Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

If we could [music] have everybody take a seat, please. We're going to get started in 15 seconds. Thank you.

All right, welcome. Um, good evening and welcome to the December 11th planning commission meeting. Will the secretary please call the role? Uh, thank you. Uh, Commissioner Moran here. Commissioner Count here. Commissioner Strongman here. Commissioner Quac here. Commissioner Klopp here. Vice Chair Knighting here. Chair Anderson has phoned in. He will not be here tonight. Um, so we have six. We have a quorum. Perfect. Um, do we have anything on the consent calendar today? We do not. staff recommends no changes.

Okay, beautiful. Now, um before we begin, there are two opportunities for the public to provide comment. The first is during the item of each agenda as it pertains on the agenda. Um and the second one is would be right now and it's for comment that is within the purview of the planning commission but not something that is on the agenda. So, does anyone want to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda tonight? Seeing none, um then I would like to then start with the public hearing and open the public hearing. Does Oh, pardon me. Um has anyone had any exparte communication? Seeing none. Lots of shaking heads.

Well, I I just will say I drove all this I drove all the sites. So, perfect. Does staff have a presentation? Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. Simmer Gil, senior planner with the city. Uh we are here tonight to consider the Mount Diablo mixeduse uh development that will be located at 2094 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Uh the applicant representing this project uh Ben Johansson and his team are here tonight as am I. And with the city we have um Ryan Cook who is the senior civil engineer also available for any questions after the presentation. And just to quickly orient you with the site, uh it is zoned mixeduse commercial and there is an existing commercial building on the parcel. Uh it's a roughly 20 24,000 square foot lot and it is located within the west downtown specific plan and um also listed as a um housing site or where we envision housing um future housing. Uh so it's listed in the inventory uh sites table. And here are just some photographs really showing you uh what's currently on site. It is that existing singlestory building with multiple tenants. And uh the project request before you tonight is uh to demolish that existing commercial building to build a sevenstory 74 unit mixeduse development uh which also uh consists of approximately 3,000 square ft of ground floor commercial space as well as a daycare center. And uh it the project does consist of a mix of studios, 35 one-bedroom units and 35 two-bedroom units. Sizes range from 591 square feet to uh roughly 1500 square feet. Uh and uh there is new ground floor as well as rooftop landscaping. There is 80 parking stalls that will be located within the mechanical parking system as well as eight surface uh

parking spaces for the commercial component. Uh a dripline encroachment permit is also requested as part of this project and uh because the project is providing eight very lowincome units um it is um utilizing state density bonus law um as also being processed under the housing accountability act which I'll go into more detail further in my presentation. Uh so this project did go before the design review commission um on September 17th uh where they reviewed the project as well as made some comments which are listed on this slide and made a recommendation to move the project forward to the commission to the planning commission uh for consideration of the entitlements. And um the plans have been revised to address all of the lighting and um lighting related comments um as the project does include building mounted uh security lighting. the site distance triangle as well as the drainage plan was reviewed by uh the city's traffic engineer and the public works department and the fire apparatus access is also shown on the plans. uh the applicant is requesting to wave um to did not address did not incorporate a second material because they're requesting a waiver to that associating it with uh costs that are associated to the project. And so tonight, the planning commission will consider the design review for the new building uh tree drip line encroachment permit as well as uh the density bonus concessions and waivers and um also a conditional use permit which is for the uh daycare portion of the project. Before we go into the project, I really just wanted to touch on the um applicable state housing laws that apply to this project. So, this project is being processed under the Housing Accountability Act,

which does require cities to approve housing projects that meet the city's objective standards. And the only way the city could deny uh this project is by making specific health or safety findings. And these findings must be based on objective existing written public health uh safety standards. Um the uh it's also being processed under SP 330 which um essentially got adopted in 2019 to strengthen the housing accountability act. Uh which means that if a project meets the city's objective uh standards uh SB 330 essentially prevents the city from reducing those housing units or adding any new development standards after a application uh that was submitted to the city has been deemed complete. And um as mentioned earlier, they're you utilizing density bonus um which um because they're providing affordable units as part of the project. And um a waiver is granted when a development standard would physically preclude the project from being built at its permitted density. Uh the permitted density is the base density plus the additional units they get under density bonus law. And uh concession um is granted to reduce the overall construction costs uh of that standard or requirement which is um resulting in a uh more cost for the project. And the city uh may only deny the waiver and concession if the city with substantial evidence um can show that it causes a specific adverse uh health or safety impact. And uh also regarding the concession, it could only be denied if the city can determine that the concession is not resulting in any cost savings for the project. And um just now I'm going to move on to

the um density of this project. Uh so the lot it is 0.55 acres and um the mixeduse commercial general plan designation allows 88 dwelling units per acre which uh then results to 49 um units as the base density. But because they're providing a lowinccome affordable units um under density bonus they get a 50 uh% increase uh which then results in 25 additional bonus units that could be added. uh then uh resulting in a total of 74 uh maximum units that could be built on this project. So the applicant is uh proposing to construct 74 units um also requesting five waiverss um from the city's development standards and three concessions. And now I'll move into the uh the three concessions that are requested tonight. Uh the first one is building materials which uh the city's objective design standards require two materials be uh provided on any building frontage. The applicant is only providing one single uh material. And again they're citing uh uh costs that that it will reduce the cost if they apply only one material. Um and this is in addition to the glazing and railings. And once we get into the uh the elevation um slide, I could go into more detail about what they are doing in terms of articulation or um adding um more like from an aesthetic point of view, what they're doing because they're only using one material. And the second one is frontage improvements um that are required along Mount Diablo Boulevard. Uh the West Downtown specific plan does require a 14 foot wide sidewalk. Uh the applicant is retaining the existing frontage as is and that that's including the existing

sidewalk and driveway apron. Again, um stating that the new that if they were to put in the new sidewalk uh replace the existing sidewalk as well as widen it, widening [clears throat] it, it then triggers storm water treatment facilities to be uh placed as well. And that does result in a significant cost savings if uh they're requesting the concession for it. A third one is public art. Um uh they are waving the public art requirement. Um as the anticipated construction cost for this project is $30 million and if they were to pay that public art fee at that 1% it would be 300 $300,000 or they would have to install art on site. Uh so again they're waving that uh citing uh cost savings. And here is a list of the density bonus waiverss. Um I probably won't go into too much detail on this because just um to be respectful of everybody's time, uh the applicant is also making a presentation and we'll walk through all of the waiverss. But I did want to highlight that the two that are in yellow are um after further review staff did determine that these do not need to be requested as waiverss as this is existing conditions. So the proposed is actually existing conditions on site. The applicant's not proposing it's there right now. So nothing is changing or they're not exasperating the the area in any way. So here's a closer look at the uh site plan. Um again the existing building on site will be de demolished. Here is what it will look like with the um proposed layouts. And this is just for site context. This is a uh mixeduse building. Uh so I really just put this slide in here to show that the adjacent uses are commercial and retail and this uh the ground floor of this building is

commercial and the upper floors are residential and there are residential uses uh directly behind the site. So it would be a good fit for this type of project. And um here is a closer look at the ground floor. As you can see, the commercial component u is fronting Mount Diablo and there's a lobby that'll take you to the upper floors, the residential uh units. And as you go down the site, there's a bike room. And in the middle of the site is the mechanical parking system or spaces that uh you can park into. And uh further down into the site is another lobby that takes you to the upper floors. Um I could probably use this. Yeah. So, um, and then there's the waste or, uh, waste room as well as the utility room and the child care facility. And as you can see here, there's an entrance right off of, um, the south side right there. I'm trying to get the clicker there. There you go. And then there's another there's an exit or egress door that goes out to the west side. Uh and there's a five foot path, five foot wide path that leads out here in case of any emergency or evacuation from that child care center. And um here is the uh second floor plan. And here you can see the uh parking system which does consist of four modules. The system stores the vehicles vertically and horizontally and each space does function independently storing the vehicles without having to relocate any vehicle to get a new car in. And uh the residential storage units that are required for multifamily uses um are being provided on the second floor as well. And now moving into the um the building architecture. The entire building consists of smooths uh plaster finish with a mix of paint colors and a material material board with the color

swatches is provided tonight is right behind the secretary if uh if you would like to see that passed around to see more of the color palette. Um also consists of black metal louvers and screens as well as uh black metal canopies. uh glass guard rails will be installed on the outdoor decks. Um again, this is the street facing elevation. And again, just to be respectful of time, the applicant has a presentation and they'll really go into more of the design concept. This is the rear elevation um that will be facing the existing multifamily uses. And again, the same color material palette carried along as well as the outdoor decks. And this is the east elevation facing inwards where you would access into that mechanical parking garage and to go up to the upper floors. This is the west elevation um which is um from if you're at the adjacent parcel where the service station is is looking to that side. So essentially the back of the um of this building and uh moving on to the landscaping plan. U this is the ground uh floor plan. Uh because it's a tight site uh layout and there's existing utilities along the frontage, there was really no space to put in any trees or street trees. Uh but the applicant is providing uh shrubs, grasses, and ground cover as well as compliance with the bio retention uh the basins that are located. Um and there will be uh trees that are planted on the uh the roof deck. There's 14 new trees uh that consists of h olives and pine trees and I think those were selected because they're evergreen and um they're also wind resistant. Uh so um this the roof

deck also consists of lounge seating, a spa area, shaded areas, uh open space for other types of gatherings. Um and uh the mechanical equipment is also located on the rooftop. And um there are four trees on site, the pear trees that are being removed. These were administratively approved by the city's consulting arborist due to their um size um health and the species. Um and there are uh six offsite trees uh that are all located along the west perimeter of the site that are shown on this. Okay, let's try this again. Yeah, that are all located along the west elevation and uh these are all being preserved and they'll be protected in place during construction. And um as mentioned earlier, this project also consists of a daycare. It is 860 square f feet and consists of also includes the outdoor uh play area and the hours of operation are Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. And this will function exclusively as an amenity for the building residents. Uh so it won't be open to the general public. And the pickup drop off activity is spread across a 2-hour window in the morning and afternoons. Again, no additional vehicle traffic uh is anticipated beyond the normal activi um residential activity as it is again just uh not open to the public and just an amenity for residents. Uh the outdoor play area is enclosed and separated from the vehicle circulation routes um as uh shown back here. Sorry, I'm having fun with this new clicker. They just added this new feature and it's fun. [laughter] So uh this project also qualifies for a class 32 SQA exemption which is the infill development. Uh there's a

criteria there's I think five findings that need to be made. Um one such being that it's consistent with the policies of the uh mixeduse commercial uh zoning and general plan. Um the site is less than five acres. Uh there's existing utilities on site and I believe there's uh there the project site is currently developed and there'll be less than significant effects to traffic and air quality and so forth. And all of this has been outlined in the draft resolution attachment one in more detail and same goes for the findings that are required for this project. Again, um all are addressed in the draft resolution, but it does uh requd and design review findings and then the conditional use permit and special uh specific child care findings for the child care portion. And um the project also meets the intent of the West Downtown specific plan which really does envision um a activated ground floor or um a commercial space that um fronts the Mount Diablo frontage uh with uh residential uses on the upper floors and the project does meet the objective design standards. Uh the project is located within a half a mile of BART. Uh so uh per our parking standards and I believe it was was it AB

2097

AB2097 also says that if a project is located within a half mile BART does not need to require it does not need to provide any parking the project is providing 88 parking stalls and with that um staff does recommend that the planning commission adopt uh the updated draft draft resolution approving the um the entitlements listed before you for the mixeduse project at 2094 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Um I um I did want to mention that there were minor corrections made to the draft resolution. Um and a copy of that updated reszo has been presented to all of you. The corrections are highlighted in yellow. Um that is all I have. Oh, and sorry, you also need to make the finding or recommendation for the SQA exemption and that was already outlined in the draft resolution, but I I I forgot to state it for the record. So, my apologies.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Does anybody have any Perfect. Uh going back to the sidewalk um waiver as I know that we we most likely will grant if we approve it we'll be granting that

waiver but will the city be able to come through sometime in the future and create a 14oot sidewalk through there? Yes, because there is sufficient rightofway and um the 14 feet that's envisioned in the west downtown specific plan will be achieved as the existing street width will be reduced to accommodate that 14 ft. So regardless of this concession that will still happen and um we do have as mentioned earlier the city engineer here if uh we need to elaborate on that.

Thank you. And another question I have is it's great that it has a daycare, but uh it closes at 5:30, which I think is awfully early. If if with my kids in there, I would never make it there in time to get my kids out. So, um are they willing to change that to more reasonable time of say 6? That's a great question. I believe the um property owner is also or is here tonight. Yes. And uh third question, there appears to be only two elevators. Is one of them sufficient to handle furniture going up for people to move in and out?

Yes. And it meets all the building code uh requirements. So I believe it would have sufficient space for that. And final question, the HOA on this, how does an HOA work with residential and commercial? Is there anything special on that or is there monitor in this in this case it's not a com a commercial endeavor it's an amenity so the HOA would be responsible to maintain the amenities on the property okay thank you and no question further questions right now

thanks um I'm curious about the the inloo waiver is there precedent for for this I mean is there is the [clears throat] city look at at the numbers and say, "You're right. We get it. You know that you're you're you're tight on the margins." Or can you just expound on that a little bit? Is it regarding the public art fee wa correct? Yeah. Um Claire, do you want to

I I can take a stab at that. What it was the um applicant argued that that the art fee is is similar to a development standard in that it required on-site public art to spend 1% of your construction cost estimate on an art project. or you can take the you know the low road or the high road I guess depending on what roads you drive and pay the fee. So it was it was likened to a development standard and development standards are waveable

and in this case maybe the the philosophy is there's not a lot of real estate [snorts] necessarily so where's the giant windmill going to go right is that am I am I thinking the right okay thanks chip My mic is not on. That would help. So there's there's no separate commercial lot that's being created or subdivided as part of this map. It is. Yeah. There there's a separate

creating the Yeah. One one is the commercial. The daycare is the amenity. Okay. Because that that's what I was pinging to your question because when there's a separate lot then the Davis Sterling Act would go ahead and have CCNRs specifically for the commercial lot and then the residential I'm assuming because then because then the second the residential lot will then be condom mapped. Yes. With the 74

the 74 residential units. Yeah. Um, and then speaking of concessions, so I thought that um, a concession for fees is discretionary under state density bonus law. It so the density bonus statute does say, you know, it does not require the provision of financial incentives. I think that's what you're referring to. But the the idea here is that the requirement is the provision of public art. The fee is the inloo of that. Got it. Standard is the provision of art. So So you're conceding out of of actually providing the art itself, not the inloo fee.

