um inspections by the property owners led to inconsistencies inadvertently um licensing unmaintained properties. And the second uh challenge we found was that uh seeking compliance from expired residential rental properties was not cost-effective. Um meaning that a property owner would submit an a report saying that their property was um maintained when in fact it wasn't. Um or the property owner just failed to pay the fees which required the code enforcement officer to one inspect the property and seek compliance often multiple times from an owner. So, the ordinance will uh aim to uh require that city staff uh conduct these inspections. Uh it requires uh adherence to the vacant pro vacant building maintenance uh ordinance that we'll talk about here briefly and allow for the closure of res of uh residential properties that are not uh licensed timely uh to be closed and those will be recaptured um when we conduct a a sweep of unlicensed rental properties annually.

And so as an example for of what the residential rental property continues to to achieve um an example before and after this is kind of what the efforts from the code compliance department uh exerts to property owners or business owners who rent properties. Um and so roughly there's about 4100 uh 41,000 housing units of which 38% uh are um expected to be rentals. Of course that captures uh mult uh multif family units. So we expect anywhere between 9 to about 11,000 uh single family homes uh to be uh to qualify similar to to what to that example. Uh the inspections of course include landscaping exterior inspections of course landscaping trash debris inoperative vehicles fencing conditions and the condition of the structure overall. And I'll continue with the um second ordinance, the new ordinance for the maintenance of vacant uh buildings. The challenges that we encountered here was that uh vacant buildings are often ignored or unmaintained as pictured here. uh property owners uh that live in a distance um often encountered we encounter often delays from from owners that are not necessarily in close proximity uh particularly when we're dealing with problematic uh vacant properties. Um and uh properties that are boarded up for extended period of time uh create blight and often lead to stale they stay the redevelopment or the reuse of that particular property. This ordinance will require property owners of vacant uh properties to post contact information on the property uh that is actually uh limited to to commercial locations. It will require property owners to regularly and consistently maintain vacant properties um including the building and and the perimeter upkeep. Uh it establishes boardup standards uh requiring the uh the building to be uh

to secure a a building permit uh and reduce the aesthetic impacts of of of secured boarded up locations as as pictured where they have to be painted to match the primary color of the uh of the structure. Um and it establishes uh progressive fines if unresolved violations continue. The fines will range from uh $1,000 and maximize at $5,000. And those are reinspected every 30 days wherea after uh the city may choose to enact a monitoring program where the city can then use its abilities to secure an abatement warrant and proceed to clean up the property, ward up the property, whatever it is that the property owner has failed to do. an example of a few maintenance uh you know boarded up properties both residential and commercial and um the the property owner is going to be required of course to ensure the landscaping that that it's is maintained. The area is free of trash and debris. The structure is secured and painted um and uh signs and uh signs and parking areas are are maintained as well. the board of materials uh and boardup methods are actually specified in our ordinance uh in some great detail. Uh the the method the size of the of the plywood and also gives the ability for the u property owner to use uh polycarbonate panels which are uh basically um plexiglass but not necessarily made out of that material. It's it's it's quite um sturdy. With respect to the commercial rental property inspection program, um this is new. It'll function similar

to the residential uh rental property program. Of course, focusing on commercial areas and the focus of course will be uh as pictured here, landscape areas, uh parking areas, um signs, structures, uh banner signs which include to include actual permanent signs. But the challenges we encountered here was that unmaintained commercial locations create blight and they impact the appeal of the city and the operations of other businesses. The infrequent care of exterior uh commercial locations and decay landscape parking uh and deteriorated I'm sorry we we encountered some uh issues with care issues with parking areas of maintaining those and issues with uh care for monument signs. Um the lack of routine code compliance inspections can lead to the property uh to to lead to decay and um is often uh quite costly for the property owner to revert back to achieve compliance. This ordinance will require the property owners of renting properties to obtain a commercial uh business license to rent um and require to the the uh the passing of an annual exterior inspection. Um it will ensure that the the the uh property the property owners of commercial locations remain engaged in ensuring upkeep to the exterior locations as approved by the city. It requires the owners that live away from these locations to utilize a owner's representative located no farther than 85 miles and 85 miles will achieve uh services as far as Los Angeles. Of course, similar to the residential rental properties, those that uh fail to renew their uh business license timely will seek closure and will be recaptured