Correct. Okay. Did that help? Well, no. It was my understanding that we were waving the fee, right? Well, the waiver would be for the requirement to provide art because the fee is not to provide the art, but pay the fee instead. So, but the bottom line is we're not getting the extra 300 grand. Correct. Okay. I think the fee was shown just to so show there will be a cost savings, which a concession requires the city to illustrate, will there be a cost savings by approving the concession? I I'd build on that by saying that the cost of the art is supposed to be equal to what the fee would be. Yeah. 300,000 approximately.

Um any more questions I have Oh, go ahead. No, none. Um, do you know um if the if there was any truck turning analysis completed as part of the categorical exemption and or and also did the fire department look at this? Yes, they did. And um again uh the applicant as part of their presentation is going to incorporate the whole the discussions they had with the fire department as well as building to make sure there's been u accessibility provided on site. Okay. Yeah. Then I'll just save my questions for there. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um I did want to ask is the overflow room open?

It it is not prepared. Okay, we're just going to get nice and cozy in here. Um, and it's cold outside, so it's fine. So, how long does the applicant have to 10 minutes? Okay, I'd like to then open up. Does the applicant want to come up and provide a Oh, there we go. Okay. Hello, my name is Ben Johansson with LC Architects representing the applicant. Um, thank you Simmer for your uh your summary of the project and um we'll work to provide a little more information on particularly where we've gone in the discussions we've had since the design review commission heard it. So, this is the feedback that we heard. We heard about public safety and visibility. They encouraged us to look into these further. The street facing elevation, the site triangles. Um there was a neighboring property owner who wanted us to confirm that uh their drainage would not be impacted by this development. And then we have worked uh spent significant time with the building division and uh contraosta fire protection district in order to work through um fire and emergency access. So uh first um public safety and visibility. It's our feeling that um the that the project will improve um safety and visibility on the site just by opening it up to uh 247 surveillance by introducing residents. Um previously there's the parking lot, the uh storage areas for the nuring retail um in the back and it just it's not as easy to

survey as uh the proposed project. We are providing adequate light around the perimeter and we imagine the site will be activated um at more hours. Street facing elevation um we feel that one um one primary material in addition to the glazing and the railing that do not count towards the um to the standard that we're asking to be waved. um as well as articulation of the building face will create a high quality um interesting facade. Uh there's some curved balconies on the corner. There's large uh storefront glass at the ground floor. I mean, we probably exceed the 20% in glass alone on the frontage, but that doesn't count towards the standard. So, we're asking it for it to be waved. Uh we did the analysis as requested for uh sight distance triangles and the project conforms. Uh we also looked uh with our civil engineer to confirm that uh the drainage plan works to uh not impact the neighboring commercial building and specifically the one at the frontage of Mount Diablo. So we are matching at the center line of the driveway with the existing conditions. There's pvious paving on our side now. Um the existing cash basin's going to remain. And then I'd also point out that in the conditions of approval number 28, there is a condition that we will not negatively impact them and we will adhere to that standard. Um we worked with the fire district. Um we did as part of this uh project um submit an alternative means and methods

application and worked with the fire marshall to come up with an acceptable um plan. U as far as truck access there is not just the dimensions of the site would not allow for a fire truck to turn around on the site. Um so we have we have to provide alternatives. So the fire marshall says we can do a dead end to 200 200 feet and then they would back out from there. And then we're also providing wet stand pipes and two stairs at the front and back of the site going all the way up to the roof. Um those are kind of the primary things. This is a fully sprinklered building. It's it's type three non-combustible construction um on the exterior. And so we feel that we've been able to work towards a we we have been able to work to a solution that's acceptable to the fire district and to the building division u regarding fire and emergency access. Um the alternative means and methods that are propo are proposed are um sort of standard exceptions um when a site is not um able to provide the uh the aerial apparatus uh access road as would be prescribed in the code. So, we worked with um the building division to make sure that all the o openings on this tight site, all the openings uh conform to the standards in the California building code. Um we work to make sure that each of the um exit pathways from the front and from the p mostly from the rear stair and from the child care facility in the back of the site would be protected and maintained.

um as a safe exit pathway exit pass passageway in the event of an emergency. Um, as part of that, uh, discussion back and forth with building division, we did need to eliminate um, four um, metal grill uh, louver systems at the back of the mechanical parking, which would have um, you know, we we had anticipated perhaps being able to provide natural ventilation for the parking garage. Um, but that would have created openings that couldn't be protected in in the event of an emergency. And so, we've eliminated those to make the passageway safe. And we will provide mechanical ventilation for the parking garage. So, it's kind of into the weeds, but we've had a lot of discussions and we appreciate the uh the work of the fire district and the building division. Um driveway width is another is a waiver the first waiver I'll discuss. Um we are maintaining the same width of the existing entry drive into the site. Um where there would be a where the standard would be for the first 25 ft. It would be 25 feet wide. Um just the cross-section across the site with providing a viable commercial space, the residential lobby, the exit passageways just um make that a difficult standard to um it would physically preclude the project to apply the standard. So we are um asking for that waiver. There's also um another at at the mechanical parking um just proximity to some columns coming down. The standard would be for there to be a 27 foot

backup at these parking stalls. We're providing 4 in less at least conceptually. We may be able to increase it as we go into construction documents, but we want to make sure that we're providing adequate uh dimensions for the mechanical parking system and structure. And so we're asking for a waiver is that as well for 4 in. So here is the um the section that's proposed in the west downtown specific plan for Mount Diablo Boulevard. It's all within the 100 foot rightway that's existing. Um so each of the um the 14 foot walks on either side of the road, the new bike paths, all of that occur within the existing defined right of way. We are asking for a front setback reduction. Um the front setback is fif is standard is for 15 feet at the ground level up to 40 feet. Um we're proposing a reduction to about 12' three and that is measured from the curb. So when this walkway if this was to be developed and to commissioner Strongman's point we have not precluded development of this section uh as intended in the future. Um when that walk is increased to 14 feet we would provide as shown in this we would provide 15 foot6 um at the up to 40 feet um and meet the standard. Above that we would ask for the waiver of the step back. You know we have 25 density bonus units. We're accommodating them. We need more building envelope to do so. So, we aren't stepping back as far. We do step back at the top um to a to a distance

that is that would meet the standard, but there's a couple of floors in there that we do not. Um side and rear yard courts. There's a standard about 20 by 20 courts at living rooms, 10 feet by 10 feet at bedrooms um along the sideyards and the site is not it's too narrow with the units that are proposed to meet those standards. Again, we've worked with the building division to come up with ways um that the the goals of ventilation and light would be met within the units that have the closest um setback. And you know, this is all you we have to build as if there's a site next door, but currently there is not. So,

thank you. Wrap it up. If there's any questions, I'm here, the civil engineer is here, and the applicant is here as well. Thank you for your presentation. Does anybody have any questions for the applicant? Yes.

All right, I'll start. Um, so thank you so much for the presentation. It was very helpful to understand um what the developers did to conform to to work to get the to address the issues and concerns with fire safety and also code conformance. Um on the issue of safety, I did want to get clarification on the mechanical parking stacker. I do uh park in one of those at work. So I do I am aware that they are very powerful machines. Um and at my work they're gated to make sure that people can't walk under the platforms as the cars move up and down. So is the Yes, these will be gated.

Okay. All right. And then there's adequate protection measures to make sure that um if someone all the safety sensors and um there'll be card access to open the gates. Um you know there there'll be four four gates that go up at each one at each bay. And so at any time, you know, it would just be for the car that's coming in. I have it in the other presentation. Okay. Um that that's good that answer. Yes, included our set. There's a list of the safety features that are provided. All right. Thank you.

Um going back to your emergency plans, u what about the daycare? Is there an evacuation plan if there's an emergency? Yes, there are. As um Simmer pointed out, there are two Is this the fancy thing? Yeah. So, there's there's there are two exits out of the child care. So, there is this one that would come out along the east side of the site to exit as well as there's another um exit on the west side to come down as well.

Thank you. Um, so just um when I drove the site to kind of see what we were looking at, I know that the right next to this um on the bottom of that map is the Ace Hardware right next door. Um, and so just to clarify, you have the on this map you have the red and the purple and then below that is Ace Hardware and they have access to parking on on that side of their Yes. fence. Can you just describe that?

The site has a um a shared parking access route. There's 10 feet on our side of the property line and 10 feet on the uh the west property as as well. And so that is what the easements are. And so we are maintaining that 10-ft easement all the way to the back of the site. And then so we are providing the same access that they're afforded now going forward.

Anyone else? Um, I have a couple of questions. Um, so you had mentioned that you're keeping and I understand that you're you're using a waiver. Is it a waiver concession for the driveway width? The um the waiver is is uh Oh, yes. It's a waiver. It's a waiver. Yes. So my question is you're saying you're keeping it as is, but the air there's kind of two. So there's a concession that allows us to keep the frontage improvements, including the driveway apron.

And then behind the driveway apron, there's a development standard for for the first 25 ft. Yeah. You're supposed to be 25 feet wide. And so it's kind of both. I You have it at 21. We have it at 21. Where I'm getting at this is that the existing buildings don't qualify to trigger the aerial apparatus code because of their heights. Correct. Correct. Exactly. So, the problem that I have right now is the fact that normally the fire department goes 150 ft. That's the length of their hose.

Um, and I get that you're getting an AMMR. I'm very very familiar with AMRs. So it it sounds like are you you're providing additional sometimes they don't allow you to use the room method. So then you have to provide additional fire sprinklers. And the reason I bring all of that up is because you have a child care facility. The existing conditions don't even trigger that. And so I'm just my kids go to Dan's class very close to here. So I'm very familiar with this site. Um that that is my and I noticed that you're sharing it with the law firm. What are we sharing?

The purple is the access for the law firm. That's the brick veneer building next in the front small one.

And so how when when BKF did the truck ding, they just had the truck they had an aerial truck going in and then just backing all the way out. When we discussed this with the fire marshall and um they approved the AMR, they um they said we will and and the fire code has a provision that the fire marshall is allowed to say, okay, you know, usually we would go in 150 ft for a dead end. They can extend that. So he said we will we are willing in this condition to go in 200 feet and then also we anticipate being able to come up from Mount Diablo Boulevard as well to access the roof with an aerial apparatus. And then um beyond that you know you you see projects that don't have any access roads onto it. We did 17 16 lofts um and it's just a walkway around it. There's no there's just the one you come off of Main Street and you can ladder up. Um so in some ways this is an improvement over something like that. And then the code offers the opportunity to do the wet stand pipes and the stairwells.

Right. Did you do ladder truck exhibits that show the ladder truck? The only so they would bring a truck in this that would not be an aerial apparat aerial apparatus doesn't have they're not going to do that because an aerial apparatus um driveway is 26 ft long that's why this is not an aerial apparatus that's coming into the site they anticipate being able to put an aerial apparatus on Mount Diablo right in front go up to the roof that way and then a different truck driving 250 truck can come in the 200 and they've [clears throat] already confirmed inside the only reason I'm bringing this up probably know too much and there's a child care facility

sorry I mean there it's the children that live in the building anyway so they would be you know they could be upstairs they could be down there in some ways having you know while they're on the ground floor that's easier for them to evacuate than they're just all in [snorts] someone else's there there's a there's 11 of them I think is what I read so at the end of the day the fire marshal has confirmed the aerial apparatus wouldn't go down here, which now makes a lot more sense to me. Go down there. Um it would be a different truck that they've already confirmed can drive there. They can have their hose. So now, cuz in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, how in the world like you need

aerial apparatus, you have to be 26 ft. You have to be 15t away from the building. It doesn't. But I did want to make that clear that, you know, when you stated, "Oh, it's the same driveway with we're just keeping it because existing conditions." You're triggering a completely different building code. Yes. Um than than what is than what's existing. Um so it's not an aerial apparat. Okay. Um the other question I only have two more. One of them's really easy. The second question is um the BMRs affordable housing is always good. Where are they located? Where are the the eight? Yeah,

they'll be distributed. I mean it'll be um proportional. I forget exactly the two the twobedroom onebedroom studio count. 35 each and then one studio. So, um, it hasn't exactly been confirmed, but it'll be proportional to the unit types. Um, you know, it has not, you know, it wasn't it hasn't come up as far as assigning them at this stage. It will need to be assigned.

And then the last question is um the green roof, are you using that for uh C3 water quality purposes? We are using it to reduce the amount of imperous area on the site. It's not a treatment. Okay. Got it. Okay. Any I feel like I asked a lot of questions and there's a lot of people in here. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

So now um I'd like to open up the public comment. Does anybody have anything that would they would like to discuss on this item only? out of all the people here, no public comments on this item.

Oh, yes. [clears throat] Thank you, chair. Um, I actually live two blocks from this project. It's kind of scary, but I'm I'm I'm not anti-development at all. So, I I appreciate the questions. It looks like the the team has done a great job in terms of um accounting for the the site challenges. I mean, I literally live two blocks from the site. So, I I know this very well as well. So, um I appreciate the efforts that everyone's put into this and and look forward to it. It'll probably be a nightmare for a while with the construction, but um you know, that's just part of the you know, process. So, thank you.

Thank you. with nobody else. Um, now the applicant has a chance to speak again. I don't But you don't have to.

Thank you. [laughter] I would like to now close public comment and bring it to the commission for any considerations, motions, thoughts, comments. All right. Um, I'll make the motion. So, I move to approve this draft resolution for the tenative subdivision 9697 for condominium purposes. Final design review, density bonus, tree drift line encouragement permit, and conditional use permit application number Y24-040 at 2094 Mount Diablo Boulevard.

And just to confirm, that's the revised version that's been presented. Oh, as as amended. As amended. Yes. Thank you. Second.

I'll be right there. [laughter]

Okay. Commissioner Quac, yes. Commissioner Count, yes. Commissioner Moran, yes. Commissioner Strongman, yes. Commissioner Klopp, yes. And Vice Chair Knighting, yes. Okay, that is motion carries. Thank you. And now we're going to be moving on to the second item on the agenda [clears throat] for application Y23083 located at 7449 Buenov Vista Avenue. Does the city have Oh, perfect.

Yes. Uh staff has prepared a presentation for tonight. So, uh, good evening, commissioners. My name is Steven Cook, assistant planner with the city's community development department. Uh, before you this evening is a request for a conditional use permit, uh, to establish a new K through8 private school, the LGD Academy at 2449 Buenav Vista Avenue. Uh, the associated project number is Y23083. Uh, before we begin, I'd like to note a few housekeeping items. Uh since the publication of the agenda packet, the applicant has invoked California Assembly Bill 2097. So AB 2097 prohibits local jurisdictions from imposing minimum off- streetet parking requirements on eligible projects located within 1 half mile of a major transit stop uh which in this case includes the Walnut Creek BART station located just south of the site. Uh accordingly, staff has updated the draft resolution to reflect this change. Uh revisions include updates to the background section, the conditions of approval, as well as the addition of the approved transportation demand management plan or TDM, uh as a new attachment confirming the project's eligibility under the city's off- streetet parking ordinance. Uh the project site is located on Buenav Vista Avenue, just south of Alvarado Avenue. The parcel is approximately 36,000 square feet and contains uh four detached singlestory buildings totaling roughly 7,100 square feet. Uh the property is owned by the Walnut Creek Islamic Center and is currently being used as a religious assembly facility. An existing surface parking lot, as shown on the slide, provides on-site parking for visitors and staff. Uh the surrounding area consists of a mix of a single family residences, other religious assembly facilities, and several elementary and K- through8 private schools. And the zoning for the site is duplex D3 uh residential.

Uh for background, the school previously operated on the site from fall 2023 through spring 2025. Uh during the final spring semester, the city's building official and a fire inspector from the Contraosta County Fire Protection District uh directed the school to cease operations until all required permits were obtained. Uh staff al also confirmed that the school is actively registered with the California Department of Education as shown on the slide. LGD Academy is a 501c3 nonprofit organization seeking to establish and a K through8 private school within the existing Islamic center. Uh the submitted business plan identifies a maximum enrollment of 90 students and for context the the school previously enrolled uh 46 students. Uh staffing includes four administrative staff, two fully credentialed teachers and 10 part-time teachers in training. Uh the academic curriculum includes English language arts, mathematics, science, leadership, religious studies, and foreign language. Uh daily hours of operations are Monday through Thursday uh with a staggered drop off period between 8 and 8:40 a.m. and a staggered pickup period uh from 3:30 to 3:45 p.m. Fridays uh exclusively operate as half days with an 11:30 a.m. pickup. So, this operational schedule indicates that the school activities will not overlap with the scheduled religious assembly functions, uh, thereby minimizing any on-site parking demand and reducing potential traffic congestion. So, transitioning into the proposed site plan, the layout identifies the seven classrooms, one administrative office, uh, which are marked in stars for reference. Uh all other areas will be retained by the Islamic Center and the project also includes modifications to the existing surface parking lot including restriping to create a designated pickup dropoff area, improve on-site circulation and ensure compliance with ADA fire access and the city's parking design standards. Uh as

shown on the plan, site access is provided from Buenav Vista Avenue uh with separate ingress egress points. Uh so during the noticing period, staff received several public comments, many of which raised concerns relating to parf parking, traffic, and noise. Uh beginning with parking and traffic. As noted earlier, the project invokes assembly bill or AB2097, which prevents the city from imposing minimum off- streetet parking requirements. Um, under the city's off- streetet parking ordinance, projects relying on AB2097 must submit a transportation demand management plan for review and approval by the city's tra uh, transportation administrator. And so, the applicant's TDM plan has been already approved and includes several measures including operational and design strategies to prevent spillover parking, uh, procedures for regular monitoring of neighborhood parking conditions and contingency measures. So, if spillover parking is observed, um there is an activated share parking agreement with a nearby property at 2317 Buenav Vista Avenue, uh just south of the site, uh about a quarter of a mile, which has approximately 77 parking spaces available. And so, the approved TDM plan is included as an addendum to the agenda packet as attachment 7. So, in addition, the project includes parking lot improvements, and these improvements are intended to better manage the flow of vehicles entering and exiting the site onto Buenav Vista Avenue. And for concerns regarding unauthorized parking on private property on or in red curbed areas, uh residences uh residents could contact the Walnut Creek Police Department traffic enforcement division uh to report any violations. Uh that division is responsible for enforcement and can issue citations to offending vehicles. Uh please refer to the GIS vicinity map uh which illustrates the project site's location within one half mile of the Walnut Creek BART station uh for your reference.

And regarding noise, uh the city's general plan recognizes that noise is both subjective and context dependent with sensitivity often increasing during the evening and nighttime hours. Uh so the general plans land use noise compatibility table guidelines as shown on the screen uh classifies single family residential uses and school uses within the same normally acceptable and conditionally acceptable thresholds for the day and nightight average noise levels. Uh in addition the school's business plan indicates that all academic instruction will occur within fully enclosed buildings. And to further limit potential impacts, the draft resolution includes a condition uh prohibiting outdoor school related activities within the parking lot. Uh this ensures that the open areas on the site are used primarily for vehicle circulation uh rather than student activities, thereby minimizing potential noise exposure for nearby residents. Uh to summarize, the applicant is requesting a conditional use permit to establish the new K through8 private school for LGD Academy. and the planning commission is tasked with uh reviewing the required uh cup findings as shown on the screen. Uh staff believes that the commission can make the necessary findings and has prepared a draft resolution that provides a response to each. Okay. The project is exempt from SQA pursuant to section 15301 class one existing facilities uh as it involves the partial conversion of an existing religious assembly use into a new school use with no expansion of the building footprint. Okay. Staff recommends that the planning commission move to determine that the project be exempt from SQA under the section 15301 existing facilities and adopt the revised draft resolution approving the conditional use permit for the LJD Academy at 2449 Buenav Vista Avenue. Okay. And that concludes staff's

presentation for tonight. I'm available to answer any questions and representatives from LGD Academy are also present here tonight to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Does anybody have any comments for staff or questions? None. Okay. Um I'd like to then open up the public Oh, does the applicant have a presentation? Not a presentation. Okay.

Okay. Uh good evening uh commissioners. My name is uh [clears throat] excuse me, I've been talking all day. [laughter] My name is Yester Naseri. I'm a parent and a founder, one of the founders of Eljudia Academy. Um I'm also uh an optometrist. I've been serving community health centers my entire career, about a decade. And uh and specifically in expanding services to underserved areas. Um I shifted my um interest to education uh as of course uh you never think about that but with having two kids um I saw that my daughter was going through some challenges at school. So I looked to find an alternative for her. Um so Aljuty began began really as a collaborative effort with other community members um who wanted to find something different an alternative u education opportunity for their kids. Um and we chose Walnut Creek. that's been the center hub for a lot of our families. Um it it's Aljudi would be the first Islamic school if given the permit uh in the Walnut Creek uh Tri Valley area and um growing up here uh you know I've been raised in the Bay Area, gone to public schools, I graduated from Cal. Um I know that uh the most important thing is to making sure that the school is also a part of the community. And one of the most important things that makes LJD special for my daughter and for one of the reasons why parents picked the school is that it's brought in uh leader in me. Uh leader in me is an established program that works to uh bring in and adapt the principle seven habits of highly successful individuals. And that framework teaches kids that leadership starts with service. The essence of leadership is service. And when we first came into the community, um, we knew we know kids make noise. We we know that. I

mean, I have two and I feel like I have 20. So, it's it's not easy. Uh, and our students went door to door um to the adjacent neighborhood in an in an effort to show that we're here. Uh, you know, we want to create a type of friendship, a bond. Uh, they introduced themselves, passed out a box of baked goods to every neighbor. Um, they were very excited. We got some positive feedback uh from that. So that was wonderful. I also today spoke in detail with a friend of mine uh pastor Edward Cheng which is from the gospel church across the street from Adar Salam. And I spoke to him and he he let me know a lot of the uh concerns that the community was having. And uh you know he said just try to emphasize and make sure that people understand that you understand that um what they're where they're coming from and and we sincerely do. Um but uh we can't speak for the mosque because we are a separate entity. Um and uh we can only represent uh Eljudy. Um and speaking to that with the concerns that the community has uh I want to wholeheartedly extend that we are here to mitigate any issues um that our school is responsible for. Um like Steven said, our operational hours do not coincide uh with the mosque. And in addition to that, um, for our operations, we went ahead, um, I looked at the schedules for the different schools in the area and we, uh, end an hour later, um, to mitigate traffic. We start 30 minutes later. Um, so these are all things that we kind of thought about. We installed a bike rack. We have given scholarships to, uh, neighboring residents. Um, and we are encouraging people to walk. Uh I have uh work as working in admissions as well. I have heard a lot of parents say, "Hey, I want to move from another state. I want to come to Eljudy. This is a great opportunity." And um growing up, I never

had this opportunity to go to an Islamic school where it's a one-stop shop. I can get my academics. I can get my religious studies. I can get everything I need. And then I could also build my identity. Um some of our parents say that you know their kids were suffering from uh emotional social issues uh and in a smaller school setting uh their kids are thriving. Um and that's very important nowadays because you have a lot of kids who are neurode divergent learners who might have anxiety or other issues and these schools uh this type of school would really help them uh be feel supported. Our class sizes are um our largest class is eight students. So you have uh two teachers per eight kids. Um and we really uh what I find the most is sometimes uh when I get stressed with working with the school at the school my daughter will you know get get worried like oh you know we're still going to have the school right and I'll tell her yeah because she's like no I can never not be I can't be without my friends at Aljudy. Um, and to to speak to what she said when I first started, she said, "I will when she was in fourth grade when I first started working on the for the school, um, you know, sometimes you feel like in public schools you may be losing your your children um to ideas or uh friends or certain uh trends." Um, but she told me, "I'm not coming to that school." And I said, "That's fine. It's your choice, but what I want you to do is just try it out. Just try it." Because it we had uniforms. we had small class sizes and you know new teachers that looked like your mom so she wasn't excited but now if you ask her and she's here tonight she will say whatever you do don't give up power through um so it's it's bit it's been a challenge but it's been a ride of a lifetime and um I think the whole I speak for the whole

team when I say that there is so much um in in so it's so rewarding to be in education more so than optometry Um, thank you so much for uh looking at our application. Um, we're here to answer any questions uh from the public. Um, and we're, you know, happy to continue to, you know, if if this uh permit is approved to lend our hand, our uh open communication so that we can uh help with any concerns in the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for the applicant? All right, thank you so much for the presentation. It was very helpful to um understand um and meet people who work at the academy. I did want to get a sense of how far the the families are served and what communities they're from. So um it was mentioned I was thinking, oh, it was just local to Walnut Creek, but it sounds like there's families as far as Liverour or maybe way up um as far as conquered. So it sounds like it's this is a school that serves families much farther than just Walnut Creek. It's very much a regional institution.

Um I would yeah I say as a beginner uh that is true, but we do have quite a few families from Walnut Creek um as well. Uh one of our families are uh new uh to this area and we've kind of helped them get acclimated uh to just how life works uh in the Bay Area. But I'm personally, we're from San Ramon. Um, and other families, like you said, are from uh Liverour or uh Conquered. Um, Martinez, Valo. Um, but the reason why that's so is uh Islamic schools in the Bay Area, I could name them on one hand. There aren't that many. Um, and as you know, second or third generation here, um, we we know a little bit more than our parents might have known. Um, and we are more involved, um, in our child's school and in their education and more in tune into their needs. So, um, I survived public school, but maybe I would have been better off in another. I mean, you know what I mean? So I think it's uh just having those accessible opportunities of education uh close close by. I mean that would be wonderful. And one other thing about our model is that um we do train our teachers. Um our principal is a teacher traininee of over 40 years. Uh she has a background in education and uh we have some of our teachers here to to speak to her uh methods. Um so we we want this to expand. We want the education and the principles of cooperative learning and leader in me to be accessible to to all over the Bay Area.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Um I was looking at the um the layout of what areas are used by the school and um noticed that the kitchen was not included. So I'm curious how the kids are fed during the day. Sure. Um so uh the the lunches are on the parents so couldn't get away with that one. But uh yeah, so they are they bring a bag lunch. We don't uh use the kitchen. The the kitchen is is the mosques.

Yes. And and then you know so much of uh what we're hearing is concern about parking as you know. Um, and I know some of that may have to do with other days of the week, but um, you mentioned the Gospel Church that's right across the street. And so, um, uh, are there is there an agreement with them as well or do people have to go to the further location?

Uh, yes. So, there is there there is not a agreement with the gospel church. Um, I just kind of created a relationship with pastor I just so I could understand the area better. um and uh you know get to know the community. Uh but uh the self-realization temple which is further down the street uh is for spillover parking. Um now if you look at the size of our school and uh the method and how the students are uh picked up and dropped off, it's a very smooth carpool lane. Um we have about four to five teachers with yellow and blue vests, walkie-talkies. The students stay within the courtyard and they're called um as their family cars arrive. Um about 45% of the school uses the shuttle. Um and it's about 14 K.

Hello. Uh my name is Asan Tinawi. I live in Walnut Creek with my wife and our two-year-old son. Uh we actually used to live in Alama. Went to Canada for a year. And then when we were choosing where to live when we came back to the Bay Area, we especially chose Walnut Creek because it was close to Eljudi School. Um, we live a 15 minutee walk from the school. Uh, and we were very intentional about choosing that location because hopefully when our son and his future siblings are older, we'd love to like walk them over to the school or bike them because my wife and I don't really like to rely on uh cars for transportation. uh aljudi is very important for us as a community because it will uh ensure that our children grow up in the culture that we grew up in and uh have sh that shares the same values that we do and u I think it's really important for um for them to to experience that growing growing up here um and I just wanted to add that I read the plans that the school and mosque have put forth and uh uh I think the school has been very like u responsive to the concern concerns of the community. I think there's really great energy here today where um I would love for the for there to be an avenue for continued discussion and understanding because as Mr. Kim mentioned like that's really what fosters a community. Um so I want to keep it short. Uh I hope we're able to find a path forward here that allows the school to operate while maintaining the beautiful character and safety that drew us all to Walnut Creek. Thank you.