again as explained as we cycle through uh our analysis to capture unlicensed locations of course and it requires adherence to the maintenance of vacant properties, vacant port. Um there's approximately 300 developed commercial locations and approximately 20 plus large retail multi-shopping centers as pictured. And the uh the inspections will include exterior um areas of of focus landscaping, trash signs, parking area, shopping cart containment, a pretty prevalent uh problem. um structure condition and of course uh compliance to vacant uh uh property should some of these buildings re uh are observed to be vacant. The rental property inspection process will be the same for both uh commercial and residential where the property owners are notified by mail to license their their locations. A business application is uh received and processed by uh business licensing staff. An inspection checklist is provided to the property owners for both residential and commercial locations to aid them in their inspection. We we want them to pass. Um we want them to be successful. Um comp compliant properties will receive an annual license and if if violations are observed, they'll provide an additional time and a reinspection at no cost. Certainly there are um some there will be some conditions as we you know as we expect and we're our staff is quite flexible. So even if 15 days is not enough, we can certainly allow for a bit more time if perhaps there's a a supply issue with a landscaping uh component. And renewing their annual license requires a new property owner to m to uh maintain the property with uh um 30 with an inspection conducted 30 days prior.

Final points on the residential side, residential rental licenses encourage responsible rental property owners and reduces blight from unkempt properties in residential areas. With respect to vacant properties, the regulation of vacant properties combined with the commercial property rental business license requirement. It meets and exceeds the city's original strategic goal of establishing a vacant property registration program by establishing contact and maintenance requirements for both vacant and active commercial locations. Vacant property registration programs often um aim to regulate vacant um uh properties basically. But this this goes a step further with encompassing the licensing component of and requirement for rental commercial locations and the uh robust uh requirements for vacant property um maintenance. Of course, the commercial rental license aids in ensuring our active and growing commercial areas remain consistently maintained and are attractive and vibrant areas for for people to shop for years to come. With that, I'm available for questions.

Okay. Uh, thank you for that. Um, Mr. Duran, um, at this point, are there any technical questions from the planning commission regarding this? Let's start with, uh, Commissioner Marshall. No questions here. Uh, thank you for the presentation. Uh, Vice Chair, uh, Tom, [clears throat]

first, let me tell you that, uh, I'm impressed with, uh, what we're doing here, and I think, uh, you guys have done a real good job putting this together. Uh, I think it's going to do nothing but but help help the city. Uh, because uh, there are places that you go that really need some upkeep. And I had a couple questions just on based on things you said the exterior inspection meaning that you or someone from not you but someone from your staff would go out there annually to to just kind of look the the building or the property over to make sure that uh it's not boarded incorrectly or that there are infractions that need to be taken care of. Uh will that be on the same day basically the same time frame every year? Uh roughly. Yes. Yeah. The the license is issued for one year and um it it'll be roughly around the same time regularly. Yeah.

Yeah. And of course if uh someone there's a change in tenants during that time, it still is good until that anniversary date. So for Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That works good.

Uh these uh proposal that that we have here, are they kind of in line with what the other cities around us are doing? Are we uh stepping ahead? Are we we just kind of getting ourselves uh kind of caught up with this now? Where are we? It's a little bit of both. Um on the residential licensing side, we've we've had this um process, you know, on board since 2015. And at that time, it was uh some a trend that was that some cities were were incorporating. A lot of cities now have incorporated that. The commercial location, the commercial rental uh license is is uh is pretty common in other cities, particularly larger cities. Um uh and particularly pretty common in cities that are that perhaps high see a very high amount of of shopping centers and um you know a lot of retail movement. And on the uh vacant property board up uh there's a few ways to approach that. Some cities approach it through a vacant property registry which requires a fee. An addition, this would be essentially an additional fee for a commercial property owner and they usually focus only on commercial locations although some cities also focus on on residential. But I think this approach is a good balance with uh taking it uh uh taking advantage of the rental uh license required for commercial which requires an inspection component and specifically addressing vacant properties that become really a problem. Well, I I'm also really pleased to see that provision in

Vice Chair Thomas, would you mind speaking just directly into the microphone, please? Thank you. I was just saying that I'm also pleased to see that provision in there where the owner is not within 85 miles of the property, having a local representative, you know, having worked in an industry where we had a lot of uh ownership uh that lived away and it was kind of hard to catch up with people. So that's that's something now that'll be done during the licensing process I'm assuming. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Good. And I think that's that answers my questions. Thank you. Thank you.