Thank you. Kirk, is it Kirk or maybe Carl Hartley?

Kevin Gibbkin.

Thank you very much for allowing me to come here today. Uh, thank you my neighbors and Islam Islamic community and my resident neighbors as well. Um, I want to really kind of tackle these three big issues and some of these things are actually out of their control that you're hearing about and I want to explain how they came about. But it's going to take all of us to kind of try to understand how to fix this. Uh, the first issue has to do with parking. There was [snorts] an agreement with the uh church right across the street, the gospel center to allow some parking and the and the community actually felt some relief at that time. However, that's dissolved at this point. And unfortunately, the track now is about almost a half a mile for people to park and come to the uh gospel or the church and or the school if you have off- streetet parking that far away. There's many people who can't do that. There's the elderly that can't do that. There's people who are sick that can't do that. And many people who are just inconvenience don't do that. That's why on the emails you see so many people parking in the red zones. I talked to many of my fellow residents. They have their their cars blocked in. People parking on their private property. You see the photos, they're posted. Um the second issue has to do with the noise and environmental issues. Some of that can't be uh it can't it can't change because I want kids to be kids. I'm a therapist. I've been a therapist working in the county for 30 years before I retired. I worked with kids. I worked in underserved

communities. I'm pro kid. I'm pro uh religion and I'm pro schools. I went into the schools to advocate for children many times. So, um I do want to mention something that the proposal said earlier and that had to do with um my particular place where I live. There was a talk of a retaining wall there that prevents uh sound and I want to pass around I wish I had a slick slides and a pointer thing that pointer to do. That's a good deal. Um, so this picture here, sir. This is the old retaining wall that we had. And I put a little arrow on there for reference. So, I'm going to show you what it looked like just a year ago, maybe.

Okay. That's what I think the planning commission probably when they made up this idea, it looked like. I got that picture actually off their website and it's some children playing right there on the concrete and behind that fence is where our homes are and it was quite loud. How many people think that was loud over there? Okay, there's quite a few people. Um, we tore that fence down. It was in disrepair. We were asked to do that. We did it. It cost a quarter of a million dollars for us to build a new wall. But we have a concrete wall. I'll pass this one. Thank you, sir.

The new concrete wall, you'll see, is no longer seven [snorts] or eight feet tall. It's 4 feet tall. Four feet. The concrete is no barrier for any sound at all. The top of the wall is under the foundation of our homes. And you if you take us side by side, you'll see this is the same area we're talking about. Now we have fences exposed. The second stories of these home are homes are exposed. And the noise with even 30 children was loud. Children need to be children now. Okay. Be in the beginning when this school first started conditionally, there was no requirement for a noise study. I only ask you that we do that now. The situation has changed. We're asking for 90 children. The tent they're talking about has openings all around the top of it. I want kids to be kids. I was sad to hear actually that they can't open it. I will came here today prepared to ask you to reopen the school and I'm sad to hear that that's not possible because I I looked at some of their letters and they're very very compelling. I would like it to be open. I'd like us to do a study. I'd like us to just pause for a moment and figure out if this is the best place, the best location, and we can really handle a school for 90 children. That's issue on noise, lights. There's a lot of environmental things that need to be looked at. Um, as far as staggering some of the times, another thing they have no control over, unfortunately, there's some security issues that have happened to Buenav Vista. You probably were

involved in knowing that they did some fencing and stuff like that to keep out people that go there. And I'd like to show you a picture of [snorts]

One more time. Thank you. I'd like to show you a picture I took just this morning uh where my daughter went to school 20 years ago. She went to Buen a Vista, but it didn't look anything like that. There was no fencing. There was no permission to get in. There was no guards at the door, so to speak. And the turnaround area in that is extremely extremely slow. And if you drive on Buen a Vista, which is a main artery to get to the freeway there, it takes a significant amount of time. I'm worried that this is going to add to it. Buav Vista serves 550 children. That's a lot of children on one road. There are cars lined up. You can see photographs of them on that were posted. People are worried about that. They're worried about the congestion. I talked to the traffic uh crossuards right there. They're worried about their own safety, let alone the safety of the children crossing the street. And some of that is because of these issues that I'm talking about. The last issue I want to talk about um is the parking. Oh, I mentioned parking. Oh, and they used to have an agreement. There is a site, another site. It's a long ways away. Okay. So, I want to offer some practical solutions. Since I've went over these three issues, one solution would have been to open the school up. It's the very first thing I have on my list, but I'm sorry that can't happen actually. But I'd like you to pause your decision before you say yay or nay today to really take a close

look. These this parking study that you will find was conducted on a Tuesday. Okay? You and I know if you're going to study the Bay Bridge traffic, you don't do it on a Sunday at midnight. You do it on a weekday during surge hours. This was a commission thing that happened on a Tuesday. very low time. It explains nothing about the surge volume that they have with parking. And that surge is Fridays, every Friday afternoon, every Friday evening, every festive holiday. These are realities. Am I right? They can attest to that. Um, so there's a couple things I'd request of you. One is a comprehensive review of some of these things. I'm talking about parking, TIA, transit, and safety issues for the kids. and also um an acoustics evaluation if the homes in the area are going to be impacted by 90 children. I can tell you I only live 24 feet from the property line. Do you know how far 24t is? It's about to where that flag is. That's my back door. Right here is my patio. That's where I try to enjoy my morning with with a cup of coffee, maybe a newspaper, some cereal. It's not possible. It's just impossible. We have um my neighbors and I were worried about our own peace and quiet in our own community. That's something I

think that you pride too. I'd like to work with them. I'd like to find a solution. I'd like to figure out if this will work. It's not fair for these children to be out of school. It's not fair for them to feel dangled and not know what's going to happen. Thank you for your time. You have any questions you'd like to ask me? Thank you. Chip, do you want to call three names so folks can line up? Is that okay?

Oh, yeah. Uh the next three names will be Mark Snery, Samra Samra Samir and Alisa Tra. So Mark Yep. Good evening. Mark Sherry. I live on Buista about 900 ft northwest on right on the street. Uh you know I grew up in Wley Creek. Muslims were not here. Welcome. Come on down. Have a school. Good. Good on you. But you talked and the director there talked about getting along with the community. Would you please face us? Sorry. Speak more. Thank you so much.

They want me to be quieter. Um, you got to work with us Friday. I believe it's Friday prayers if that's appropriate phrase. The parking on Buessa Alvarado is chaos. either last Friday, the Friday before, I was driving out at the appropriate time and one of the one of the attendees, I don't know the proper phrase, was parked on the two crosswalks at the corner. It's chaos. I think if you want to get along with the community, as you said, I doubt you do. Can you please address your Can you please address us when you speak? I'm sorry. Can you just address us when you speak? Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. I was trying to be nice to them.

No, I I hear you. Thank you so much. You have you have to have some understanding of working with the neighbors and I I don't need a meeting, but if you've worked out a deal with the temple down the street, your congregants, your attendees need to know that and go there. Uh or it's just going to get worse and bad things will happen. I don't want them to happen. But um you know we we need to get along and we have other churches, schools on that street and none of them have this problem. So I'd ask you to work with your folks and make it so we can all get along.

Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker,

uh Samra. Good evening respected um community members and city members. Uh my name is Samra Samir um and I have been a credential science teacher for 15 years. Uh I have worked at Aljudi for two years uh teaching science at Aljudi and I can say by far that I have grown um immensely at this institution. um the admin especially the principal here um ensures that their teachers are properly trained in the cooperative learning strategies which I think guarantees student success in in any classroom. Um being a science teacher um and given the opportunity to go ahead and develop the curriculum here um I had noticed and I observed from day one the students came here they had such a great talent in in science and pursuing science. So we tailored the curriculum for them and part of that was um not only building the curriculum but also having amazing science fairs and we had great experiments uh with regards to that and I think given the opportunity the school um if they are given the opportunity to come here and and pursue what we've been doing for this long um they will be able to go ahead and represent themselves at the county science fair and I cannot wait for that to happen. I think the kids here through the leader uh in me program are really learning how to lead and given the opportunity um they're going to rise and shine. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Next speaker, Elsa Trsa.

You got it. You go.

Hello, my name is Issa Trave and I'm a student at Eljudy Academy. I value my school for all the different subjects and con teachers. I was in a school that didn't really work out for me before I discovered Aljudi. I was homeschooling for one year in between the old school and old Judy. I discovered Eljudy because I had some friends that for going there I found sanctuary. Every single one of us has something that connects everyone and forms what we call our school. I hope one way, one day we can get the permission and travel back to sanctuary in West Walnut Creek. At Al Judy, we value everybody and teach everyone everything we need to know to be successful. It should be no labor to be kind to your neighbor.

If we can please just Good neighbor here. So, we're gonna everyone gets a clap. So, we don't need to clap anymore. Um the next three next three beuna and Ms. Rafi and Hakam Ibraham Ibra Ibrahim sorry. Yes ma'am.

Yes we're just calling it three three up at a time so we can because there's little kids in the in the room so I'm trying to be cognizant of that. Go ahead. Thank you. Can we start the clock? Thanks Claire. Um, madame chair, chairperson, and um um commissioners, if I got you right. Okay. Um, my name is Mayuna Ahmed. I have been serving on the Contra Costa County Assessment Appeals Board for three years, representing our district, District 4, which includes Walner Creek, Concrete, and Pleasant Hill. And I'm here to speak in favor of the ongoing Aljudi Academy on La Buen Vista. I would like to address the issue that I saw on uh oh what is it called not what's it next door on the app about a week ago which alerted me which didn't sound very good threatening decline in property values. Well when you talk property values to someone who's been an appraiser since 1987 um state certified California certified general appraiser I've done Buov Vista. I've done Contra Costa Alama County. I know all the shortcuts during rush hour. if you want to pay me something, I'll take you on a ride around how to how to avoid the traffic. Um, so I'd like to address the um the issue of property values. Uh, I I have appraised also in Southern California, LA, and Orange counties, and I have never seen a pro any property decline in value because it was located near an elementary school. High school's a whole different ballgame. Um because parents of young children want to have their kids if possible walk to school. I walked to school as a child. My mother was a teacher. I had to walk to school. No one was driving me in those days. Nowadays, parents, especially moms, are driving kids. Um so if anything, parents want to live near an elementary school and if their kids can walk to school, that is ideal. And um

so the other thing, let's see, I went completely off script. Um so at any rate the um the next door app basically um is that it? Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker. Um is it Moose?

Good evening commissioners. Uh my name is Moyes Rafi. I'm an attorney. I've been living in Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill for about the last 10 years. I'm an attendee and volunteer at the Walnut Creek Islamic Center. Um, I actually also happen to live next to an ele elementary school and so I sympathize uh with all of our neighbors. Every single morning when I get out to take my kids to school, there's a stranger in a different car sitting uh parking right in front of my house, several cars. And they're walking out and they're walking down two blocks to take their kids to school because they want to avoid the traffic. And so our entire cold sack is full. Every morning and every afternoon I come back and the entire cold sack is full. And I get frustrated sometimes because I'm like that's the front of my house. But I had to remind myself I don't own that street. It's a public street. And uh I realized these were not strangers. These were my neighbors. These were people just taking their kids to school. And yeah, it was inconvenient, but it was about 10 minutes a period of time. And as soon as school's over, they're gone. And as soon as school drop off, they're gone. And um I had to remind myself that I don't love it. I understand. Um I'm also someone that probably parks in front of the streets. I don't block your driveways. Um, and as good neighbors, if the mosque is not uh adhering and the attendees on Friday, if they're not, they should be towed, right? And we should do better. But the problem is we're conflating the issues with the mosque as an issues with the school. And so I think it's really important to separate those. The school is ending at 11:30 a.m. on Friday and the mosque is a separate uh situation. And I sympathize because I have to park on Fridays and I know it's very hard, but we do our best to park on public streets. It's 2 hours in the middle of the day and everyone is gone. And if people are parking illegally, I'll be the first to have them towed.

Thank you. Next speaker. Uh Hakam Ibraham.

Uh thank you commissioners and uh thank you to Stephen as well for his work on this project. Uh I'm a my name is Hem Ibrahim. I'm a 36 year resident of Walnut Creek. I grew up on the north side of town. My parents still own their home there. I grew up in the shadow of North Kate High School, so I'm very familiar with you know the the traffic issues with uh you know living next to a school. Um [clears throat] I wanted to say I I I those were my exact sentiments what the last speaker said about you know your the how some of the residents are conflating the issues with parking on Fridays with what the school is is is intending to do. Um, I think guess what? If you kill this project, none of those uh uh those scenarios are going to change. There's still going to be issues with people parking on Fridays. There's still going to be issues with people parking during uh festive holidays for during the Muslim calendar. U so why kill the school? I I don't I I think the other thing is now that I live on the south side of town, I have four kids. Two of them went to BV. They're now at WCI and Las. Two of them are still at uh uh BV now. And I think since the construction that they've just completed at BV, uh, a lot of parents are not using the entrance on BV anymore. There are three entrances to the school, uh, BV, one on Alvarado, one on BV, uh, Buenav Vista, and, uh, San Juan. And so it's totally unfounded that that there's traffic now. It's actually gotten much less because during construction, parents got used to picking up on San Juan. And so now everybody's continued that this year as well. And so I think it's it's I I agree with the last speaker too on on days where I have to where I work from home on Fridays and I go pray at the mosque. I agree the parking is is really bad. But I I've seen Walnut Creek police out there enforcing the no parking zones, enforcing the red zones, and those people should be cited. They should be towed if that's necessary. And that's how we're going to change that behavior.

Thank you. Thank you. Um should we do the next three speakers? Yes. U Bisher, Hib Sukra, and Shauna Monroe. Start with Bisher.

Yeah. Good evening. Uh I'll keep this short because I'm I'm just going to echo what others have been saying. Uh my daughter goes to Aljudi. I drop her off in the morning and then I go as a you know a caretaker of my father who lives on Warren Lane in in Walnut Creek. So it's really important for me for my daughter to be very close to me. And I just want to point out that um I have never had a problem with traffic because the school starts that half hour after the you know elementary school's on the street and ends an hour after that. Uh I've never had a problem with traffic. I've never had to park in the in the parking lot of of the mosque. And um yeah, again I know that the the mosque has it's uh there's some challenges there but we're talking about the school here and does not overlap. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Okay. Yeah. Has Sahar and I'm a homeowner in Walnut Creek. Um

I'm here tonight to support the approval for the use permit for LG Academy. Uh my child attends this school and our experience has been outstanding, not only academically, but in terms of personal growth. The school's leader inme curriculum is one of the few programs in our area that teaches confidence, communication, and responsibility in a structured and daily way. I've seen a noticeable and positive change in my child because of it. I also want to address the concerns raised about traffic and noise. As a parent who drove this route every day, my experience has been overwhelmingly smooth and well organized. Morning drop off drop offs have been efficient and because of the way the school manages traffic flow most parents can pull in drop off and exit without needing to park at all. [clears throat] On days when parents do choose to park, they use the school's parking lot. It's also important to note that the other schools on the same road seem to have different start times which naturally spreads out traffic load and reduces congestion. In my daily experience, this staggered timing makes some noticeable difference. I've never encountered backups, unsafe situations, or other issues during drop off or pickup. Aljudi Academy is a responsible and considerate neighbor, and the families are committed to following the rules and maintaining a positive relationship with the community. Uh for these reasons, I respectfully ask the council to approve the use permit so the school can continue providing a safe, nurturing, and leadership focused environment for our children and continue being a positive asset to Walnut Creek. Thank you for your time.

Thank you,

Shauna. I'm just nervous here. But um I just want Yeah, I live um in the complex that's next uh to the Islamic Center. Um and sometimes we can hear the kids when they are playing, but um and I agree with Kevin, you know, I think the city should come out and do some kind of noise study because 90 kids is going to affect the the residents nearby. Uh my big thing is the parking. I don't think it's mentioned here that um currently they have 53 um parking spots and this is going to change it down to 33 and so that's 20 less and that's just going to make the parking in the area worse on Fridays and this is a multiuse um facility and I know people have said that it's separate the school and the mosque but reducing the parking is just going to make it worse for everybody in the neighborhood. Um, you know, I live in [clears throat] the Britain um hills um homeowners association and on Friday we have to stand out there and kick people out of our parking lot. We have people parking in the red zones every Friday. They park in no parking zones. They park on private streets that are posted. And just this last Friday and I sent in with my email there Whoops, excuse me. There was only four people parking in that shared agreement. So I guess the thing is you have this shared agreement. what's going to make what's going to change the behavior now because they haven't been doing it before. Um and also um I have nothing against the school or anything like that, but I just feel you know this footprint is not big enough to hold 90 people and I it seems like that this um center has outgrown and um that's just where I stand. I do oppose uh this proposal. Thanks. Thank you.

Uh, three more. Lette Duran, Abdul Adwalla, and Nav. I I can't read that. Is it DC? D I SI sounds looks like. So, uh, Lette.

Good evening, council. Thank you for giving us opportunity to be here. My name is Lette. My daughter attends Aljudi Academy and I'm here to support Aljudi and the approval of the permit. Uh I would like to share just one memory with you since we have a lot of people who are going to speak. Um so one day after picking my daughter from school, this is her first year at Aljudi. She shared with me her class lesson on empathy. And I was very happy to hear how enthusiastic she was on sharing her lesson with me that that she learned uh in a class because for me being a successful parent means raising kids who are empathetic, who are respectful, generous, and good citizens. And being a good neighbor is actually a part of our Islamic creed. And so um there are rights prescribed to our neighbors. And so we have a duty to be good to our we have a duty to be good to our neighbors. So therefore, I have a duty as a parent, as do our other Muslim parents here, um to teach our kids how to be good citizens and good neighbors. And so I want to reassure the community that any concerns that our neighbors have, we are going to be here to address it and to work on it and to be good neighbors with you on Wan Creek. Thank you so much,

Abdul.

Good evening, lad ladies and gentlemen. Um, so, uh, my name is Abdul Aadala. I'm born and raised here in the Bay Area. We have, uh, as a family, uh, plenty of businesses in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, we got pizzeras in Berkeley, in Hayward. Uh, we're very much a part of uh, uh, the Bay Area. And even here in Walnut Creek itself, we have a roofing business, uh, a better roofing company, which we do business on homes right here in uh, Walnut Creek. Um, I want to tell you guys we we me and my brothers are residents of Liverour, California. Uh, we have to wake up our children very early in the morning before the sun rises. Uh, we got 10 of them. Uh, and they all get in a a van that we have purchased. My father, who is their grandfather, gets everybody into that van very early in the morning every single day and just drives all these screaming children to the the school. Now, with all of what he goes through and everything, my father still is happy to do this every single morning, even though he still works in our San Francisco pizzeria. So this is a joy for him. And I think that this is not only a joy for our family, it's a joy for every single one of these children that are out there coming to school, getting together with people that they know, people that they share values with. It's it's a really really a surreal uh uh thing that they are going through and enjoying and we don't want to take that away from them. I think we are really really conflating two totally separate issues. Parking is an issue. We got to figure that out. It should be a totally separate, you know, with this with the mosque. What are we going to do here? If cars get need to get towed, they should get towed. But don't take

these away from these children. Thank you very much. You is it NAV? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, thank you for having me here. Um, first of all, guys, look, look at this community. I am so proud of everyone out here, especially the kids. Um, this is a piece of the puzzle, the melting pot for Walnut Creek. Uh, my name is Naveiv Desai. Uh, I'm a Walnut Creek resident. I go to the mosque and I'm here speaking in support of the of Eljudi Academy. I understand that uh neighbors have concern about traffic and noise, but guys, it's it's the Bay Area. traffic in the Bay Area is it's it's almost like peanut butter and jelly, right? But um you know like I I do want to see I I do want us to kind of take a look at this in context. Projects like this are extremely common even in Walnut Creek. Churches, synagogues, c cultural centers have all gone through sim similar processes. And you know and did I did hear someone mention next door and I do want to address that really quick with care. the words that I read on that post where echoing patterns that we've seen uh seen before in like history books like if if if if XYZ happens and the property values decline frame framing children as a neighborhood burden or even you know treating a weekly ga gathering as inherently disruptive. I mean, I don't like to see these tropes and I know it's probably unintentional, but we have to be a little bit better than that. And the reality is simple. We have uh this school that produces daytime activity and you know uh this daytime activity is during the day. It's during normal times. It's during normal hours. We can expect we can have that as a normal expectation in the Bay Area. It's you know the noise sure it can bother us later. the parking issues. Sure, it can bother us, but we can work through that. So, once again, just here in support of Eljudi Academy and thank you very much

for your time. Got three more. It's Musa, Tariq, Shyam, Sram, and um trouble with this one. Q ais, I think. Hhabib. [clears throat and cough] Musa.

Yeah. Good evening, commissioners and community members. My name is Musa with Care, the Council on American Islamic Relations as well as a longtime Contraosta County resident, and we want to urge you to support the permit for the Aljudi Academy. Aljudi Academy is a small community-based school that has worked in good faith with the city for many months, including on fire safety upgrades, transparency around operations, enrollment, and traffic plans. There has been some misinformation on circulating online, including claims that conflate the school with the mosque. But the reality is simple. This is a modest school serving local families. It has a detailed plan for car drop off and parking management, including an on-site liaison to prevent illegal parking and ensure orderly pickup. Noise and traffic levels stay within normal expectations for a site this busy uh on a street that already hosts several other congregations as well as other schools. Again, we respectfully ask you to approve the permit and allow Eljudy Academy to continue serving Walnut Creek students. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Uh Shyam.

Good evening. My name is Sham Sriram. I live in Hercules. My stepdaughter Naima tells Aljudi. I also want to mention that uh I'm a higher educator with 23 years of experience teaching political science. Uh I'm here in support of the proposal and I'll just keep you very brief. I'll just say that nothing is more important than the stability of our schools, not just for our children but for the city. Many of the complaints are those that that have been heard today are those that we hear nationally and are ongoing in the US in everywhere from Alabama to Texas to other places. Anytime Muslims want the same things as other religious groups, we hear the same arguments about parking or peace of mind or property values, etc. I'd like to mention that as has already been said, many Muslims already call Walnut Creek home and the area is seen as a nurturing site of growth. Um, I'm holding up the US Constitution and I want to just remind people that God is not mentioned once in the US Constitution. Um, and many of us here are American by birth, Muslim by preference, Muslim by the grace of God. What could be more American than wanting a great school, buying a house, paying taxes, and giving back to our community? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, uh, Mr. Hhabib. Take the easy route. You got to help me with that. It's Kais. Kais.

Spelling throws everyone off. No worries. U, so I'm going to read what my wife prepared as she's way more articulate than I am. Um, I'm writing this letter as a parent to my 11-year-old daughter who attends Eljudia Academy in Walnut in Walnut Creek. I'm also writing as a 20-year veteran employee of John Mir Hospital in Walnut Creek. I'm someone who deeply values the integrity of the neighborhood and well-being of children. I I understand that the council is hearing concerns from nearby residents about increased traffic and noise. These concerns are reasonable and I appreciate that the city's taking them seriously. At the same time, I hope to offer a broader perspective on the essential role of school uh role this school plays and why it continues to operate. Uh its continued operation is in the best interest of the students and families. Uh this school provides a learning environment that is exceptionally difficult to replicate. For many students, including my daughter, it has been a place where they have finally felt understood, supported, and able to reach their potential. Students who may struggle in larger or more rigid systems find individualized attention, emotional safety, and a strong sense of belonging here. From academic progress to social emotional growth, this school has been life-changing for my daughter and many others at the school. closing it would closing it would remove a critical education option for children who thrive only in small supportive settings. Uh she has like four more paragraphs. I'm not going to read that uh just because we don't have that much time, but I do want to thank the uh opposing families that are here. I understand your concern. Friday prayers, I've been to that mosque on Friday prayers. Uh unfortunately, it is a disaster, but we can't control everybody. a mosque cannot we they make announcements. They've made multiple

announcements. Hey, you cannot park in red zones. You cannot block driveways. Unfortunately, you can't control human action. Uh and also Thank you. You know, school is a good thing, so please support it. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have the next three? Three more. Is that it? Three more? No. No. There's there actually we we're working them down though. Robin Davis Ramos, Linda Barahas, and Jesse. Let's come up here, guys. Robin, the three of us. Yes.

I just see a bunch of littles in the And I have young children. So, yeah. So, then what are the three since since we're grading one for three, what's the next three? which Jesse. Okay. So, uh maybe I'll take four minutes because that way I have a little bit of a cushion since they gave me two minutes, sir.

Two minutes. Okay. Starting already started. Well, my name is Jesse Ramos. I want to say thank you for your uh time this evening and for reviewing the the application. And I want to start off with I sympathize with the uh the school wanting to start a school and all I want is harmony. But what happens is this is that the school and the mosque even though I separate the school as a separate identity they share a facility and when this facility is being used at certain times at certain months certain days etc. it becomes overwhelmed. And what the proposal is, and this is what I object to, is that you are taking away 20 parking spaces. The neighborhood is already drastically short on parking spaces. And so the frustration you're hearing about people parking in the red zone, blocking driveways, all that traffic uh because they're circling the neighborhood trying to find that rare parking space is because of the lack of parking spaces. So when I look at the proposal separate from the school, I see you have a situation that's already bad and you're making it worse. you're making it worse by taking away significant number of available spaces. So, also when I look at the the proposal and I'm looking at the uh at the school, I want to also make some other notes. The school is trying to get a capacity of 90 students. According to the architectural plan, I think it only has a capacity of 80 some odd people. And if you have 10 12 teachers, you're looking at a capacity

of only 70 plus students. Thank you. Uh three more. Uh Heba um or was there one? Heba uh Edith and Sarah. Uh Sarah Weekly. Is this Heba?

Hea. Yeah, that's right. Thanks. Good evening. My name is Habal Mastri. My family has been part of Creek since 1980. In 2019, we left the city we love and moved abroad to a Muslim country because there was limited schools where our children's needs weren't met. We lived as expats for nearly six years. When we heard Eljudi Academy had opened, we moved our family back to Walnut Creek specifically for the school. Our daughter has thrived here. She's made lifelong friends. Her grades are soared and she finally feels fully seen and supported. Aljudi is the reason we are able to come home. We understand neighbors have concerns and we're committed to working with the mosque and the city for solutions, but for family like ours, Aljudi is the reason we've come home. Thank you.

Is it that next speaker, please? Edith. Hello.

Good [clears throat] evening. My name is Edith, a member of the community and also an educator with 10 years experience working in public schools, private schools, and nonprofit organizations. In those years, I have not seen any school that has provided an impressive educational environment the way that Al Judy provides. I made an observation visit earlier this year that coincided when they were in class session and lunchtime. I was very impressed with how the children behaved without being prompted. They all cleaned up after themselves and showed respect to their teachers and peers. I have no doubt in my mind that the teachers work a great amount to create this environment that the students cannot access anywhere else. [snorts] I would [clears throat] like to say that the community at large is welcoming and aware of the concerns raised by the neighbors. In regard to the concerns in traffic congestion due to the increase in enrollment of the school, I'd like to point out that Winnav Vista Elementary has seen an increase in enrollment in the past few years. In the 2022 2023 school year, there were 466 students enrolled and the following year 2023 2024 school year, there were 494 overall 28 student increase in one year. In that year, what were the concerns raised by the neighbors to the school board about this enrollment increase that didn't relate to student and teacher engagement? Were the same concerns of traffic and parking raised to the city or the school board when this increase occurred? We can't exclude one school and blame them for the increase in traffic in the area. I'd like to highlight again that the plan for LGD is to have a slow increase in enrollment, not a sudden increase. In general, Walnut Creek has seen an increase in residents, and I believe it's because the city does a great job in creating a diverse community that provides unique opportunities in the community, such as the great schools we have here. As someone that recently converted to Islam, I'm excited for the possibility

to have an Islamic school for my children in the future because I don't have the extensive. Thank you. Next speaker, please. We have actually four more. Okay. Omar Neco. Oh. Oh, Sarah. Oh, Sarah. [gasps]

Hi, Commissioner. My name is Sarah Fzano Wille. I'm a dental hygienist and a resident of Dublin. This is my son's second year at Aljudi and I cannot express enough the high quality education he's receiving both academically and and learning about the beautiful religion of Islam. I would like to share a few of the core principle and value thought within this school of thought. Aljudi teaches children that Islam emphasizes the well-being and welfare of their neighbors. It encourages Muslims to foster harmonious relationships, build a strong sense of community, and spread peace and goodwill among all. It's important to note that these values extended to everyone, not just Muslim neighbors, but all individuals regarding regardless of their faith or background. I wanted to share these beliefs and values to bring comfort and reassurance to the neighbors surrounding Aljudi school, we want to know that you are part of us and we hope you feel comfortable and support supported having our school as part of the beautiful city of Walnut Creek. I also wanted to add because I see a lot of uh neighbors concerning about the noise. I live in a gated community where majority of my neighbors are Indians and if you guys know Indians they have um really good celebrations of the their weddings and majority of the time I'm talking about past 9:00 there's a lot of music and sometimes it's frustrating but then we just learn to enjoy it. It's okay. It's not a big deal. So again I understand um that there's concern about the noise but keep in mind this is during the day. If I could tolerate it during the night, I

I'm hoping that you guys can tolerate it a little bit and hopefully um we might find another location and and move eventually. So, this might be just temporarily. Thank you so much.