And uh me I have just uh I guess it's a question um or an observation or or um as far as the shopping centers. Okay. what I've noticed that there's no trash cans any anymore, you know, any longer. Um, I don't know if the owners of the center removed them or if the owners of the stores decided it was too much of a headache to have them, you know. But as far as talking about the trash and the appearance of, you know, the the center itself, is it going to be required for them to put those shopping uh put those trash cans uh back in their, you know, um at various spots of the u you know, throughout their center.

Um the ordinance doesn't go doesn't go into specifics as to requiring trash recepticles, but it does definitely address trash containment methods. And so, um, our enforcement efforts would be as such as perhaps that could be something that's recommended to the property owner, seeing that the property owner could potentially be repeatedly, uh, fined for excessive trash. And that is pretty common. Um, and often what we find with property owners, property managers, is especially after a busy weekend, that the parking lot gets pretty beat up. You know, a lot of trash on Monday, Tuesday perhaps. And uh those are things that uh our hope is that it kind of dawns on property owners on property managers to perhaps put that forward. But we could certainly come back and visit that if that seems to be a a specific issue that needs to be implemented.

I just I just think those receptacles are at least helpful. I mean, you know, most people will throw trash in the um in the reciprocal, you know, if they're if it's available rather than to throw it on the ground if it's not, you know. So So that's just a question I have. But thank you,

Mr. [clears throat] Chair. May I elaborate a little bit on that question? Um although it's not included in this code amendment, our current code does require that of new shopping centers that are built. So at different intervals depending on the land use, their standard interval inter intervals, I'm sorry, for trash recepticles throughout new shopping centers. U enhanced um closer I I guess proximity when uh located near food producing locations. So fast food restaurants, places like that. Um, we do as a staff try to incorporate those comments into any revision that comes in on an existing shopping center. So, for instance, when a new shopping center comes in and wants to uh do an exterior modification or change, we do attempt to add those conditions of approval at the staff level as well. But all new development moving forward has those as conditions of approval and is a codified requirement.

All right. Thank you. Okay. And I don't have any other questions. Appreciate that. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. Okay. Um at this point, um let's see I'll open the uh uh public uh hearing. Uh Madame Cler, are there any qu uh requests to speak? We have no request to speak. Okay, then I'll close the I'll close the public hearing and uh I'll invite a motion on this item. I move to accept uh these changes um as recommended by staff.

I second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner uh Marshall and a second by Vice Chair Thomas. Uh Madame Clerk, we please take the vote. Oh, sorry. I kind of jumped ahead. Um are there any are there any um comments on the pending motion? Uh start with uh Commissioner uh Marshall.

Uh yeah, just echoing what uh Commissioner Thomas said. I think that this is going to um is going to do well for for the city. I I live in a rental property and I think that um I think it's good that we have uh an extra layer of um of accountability that will help to really um move our direction uh our city's direction into um yeah into being the beautiful city that we all want to live in. Vice Chair uh Thomas. No, nothing else. Thanks. And I don't have any comments. Okay. And at this time, I will ask uh uh Madame Clerk, we uh will you please take the vote? Commissioner Marshall, I. Vice Chair Thomas, I.

Chair Marsh, yes. Motion passes with um Commissioner Messen being absent. All right. So, moving on now to uh new business. uh the um 2025 planning commission approved project list. Uh Mr. Hadi, uh will you kindly introduce this item? [clears throat]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Uh agenda item number two is a new business item. Uh it's our 2025 planning commission approved project projects list. Um a little background here. annually since 2022 and in various years prior to that in the past the planning commission has requested a summary of development and noteworthy projects that were approved by the planning commission in the previous calendar year. Uh last year uh seeing that the trend and this happening annually staff committed to providing this automatically within the first three meetings of of every year of the planning commission. So what you see here before you tonight is that list. Um I would note there was one one correction. Um the industrial square footage that you see there um is off. Uh we had a approximately 400,000 foot industrial project that was approved the first meeting of the year continued from the December meeting. So it inadvertently uh missed our algorithms when we did our search and fell off the list. So the the industrial square footage we did last year was uh over 600,000 ft. Um if you're comparing to last year, I know in previous years we've discussed utilizing this for comparison of previous years. Um so what this reflects is an increase in the amount of commercial uh square footage that we've we've approved in the last year, a slight decrease um in in industrial and residential, a decrease in in the number of of units that were approved. However, that being said, um where we had time to address other items, not having those items coming before the planning commission, what you'll see is we did seven different code amendments uh last year. And these code amendments addressed a various uh amount of topics ranging from supporting housing development, uh reactivating unused commercial space, and complying with state law. So, a lot of uh important uh policy decisions were made by the planning commission to to shape future development in the future and hopefully uh get those numbers up as