We have four more speakers. It's Omar Neco Bisan Abushur Nissen Montasi. Montreasi. Okay. And Sha is it Shamin Johnny? Omar. Yes. Hi, good evening. Good evening, madame uh chairperson uh commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity and I would also like to thank the neighbors um of Aljudi Academy and the Islamic Center there. I also attend on Fridays. Uh I do go to the uh to the Islamic Center on Bueno Vista. Uh traffic is a concern, big concern. Parking is even worse as of you have heard. Uh no one's denying that. I suggest or recommend that the leadership at the mosque [clears throat] uh and and the neighborhood uh people of the neighborhood we come together and you know come with to to a reasonable solution with the issues on uh uh Fridays for the Friday prayers um that time but I don't think that that well everyone say that that really does not affect the school does not affect that and I don't think that they have to take out those parking spots uh I mean for the uh eress and um ingress and egress of the traffic for aljudi uh they can just operate that with cones during the school days and do is during the school operation hours but I don't think that they have to take uh out the permanent you know permanently take out all the parking spots and I really um also ask the city to maybe increase enforcement people who park illegally on Fridays uh in road zones and all that those people need to be cited and those people who block driveways or um park in [snorts] other people's properties you know they

need to be towed away and you know if you got uh you know it's going to happen a few times and then they'll get the they'll get the uh you know they'll get the hint. So thank you very much. I I do recommend I do would like for you to reopen, have the school reopened as soon as possible while we work through these challenges. Thank you very much and thank you all for coming. Thank you. Uh Shamine. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that was her.

Hello all. My name is Shamin Ghani and I'm here to advocate for LGD School. My husband is an oral and maxelo facial surgeon and I gave up my career as a physician assistant to focus on raising our four children. About four months ago, I moved from Texas to California because my twins were accepted into Berkeley and Zetuna College in the Bay Area. My oldest son graduated from Rice University, the number one school in Texas known as the Harvard of the South. I mentioned this to emphasize how dedicated I am to my children's education. I chose to live in Walnut Creek because of its welcoming, open-minded community, excellent school, and especially because of LG Duty School's reputation. This school truly meets the needs of children and has highly active parents involvement. What I find most remarkable is that the faculty really pays close attention to the students. Beside providing excellent academic instruction, the school emphasizes developing children with strong moral and ethnical values. The childrens are very well behaved exhibiting great mental stability thanks to the consistent present of parents and the school's leadership and philosophy. When issue arise with student, the school administration and parents work together quickly and closely to resolve them. Overall, I'm fully confident in LG school and believe it will be the valuable addition to our community. As we all know that a community's reputation reflects the strength of a school. I am certain LGD will be among the top school fostering student who excel academically, morally and ethnically in Walnut Creek. In light of this, I respectfully request that the planning committee grant LD school the permits necessary to continue its excellent work. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Nene.

Hi, thank you everybody for being here. Um, I'm here as a Walnut Creek resident and also as a member of the local Muslim community. Um, I just want everybody to take two seconds [laughter and gasps] because I don't have that much time to look around. Um, what we have gathered here is really something special. It's not something that you're going to get to find very often. So, honestly, thank you. I have four kids at home. They're going crazy. I probably need to leave soon. So, thank you. Um, uh, but I'm going to address first their um, concerns as a Walnut Creek resident. I get it. I live on a street with um, walnut acres. Go Jaguars. Um, for any Jaguars out there. So, I understand it's really frustrating. We have parking issues. I live next to St. Matthews. They're a wonderful church. Um, they have a lot of events, so I understand about the noise. I really do. And I um I completely relate. But you I think we have to think as residents um about what we want our city to be about. and Aljudi just has the potential to be a lot for for Walnut Creek and for the local community, Muslim community. Like there's nothing nothing compares to being taught um with your your own religious and cultural traditions with honor and um and the respect and the thought that they put into it and the type of citizen that that creates. So, I think we need to keep that in mind all the like there are definitely with anything with any project there are going to be cons but there are so many more pros. Um, and we're all problem solvers in here. Let's you know I had a trailer parked in front of my in my in front of my street for like two weeks during Thanksgiving. Like I'm going to give them one week and then after that I called the police and guess what? It was gone in a week. So let's use our resources. Call get those cars that need to be towed away, towed away and they're going to learn really quickly. So anyway, thank you so much. Have a good night.

And the last card I ahead is is Bison Abu Shara.

Hi, good evening. Um I used to live on Cleveland um in the middle between Pleasant Hill um middle school and Sequoia Elementary and Sequoia uh Middle School. If you're familiar with that street, it can get really bad because there we're in the middle, our street was in the middle of three different schools at the times of and my kids went to um Sequoia Elementary and middle when you guys if you wake up in the morning it's traffic very bad. So it's understandable. I lived there my kids went to the school. So we had a little bit of grace understanding that the parents are picking up their kids and dropping them off. It's only like a short time, half an hour somewhere, maybe 45 minutes. We can survive it. I feel like parking living around schools is tough for everybody. So, it is understandable, but at the same time, it's not that bad. Like, it's not a all day kind of thing. Um, the other thing, um, I lived in this community for a while, about five years, six years, and my kids used to go to these schools, but they got into an age where I really needed them to go to, um, a school that shared their values, and I have three little girls. Um, and that wasn't available before El Judy opened. Um, so we actually had to move. Uh, we moved to Sacramento about an hour and a half away from here. We drove with our four kids here um at this time to support Aljudi because our kids still have friends here. We come here a lot. Um we have a a lot of friends that because we used to go to the Friday nights at the mosque. Um and I feel like um like we can come over like we can solve the parking problem but not close the school because this has solved a problem for a lot of the people that live in this community. Um, and I hope that not everybody has to move away in order to find a solution. And in Sacramento, there's a lot of temples that for Indians that um, you

know, they're very, as mentioned before, they're very loud. They're full of people and full of life. And it's not all the time. It's a short period of time. Thank you so much. Was that the last speaker? Uh, yes, that's all the cards I have. Okay, beautiful. Um, I want to I want to thank everyone for speaking and so I'm going to close the public comment. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. You have Thank you. You would you like to come up and say a few words? You You have the opportunity. Do not feel pressured.

I'll make it short because I know we're all waiting for this to come to a conclusion. Um I just want to say uh the parking reduction that's going from uh 53 to 33 uh keep in mind the reason that's happening is for the safety of both the uh the facility there but for the entire community. Um it's happening because uh the with this reduction there will be uh we will be following the fire uh codes better um and there will be an easier traffic flow. So, even patrons of the mosque or of the school, uh, if there's no parking spots there, they can't park there. Um, and I'm all for people getting towed. Um, I wouldn't want that in my neighborhood either. Um, so that's going to, I think, in my opinion, encourage people to use the shared agreement. Um, it's an 8 minute walk and.3 miles from uh the the mosque to the temple. So, I mean, I parked tonight like three blocks down to get to here. So, I it's it's the Bay Area. It's in an urban area. Um it's there's going to be parking uh issues. But again, I want to extend um my full uh transparency, contact information for the school if we were to continue there that we are open to mitigating everything. We uh we understand and we are we are here for you. Thank you. before you sit down. Yes, I have a question for the applicant, but Okay, beautiful. Commissioner Club,

again, thanks to everybody for their uh uh great comments, but my question for you is uh obviously this hearing brought out concerns from the neighborhood and you initially described a process early on where you worked to get to know the neighborhood. Were you aware that that these concerns were developing? Did did you have a mechanism for learning uh about the concerns?

Um so we um in that in that flyer that we sent out, we went doortodoor with our students to every neighbor and um I wish I knew about the complaints. Um I never received a letters, emails, our contact information was there. All we received was a few thank you letters. Um, so again, you know, just in like from a professional standpoint, um, if we get a complaint as a nonprofit, um, we are here to, you know, meet with you to work it out. Uh, I was talking to uh someone else about something and they gave me an example about how they had a basketball court uh at their facility and um they were shooting hoops uh until 10:00 p.m. and the neighbor wasn't happy with that because they wanted to enjoy uh their evenings out in their backyard. Um so what they did is they went over to them and they said, "Hey, let's come to an agreement where at this you know what works for you? You want us out of here by 9:30 or nine o'clock? that that works fine. So I I I have confidence in my team and the school and the parents um that they will uh address anything and everything.

Yeah. So it sounds like you hadn't heard until this event. No. No. And I and I wish we did. Um there's a picture of the rocket that went into the yard. That was a science experiment. Uh like Miss Samir said that kids are you know the STEM level, but we moved that to the park. Uh, and so, uh, and we apologize for that. Uh, I wonder if you'd be open to thinking about the idea of maybe having one of your leadership team act as a leazison so that there's a name that kind of like an HOA call, you know, that they have a and our cell phone number, personal phone number was given um, on that flyer and I would be more than happy to to do that again. Great. Thank you for that. You're welcome.

Any [clears throat] other questions for the applicant? My question is um I remember you mentioning in your presentation that you had spoken to the pastor at the Contraosta Gospel Church. Yes. Could there be any parking arrangement there? Because they're right across the street.

Right. I think for um Friday prayer that might be, you know, something. But um for us and we can you know bring up I can refer to the traffic engineer who worked on the study. We we don't in the event of a spillover I I feel like the area down the street uh who's come who I've spoken to them I've worked with them um is what works for us now. Um I feel like you know the contra pastor uh Chang uh he opened to us sometimes going over there and playing basketball but um they didn't have a good experience a couple years back which is something you might have alluded to. Um and for us from our traffic study, I mean we don't have more than at any point uh 12 cars there because some of the teachers are the are the parents some of the admin uh you know have three kids at the school. So, I don't I don't foresee uh even with growth, I feel like we could still um be able to accommodate um and if there was ever a problem, like I said, we're here to mitigate anything anytime the traffic report. So, there was a there was a parking study and there's a technical memorandum. There's the TDM plan that came very very last minute, but that's not a traffic report. You're just talking about the

the parking demand study. Sorry. Okay. Because that did not that did not study level of service or trip counts. Correct. You pointed to someone who's your traffic. Yeah. So, we have a presentation for that. It uh my only question to you is it did not it's it wasn't a level of service. You weren't doing traffic counts during peak hours. It was just a parking study, right? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Question of process. It's my understanding that they're exempt from requiring parking.

That exactly. So, they are because of the law. But when she mentioned traffic report, I was like, "Oh, maybe I missed it." Sorry. Um this whole process is very new to me. So parking study traffic it's yeah that's my

I can offer a clarification on that. So the the AB2097 it does at the outset prevent the city from requiring parking if the project is in half mile of BART. Um in our case um the city's code requires the TDM um plan or the analysis um because there is a um finding that the city can make but it has to be made based on um substantial evidence or prop preponderance of the evidence that there is a a negative impact on that and so you know in this instance I mean based on what's provided in the staff report the conclusion is that there is no such findings things being made um if you know but the city the commission does have the ability to you know request more studies or more more to look further into those um issues that are in the in in the municipal code. So I just want to make that clear to you.

Any more questions for the applicant? Seeing none. Thank you. Um, I'm going to close the public comment. And so, in the same way, I ask that in the same way that we all sat here listening intently, I ask that we be respectful in this room and not interrupt and not stand up and um to allow us to discuss because we're all good neighbors here. Um, I'd like to bring it back to the commission for just comments, thoughts, discussion. I I guess I'll open. So I I did want to say thank you all um who are here for coming out to express your um perspectives on the Aljudi Academy. It has been very interesting to hear about the school and how it serves not just Walnut Creek but also families from much farther out and to hear about the benefits that this school in particular provides to the students, the children that go there. Um, and as someone who is who moved to Walnut Creek a few years ago, um, I recall being a new resident of the city, one of the things I like about Walnut Creek is how welcoming the neighbors are. Um, especially since I also live near this area. Um, I'm very familiar with the traffic on Parkside as people go to Buenav Vista. And I figured a lot of the traffic that I encountered was because of people going to Buenav Vista, parents dropping off their kids at Buenav Vista. Um, but I also have a lot of I also see a lot of kids on my way way to work who are walking to WCI W Creek Intermediate or they are walking across Main Street from the apartments on the other side of the bar tracks to Buenav Vista. So there is a lot of um activity uh from from parents taking their kids to school, parents who are um dropping their their kids off to school. So I I get it and I and I figured that out as I lived longer in the

neighborhood. Um, and for me it it became a part of my life. So, it's something that in some ways it can definitely be a drawback as I'm trying to get to work or coming home from work. I have to pass by all the cars that are parked by the sides of the streets. But at the same time, it does create the character that I like so much about this neighborhood. And um, I think it has made my life fulfilling and it sounds like it's made the my the lives of a lot of people here in this community fulfilling as well. Any other? Yes. I guess my one concern is that if you had come to the city at the conception of the school instead of founding the school and then being shut down and coming to us, it would be entirely different project and we would probably have solved these people's issues right there. That that's it.

Any Yes. Um, I just wanted to also say thank you so much to everyone who came out tonight um to share your perspectives and it's it's really is a beautiful thing to be able to see the strength of this community, the values of this community, people really coming together and valuing family and valuing education so much. Um, and as I think about this project, um, and there is some parking being taken away, but it seems like the purpose of that is not so much the expansion of the school because the school changes just happen within the interior of the building. Um, but it's more for the safety issues of the building overall, as far as I can tell. Um, and if the uh the activity of the children is being moved away from where it was in that photo that got passed around that was right against the fence. Instead, it will be in between the buildings. It sounds to me like that's an effort to improve on the noise situation as well. So, I appreciate the improvements of safety, the improvements of noise, um, and the efforts to, uh, to really meet all of the requirements of the city and the city permits, um, to work together to to make this all work. So, thank you. And again, I I want to thank everybody for their uh comments and uh their respect for each other in this process. I do notice there's some blurring of concerns relative to how the mosque operates and how the school operates. And I just want to confirm we're talking about the school today. Um and so other issues may need to be addressed in other

ways, but we're talking about the school today. So, thank you all. I second that. Thanks everybody for the school community neighbors for coming out. Uh it's great to see everyone kind of sit in the same room and work out our issues. Um I really appreciate uh and encourage continuing education in Walnut Creek of all stripes. I have concerns that what we're maybe about to do is moving with limited knowledge of what we're about to do. Uh and that is more to the point of the sound issues. What I'm looking at in the reports say that the staff believes that it won't be an issue. Um, the neighbors say otherwise with 45 students as it is now. I understand that the recess will be in the courtyard and not where it was before. Um, it's my understanding that the the buffer the the wall uh is not sufficient right now. And I guess what where I come down right now is I think if we were to commission a sound study, a traffic study, get it done quickly, have uh staff expedite with with the school to try to understand the basic facts of what we're talking about because everybody can say, well, you know, it's not that bad because we're staggering it. And I understand that the school has done a lot to later starts. I understand that the school is not the mosque. I understand that um the prayer service starts after a Friday drop off, but what I'd like to see is an actual study done on a Friday and I'd like to see what the noise issues would be with 90 children. I understand that we're

ramping up enrollment, but when we get to the point of 90 children at recess for 45 minutes, what does that sound like? And if it sounds higher than what's what the um what the city says are in the acceptable range, then how can we mitigate that, right? Um it's not saying that there there shouldn't be 90 kids there. It's saying that how loud are they going to be? What is the impact of the neighborhood? And how can we all work together to make sure that uh everyone's happy? Um my inclination would be to approve it with a continuence subject to a noise and a traffic study. Um we we would just continue it to a date certain. Sure. Right. Um

with that in mind with correct

um could that I see that as possibly being done in two different ways. So one would be to continue this on to a future meeting pending a noise study. But another way I'm wondering curious from staff if another way to do it would be to include in the resolution itself um a condition about um meeting the noise ordinance. And so if in the future they violate that then that would be written into the resolution and they would be violating their conditions. So that that is a a way to include that condition. Um you know sometimes the commission the commission might think about um the enforcability of such a condition. Um because sometimes um different by project issues may if you wanted to understand um the noise impacts of a project um typically that's done before you approve it u rather than conditioning it to be completed at a later time. Um if you approve the project and include a condition then it the issue becomes more of enforcability um and to you know if the study whether it's done or not um is it up to the city standards and um you know is it going to exceed the levels that are in the ordinance and so those issues at times before the project it can be easier to address and understand um as opposed to post project. So that's another consideration. I'm just thinking about if we don't have 90 kids yet, how will we study the sound of 90 kids? Are we going to like recruit some kids from somewhere else? It would be

come hang out in the school. It would be through modeling.

Yeah. There there's acoustical consultants that will do that. The traffic consultants will do that. I mean, that's how every environmental analysis is done for a general plan, right? It'll check the full max buildout of a city. Um what what I would like to say here um because there's so many parents is in this room I do want to tell you that almost everyone on this side of the room is a parent. So I just want to make sure that that is very understood and two of us have children at the age of what Aljudy serves. And so I do want to make sure that when you're listening to what we're discussing, we are discussing it with the heart of a parent and we hear you. And being that we are also Walnut Creek residents, I start off by saying that a big part of why we're here is that we want to be good neighbors. So, I just want to make sure that we we state that as we're discussing things, folks. Right. Um I for me personally, um I'm very very well aware of TDM. I from just ordinance perspectives and also utilization under SQA which we're not talking about SQA today. Um I personally need more time to look at it since I know that this was just submitted today. Um, so some of the if we're keeping if we're if we're keeping with this notion of being a good partner, being a good neighbor, which is um um something that Aljudy wants to do because they want to blend and mold into

the neighborhood um and the and that all of us here are supportive of education of all kinds. because we have the babies. Um what I personally would like to see um commensurate with what Commissioner Moran was saying is it'd be it would be good to understand um what that looks like for a future buildout of 90 students or whatever that is in order to curate the perfect amount of students specific to this 7,000 square foot site. If if I'm if I'm Oh, pardon me. That's that's the four that's all four buildings. All four buildings are 7,15 square feet. The other the other item that I would like to understand is also just um because I am not personally a a teacher. I don't know how that works. It'd be interesting to also understand operations of how how 90 students would flow and grow and build based on what the business plan is of Aljudy, which seems very impressive to me. Um, I think that's kind of what where you were going along, but but not requesting studies that would be um in violation with the assembly bill because that's not what we're asking. It's more just more information about um what can be studied to help support the proposed future operations and plan of this school so that it fits in and blends in beautifully with the neighborhood. Am I saying that correctly?

For me, it's it's sound and traffic. I understand sound and traffic parking is exempt. Um but you know people coming down Buen a Vista, how many buildings are going to be built next to BART and they're coming um to and fro or the people coming to 680. Um is the the the the Baptist church going to grow? Um Vista going to grow? What I would like to see is the hard data from sound and traffic analysis rather than um we think or we it's predicted. Yeah. Right.

Okay. So for the sound, I think what you're saying is relevant. The the business plan for the school um because it does matter. Are all 90 students outside at the same time or what's the flow of that is going to be relevant to noise as well? Exactly. What do the other commissioners thoughts, comments? Um, one thought I had was because we received this transportation demand management plan, would it be fine to take maybe I don't know how much we would get out of reading it, 15 minutes and then coming back to it.

That and and that's why and that's why what what I think we're leading towards is a continuence to a date certain. So that way we're providing certainty for a next Oh, uh oh, Chip is giving me the [laughter] because that kind of provides that here we go. There there there's a time we're all going to come back here together. It hasn't popped out of our minds. It's fresh.

What What are your thoughts? I I would offer if if if if there is if there is a continuence and the planning commission reaches consensus on certain items and one of them is or two of them are studies from an um it would be difficult to put a date certain in there because we're not sure how long these things are going to take or how long the acoustical engineer I mean if if we picked you know say March 12th I we I don't that we can't you write a staff report in one week sorry I just figured par I figured parametrics would go ahead and considering that they did the TDM the consultants would have to get under contract do the work produce report be reviewed

so then so then at that point then maybe it would be as soon as the applicant can complete this and we can all just it' be continued to be continued I wouldn't mind some language that says the phrase expedited you know for what it's worth um you know whether it be on the staff level or also the school level. I know that you can't set a date because then there's so many things out of our control. Yeah. But I'd like to give at least the everyone the feeling that uh we're not kicking the can necessarily down the road. We just need to know what we're talking about specifically. Yeah.

Question. It's I'm assuming the school is not in session active right now. It's closed. Uh yes, we are not at the Walnut Creek site. So how would these studies be done? My next question. Thank you for that. U when do you if our district tonight when would you hope to start classes again at the after after the break basically first in January in the new year. Yeah. If we approve tonight. If we approve tonight. Yes.

Yeah. And the other thing is um because this came as a collaborative effort between families with kids who had you know situations and issues that were dire. We have lost um a lot. Uh and as a nonprofit um you know obviously we don't make any profit off of this school. Um it is it's difficult to shut down and then come back. So I would I was telling Pastor Chang that I don't I mean we would probably restart with 15 students again. That's you know parents need stability. Um and as you know we we need your help. We need we we don't want to close it down you know long term. Um, and it's been so good in the short time because parents who are also working as teachers have poured their hearts and soul into this. And to tell these kids here that it's over for good. Um, I just think that's really heartbreaking. Um, and I really, you know, want to, uh, you know, appeal to the neighbors, if you can give us a chance to come back with these changes in the property, um, I guarantee you it's there's not going to be any complaints. In the two years that we were there, we didn't get any citations from the city. We didn't get any noise complaints coming from the city. We didn't get any letters or emails from the parents, from the neighbors telling us we have a problem. A lot of what's going on is from Friday prayer. In our business plan, like you said, um every event from parent teacher conferences, we we're happy to do them on Zoom. We don't congregate uh come there in the evenings. uh we we don't want to overuse the space and we completely understand that as working professionals uh in the Bay Area. We are not here to overburden anybody, but to say, you know, it's over for these kids, I mean, I would be in

tears. So, I'm asking you guys to reconsider. Um please.

Yeah. So, in terms of a traffic study, I I just don't really see the need for that. I I don't see a scenario where we would say there's a certain number of cars on Buenov Vista Avenue and therefore this school can't open. This is a very small number relative to like one of the public comments that was about the public school Buenav Vista Elementary and how much it increased by is much more than the entire size of this school. So if traffic is increased on that street, it it may not even be I don't think we can attribute it at all to this specific school in the first place. So I actually don't agree with the idea of a traffic study.

Um I'm sorry [clears throat] it's

no. So, so I appreciate the thoughts that of all of my fellow commissioners and um the the things that are that we are considering as we look at what to do next. Um I think myself as I've been listening to these comments, I've I've realized I needed to ground myself in what we're being asked to consider today, which is the conditional use permit and the findings that are in it. So the findings that we're being asked to make are um that if we take action on this conditional use permit, the use including any conditions imposed is consistent with the general plan um any applicable specific plan and this chapter. Um the second finding would be that the proposed use including any conditions imposed will not be detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare. And the third finding would be any fundings required by the land use regulations for the zoning district within which the property subject to the use is located. Um so as an accountant I do love numbers. I love making decisions based on numbers and I definitely um can feel uncomfortable when I don't have the hard data to work with. But I'm also cognizant of what the task is at hand. I think that because we are considering a conditional use find conditional use permit with um these three findings. Um while it is nice to consider gathering more data, I think it is possible to take action on this permit tonight.

So I would like to move to approve the conditional use permit application number Y23-083 uh for the LGD Academy. um at 2449 Buen a Vista Avenue and Walnut Creek as amended. Second.

Roll call. Commissioner Quac, yes. Commissioner Count, yes. Commissioner Moran, no. Commissioner Strongman, no. Commissioner Klopp, yes. Vice Chair Knighting, this is hard. Um, there wasn't any discussion. I I'm sorry. Can we go back to um I like your idea better about having a condition to the the approval. So,

and I think we could I'm sorry. Can Can you respond? Can we go back to go back to discussion? I I I I don't want to vote on it unless we have some condition in there about some thought process because I I I agree that I want to be able to allow the kids to go to school. As a parent, it's incredibly difficult to not know where your kid is going to end up on January 2nd. She didn't vote.

So for the motion currently, if you do not want to vote on the motion, you can you can vote no. And because right now we have six votes and it's two nos and three yeses. So if you do not vote do not vote yes, the motion will not pass and we'll go back to discussion. I just because the motion's already been made and seconded and we're voting and so we should complete this motion. If you do not want to vote yes on the motion, you can vote no. We we made the motion too fast is the thought process.

Can I just ask a clarifying question on what's included in in our existing resolution? Um I think to Commissioner Quark's point um we are stating that uh this needs to uh meet all existing ordinances right so the noise ordinance is one that is already is it already covered yeah it would so I don't know that we need to add it is what I'm saying if it's already covered as a condition and this is a conditional use permit. So therefore, if they don't if they no longer meet the condition, then we would come back.

There there is no condition in there to um require a noise study. I mean, not the noise study that to meet the noise ordinance for the neighborhood that they're in, which which was brought up during one of the uh presentations earlier. It's anticipated in in his presentation. It is included in there. It is not. that the noise study is not but the compliance with the noise ordinance is contemplated. It's implied. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Thank you. It's not it's not a specific there's no condition that says you must comply with noise ordinance but the ordinance applies regardless because it is law. So it's not called out but it's implied.

So you have it it's inferred. It's it's law so it apply and they have to comply with it. Okay. So if I vote no, it's a no. And if I vote right, because if what I heard it say is if you vote no, it's it's equal. So we go back to square one, right? Correct. Correct. Oh, but as long so as long as you have an ordinance that is incorporated essentially by reference because it it they have to oblige by it, right? So how do you enforce that?

It it it's difficult. that becomes a code enforcement. And there's also the the noise levels that the the noise um data that you saw, the rules came from the general plan is policy. It's not code. We do have a code um a noise ordinance that's for construction, right? That type of thing. Um that's that's the intent anyway. Uh live music, that kind of thing. [clears throat]

Got it. Okay. So, because it's 8:48 and and there's small children in here, the way I see it is that I don't anticipate um there being an issue because you have notice you have now mentioned that you're a good neighbor. Is that I think I think that's a fair statement. So, yes. [applause]

10 days. Um, before we take a quick break, as provided in part four of article five of the Walnut Creek zoning ordinance, any interested party may appeal the decision to the planning commission within 10 calendar days after the mailing of the decision by filing a written appeal and the applicable appeal fees with the city clerk's office. Continue. Um and now uh secretary like we would like to take a quick break. Five minutes.

Yes. Thank you. Heat. Heat.

Happy with Heat. Heat.

seems Thank you everyone. We're going to start resuming the meeting. Did we start? the the applicant has went ran to the restroom, but I

So, and now they're locked out. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Does staff have a presentation?