they relate to residential and other items that you see before you. Uh so, with that, uh staff's recommendation on this item is to review and file and staff is available for any questions you may have. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hudigy. Um uh at this time, let's see. Are there any uh technical questions uh from the planning commissioners regarding this item? Uh start with uh Mar uh Commissioner Marshall. No technical questions. Vice Chair Thomas.

Uh I I have none. I I do have just a comment uh on that 65 ft down on the other 65 foot uh tall wireless communication tower. I uh just to comment the stealthing on those things is not I mean it's just not adequate, you know. I know that we've had the reps in here from the uh telephone companies and uh we've questioned them, but I don't know. It just they look too phony. I mean, I think they could just do a little more with them, but uh nothing to do with anything that we have we have going here tonight, but uh that's just a thought. Okay. And uh Okay. And I don't have any uh um technical qu uh questions uh for staff. Um, so we have uh we have now taken action to review uh and file the 2025 planning commission approved project list. Okay. And at this time uh we'll go we'll move into um presentations of reports by commissioners uh by commission members and staff. Uh we'll start with uh Commissioner Marshall.

Uh nothing to report out on. Vice Chair Thomas.

Uh, no, nothing really to report. Just, uh, good to see the development that's going on and, uh, I'm real pleased with the with the mix and I know that we're going to be looking at probably more mixed use and, uh, multifamily some point in time, but I just like the way that we're being strategic about doing it. So, thank you. And uh for me um you know congratulations on you know to the city staff for you know a strong 2025 and you know really look forward to a strong 2026. You know I can see it kind of is heading that direction already. Um one one question I have uh maybe we maybe it could be picked up later on is that um uh how do I let's see cameras cameras. Okay. Is there a requirement? Is there a requirement uh for um um clubs, you know, clubs, night entertainment facilities to have security footage, to have security cameras. Um the reason why I asked that is because we did, you know, over the holidays we, you know, we've all enjoyed a good holiday. Um, but there was, you know, there was a couple of events that took place and I guess the one that I'm focusing on is the one that took place uh the shooting, the killing that took place at um um um gosh, what? Huh?

Cosmos. Yeah. I mean, it change they change, you know, one day they're teasers, the next minute they're whatever. Okay. But yeah, Cosmos. Um, from my understanding, the the sheriff's department, they still are looking for leads, you know, or they're still, you know, asking for leads. Um um and then also my understanding and and you know correct me if I'm wrong um that there wasn't any um camera surveillance type um equipment that could have possibly given you know them adequate um the law enforcement adequate help. So I was just uh wondering could it be you know um [sighs] decided you know that if it's going to be an entertainment type an adult entertainment type a nightclub not going to say adult entertainment uh a nightclub uh atmosphere that is a requirement for them to have at least outdoor cameras or you know something that's you know working out working outdoor cameras

[snorts] Is that something that can be done or can be looked at? Uh yes, Mr. Chair. There is some codified requirements now. Um staff can follow up with you via email and perhaps uh discuss this on future items upcoming on a planning commission u agenda. But there is codified requirements for uh now for establishments that uh have conditional use permits that require video surveillance. It is a standard condition of approval. Um and that is on staff's radar as well. So hopefully we'll have more to report uh at our next planning commission meeting and possibly as a follow-up to the planning commission via email.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Then other than that uh yeah, we've had uh you know I look forward to 2026. Okay. So we'll move on now to uh uh any reports uh reports by staff. Uh Mr. Hotti.

Uh thank you Mr. Chair, members of the commission. First of all, happy new year. Uh welcome back. Look forward to 2026. And uh just one other item to note. I brought it up at the end of last calendar year, but the planning commission academy held by the League of California Cities uh takes place Wednesday, March 11th uh through Friday, March 13th. It is in the city of Anaheim this year, so a lot closer, a lot less travel demands. Um my staff will be reaching out with an email and we hope to have a response hopefully within the month so we can proceed with um scheduling that for anyone who's involved in the planning or interested, I'm sorry, on the planning commission. That's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for that. Okay, so the time is now um 5:38 and this meeting is adjourned.