Yes, thank you. Um, good evening, commissioners. My name is Gerardo Victoria, assistant planner with the community development department. The project before you today is the Song Bed and Breakfast Innal use permit Y25066 located at 10002 Hianda Drive. Before I get started, as uh as well as my co-workers, I do have some housekeeping items as well um that have been outlined in yellow in the updated draft resolution and I also have a slide later on in the presentation to go over some other housekeeping items. So, some site context here. The uh property is located at uh 102 Hianda Drive off of Homestead Avenue that's also surrounded by other residential uses. It is a 1500 square foot single family residence. The general plan designation is single family medium and the zoning is a residential 10. A bed and breakfast use is permitted with approval of a conditional use permit. Um, this item was brought before staff when neighbors uh contacted code enforcement uh regarding an Airbnb operating without a permit. Uh, so code enforcement in August of 2025, opened a code case, um, notified the applica the applicant notified staff approximately 30 days later to file for the conditional use permit. the business plan as outlined in your agenda packet. The check-in times are 300 pm. The checkout times are um 11:00 a.m. It's a three bed, two and a half bath with a full kitchen, single family home. Uh one booking is allowed at a time, which means if one individual books one of the rooms, the other two

rooms cannot be booked. Um minimum two night stay, maximum seven days. Excuse me, my mouth is getting dry. Uh, check in with a custom code. The custom code expires at the end of your stay. Um, breakfast foods are provided. Uh, pets are allowed. Quiet hours are from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. There is a noise monitor that will be installed inside the residence. No special events are allowed on the property. Uh, the facility is entirely enclosed and soundproofed and airond conditioned. Uh there is one security camera that's been installed on the exterior of the home by the garage and if guests do not abide by these specific rules, guests will be evicted immediately. So as you can see here, this is the site plan and the floor plan. So this is Hosienda right here and this is a driveway that leads up to the single family residence. Uh the applicant is providing five parking stalls for the uh bed and breakfast in. Only three stalls are required. As you can see here on the floor plan, it leads stairs up into the front door. It's located here, which is located right here. You see this elevation drawing. And as you walk in, you walk into the living area. The full kitchen is located here with the three bedrooms to the west. And this is when you drive up into the driveway. This is what you see. The garage right here and then the um living space up here. So these are the standard conditional use permit findings uh for this project as outlined in the draft resolution. There are additional bed and breakfast permit findings that need to be made. So, the facility uh needs to be located

within 500 ft of an arterial or collector street. This project does meet that standard. There shall be no more than five guest rooms. The um applicant is providing three. The maximum length of stay for any guest shall be no more than one week. The maximum stay for this bed and breakfast is seven days. Uh the only meal shall be provided as breakfast. Other meals may be served at special events. Once again, no special events are allowed at this bed and breakfast and breakfast foods are provided. Signage shall only be shall only identify rather than advertised. No signage is proposed as part of this project. Uh no bed and breakfast in shall be located on a lot closer than 500 ft from any other lot containing a bed and breakfast in. The closest bed and breakfast in to this potential bed and breakfast in is located 2,000 ft south on Oakno Loop. So, they're meeting that standard. On-site required parking that is not located within the garage or on the paved driveway. The applicant is providing five stalls where three are required. There's no exterior changes proposed for this project. Uh the planning commissioner may allow special events at this facility. Again, no special events are allowed and finding J is not applicable to this project. So, staff anticipates using the existing facilities SQA recommendation section 15301 that allows for the operation, repair, maintenance, permitting of existing structures and that the current primary residence will operate as a be bed and breakfast rental. So these are the additional corrections to the existing draft resolution which on page two the sequel finding the deletion of the last sentence mentioning

the ADU. There's not an ADU on this property. So I apologize for leaving that in. Uh the project is a primary residence. It's the existing single family home that I went over on the site plan. Uh page six, condition seven, delete condition seven as it is not applicable. So staff recommends to move to adopt a secret determination and approve the conditional use permit based on the findings outlined in the draft resolution to allow a short-term rental at 10002 Hianda Drive. I'm available I'm available for questions. The applicant and the homeowner just Jennifer Song is also available and here and she has a presentation for you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for staff? Uh earlier tonight in the first hearing, we created 74 units to satisfy our arena requirement for the city. We now seem to be taking one unit down. Do we need to go add another house or condo somewhere else to maintain our housing stock? Because um the state is really coming down on us for not complying with the Rita numbers. The house is still a single family residence. It has a it has a conditional use permit that they can use it as a bed and breakfast, but it remains a single family residence.

So, that does count for arena, so we're not losing housing stock. Correct. It is a drop in the bucket.

Okay. Uh, one more question. Is the Oaknull um property u have a CPU uh C CU, excuse me. Yes, I do. So, there's only three approved conditional use permits for uh bed and breakfast ins Walnut Creek. I reached out to the police department. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I reached out to the police department and I spoke to Lieutenant Drew Olsen who advised at those three bed and breakfast in there has never been a call for service. Just to follow up on that, um for those three, uh does the um owner reside at the property? Yes,

they are hosted. Yes. Okay.

Thank you. I so just so I'm I'm sure I'm clear, there's there's three cups in all of Long Creek for a bed and breakfast designation, but as we understand a bed and breakfast designation is is really like an Airbnb. It's short-term rental, right? It's just has correct different nomenclature. That seems really low. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Um I think that's another conversation, but I was quite shocked. I just wanted to clarify that. Um, okay. Just so I can follow up on that, we do get applications for

bed and breakfast. That's what the zoning ordinance says, but we call them short-term rentals. We call them Airbnbs. They're the same thing. Um, we do get these applications, but a lot of them can't meet the finding of being within 500 ft of a collector or arterial street. That is a finding that must be made. And they are within 500 feet of a collector street, which is Walnut. Um, fallen Avenue or Boulevard. Boulevard. Yeah. Thank you. But our ordinance does not say that it has to be hosted. No.

In the definition because traditionally like the the original I think definition of bed and breakfast, you know, when I knew from way back when was like the the host lived there, right? Correct. So, that's what I tend to think of when I think of bed and breakfast versus Airbnb short-term rental. Those are to in my mind those are different things. But, okay. I I will note and the applicant will get into this too. She lives 15 minutes away. She will be available 24/7 uh for any um issues, concerns uh for the bed and breakfast in.

Any more questions? um within the city right now, are there any penalties for operating uh a short-term rental Airbnb without a permit?

So, right now, we use uh one of our consultants, HDL, to try to get these permitted, try to get them under control. We know they're out there. We don't have the staffing to go out to every single one. That's why we've hired a consultant to help us with that code enforcement when they first go out, whether it's uh making contact for an unpermitted Airbnb or a red tag for a building permit. They don't like to site right away. They like to give an applicant enough time to come in to file for permits. And that's what's we're being consistent with this one as well.

Okay. And so then in the situation where the the owner has already been noticed for these infractions and been told to cease and they continue, are there then penalties at that point? There could be. Yes. Uh for this instance, the applicant was notified in August and she filed for her permit application in September.

And when was the last time someone stayed there? um when the applicant filed there has been no stays and she can follow up with that al also that that doesn't mean there hasn't been visitors there's um you know the applicant is also having work done in the rear of the property that doesn't need permits she's replacing a patio that's that's at grade it doesn't trigger a permit so the visitor are the workers.

When I've went out to I've went out to the site twice and the second time that I went out there, there was a truck leaving full of workers. So, yes. Do you know if the applicant has told you that they've taken the listing down from Airbnb since the violation or the citation? She can answer that when she comes. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. the project glasses.

Thank you. Go ahead. Hi, commissioners. Thank you for your time. Thank you for taking my case today. Thank you, Gerorado, for preparing that presentation earlier. Thank you, neighbors, for staying so long and hearing me out. I think what we don't see is two things that I'm up here to speak about is why we're doing a short-term rental and how we plan to alleviate a lot of your concerns today. Um, and so I like to just kick it off since it's already a little late. [clears throat] If you can go to the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry.

Um, I wanted to begin with why we purchased this home. I currently live in Oakland. Um, I have a toddler at home. If I may share a quick story, we're driving home from Costco. I decided to park in front of my home, leave the car on, and just finish wheels on the bus, singing along. And then I hear a some person had a tool in their hand, and pushed the passenger window, looked inside the car for a purse, a backpack, didn't find anything. I see him step back and look at the back passenger window where my daughter was sitting. And that's when I just immediately turn in the car to drive and drove away. [clears throat] Sorry. Pregnancy hormones, I think. Um, so that's was my turning point of I think we need to find a new neighborhood to live in because as a parent, safety is my biggest concern. and I want to keep my child and our children safe. And we're still in Oakland. We're still in that same house. My husband couldn't be here today cuz he's traveling, but you know, I'm checking at night that my door is locked and that we're safe. So, when we did our home search, we landed on this beautiful neighborhood in Walnut Creek. It checked off all the boxes. It's highly rated school districts. We're only one and 1.6 six miles away from the elementary school. We love that it's walkable to downtown as well as a walking trail in our backyard. So, you get the suburbia feel, but also the closeness to a coffee shop and restaurants that we can walk to and don't have to fully rely on our car. And the kind of nice thing about this house was that it was a little bit older in a condition where we can plan out how we wanted the house to look and we can personalize the floor plan. So, we did a

gut remodel to the house. So, what did we do to improve the house? Um, Gerardo mentioned it a little bit before, but the house was sloping. So, when you walked in, it was not straight. You would walk sideways. Um, we put in a lot of money into the foundation work. We turned a one bedroomedroom, one and a half bath into threebedroom, 2 and a half bath for a growing family. We replaced the knob and tube wiring, which is a fire hazard. We took out the old plumbing. We're landscaped the front yard and then we're also doing the backyard right now as was mentioned. So, what we're trying to do is just really make it into our home and into a place that we can live in. But life happens. We wanted to move in. Um, and unfortunately my father-in-law's dementia worsened. Um, so they moved here. They did the reverse commute from Texas all the way to California. They lived in a small tiny little uh town into Oakland. Um so it's a little bit of a shock. Um but they both of their children live here and their only granddaughter lives here too. So as they're aging, we felt that it was necessary for them to come out here. And the additional plus was we found a rental for them one block away from where we live in Oakland. So, it is just providing us like the multigenerational support that we have and they find a lot of joy in having their granddaughter visit them throughout the week. Um, and if I may share just like another story about why I think a neighborhood and a community is so important is that he takes our dog 100b fluffy white great Pyrenees on a walk. and for whatever reason that day, maybe she led him down a unfamiliar street or whatnot, and she

saw a bird um and barked and pulled on the leash and it pulled him down and he fell on the street, broke his nose, had stitches all around his eye, and a neighbor called the ambulance to pick him up to take him to the nearest air to the nearest hospital. And then that neighbor took our dog back to our place. so that um the addict dog could be taken care of while he went into the hospital and we were close enough by that we could visit him and spend the hours needed to make sure that he was okay. So that's just like a long story short of we would have moved yesterday if we could and yes we could leave him in Oakland and we could be in Walnut Creek but then we would just have to go back and forth in between and we just felt like the proximity of being walking distance is just slightly different than being driving distance away. And so that's I know maybe not like I'm not a trying to be here as like a business person to tell you that I'm gonna invest all this money into this property and try to get a return. What we're really trying to do is in the meantime until we're ready to move in figure out a middle ground. Um and the reason why we decided to do a short-term rental versus a long-term rental is mainly because we can actually screen a lot of the guests that come through. They're only here for a short short amount of time. I'm there weekly, if not more, making sure the place is clean, making sure it's upkept. We found a plumbing issue. We always find issues, things, it's just the home ownership kind of thing. And it's also like if we did a long-term tenant and then after that one-year lease is up, they could sign a six-year lease and they would work it out if they had to finish it at just a six six months, they would work it out and go find someplace to rent. My husband and I rented around the Bay Area for a very long time. And when rent when the lease was up, the lease was up.

Thank you. Thank you for what you do. Michael, [clears throat]

thank you. I'm Michael Robertson. I live at 1031 West Holly, which is about 100 yards west of the house that we're talking about. I've lived there for 17 years. My wife's been there for 30. I had this fully prepared speech, even timed it out to give to you tonight, but I'm not going to use it because I was impressed for two hours listening to the Islam community talk about how they are part of this community, how they live here, they work here, they grew up here, they moved here to be part of this community and they wanted to work things out with the neighbors of Wayne Vista. None of that is true about Miss Song. She doesn't live here. She doesn't work here. This is a business acquisition for her. I looked on to LinkedIn and pulled what I believe to be her account because name matches exactly the person lives in Oakland. She went to San Jose State Business Administration accounting. She's a certified public accountant. More importantly, since 2018, she's been a real estate investor. She has short-term and long-term single family home investments in California, Indiana, and Texas. She's also a limited partnership in 150 unit building and 182 unit multif family home. Basically, anything she says about being confused, about permits, about posting, about doing things the right way, it's not accurate. It's not accurate. So, we certainly will not accept an unhosted building home in our area. We don't know who's coming in. She said herself it takes longer than 15 minutes. So, if somebody's throwing a party on a Friday night, she's not reachable. It won't happen. So, please turn down this permit. Thank you.

Thank you, Karesa Edson. Uh, good evening. Thank you so much for your time. I know it's getting late and I will try not to repeat anything that um my my friends and neighbors have said because they've said it very well. Um, my name is Cararissa Harris Adamson. I live at 1100 Homestead Avenue. I walk my dogs by um the 10002 Hienda twice a day. Um, for the last six months, I've seen a variety of people in the driveways, um, enjoying parties, sometimes the big construction trucks. I've asked multiple times if they are the owner because I was just confused as to who lived there. Um, and it wasn't until more recently that I realized what was going on that this was actually actually an Airbnb. Um, we are a really close-knit community, as you've heard. um the idea of having neighbors keys, um our kids having multiple houses that they could go to if anything happened. Um we all know each other. We all really like each other. We have block parties in the summertime every Wednesday. There's, you know, a get together. Um it's it's not in the spirit of our neighborhood to have an Airbnb. We do have long-term rentals in the neighborhood. There's even one-bedroom long-term rentals that she could move her parents into. there are other solutions that would not have a negative impact on so many people in the neighborhood. Um I I do not know what their general intention was, but I finally did meet her husband this past week when I was walking my dog and I again said, "Hey, do you live here? Do you own this place?" And he said, "No, we don't live here, but I am the owner." And he told me that the numbers just didn't work out because I said, "Why don't you just do a long-term rental? There are other long-term rentals here." And he said, "You know, the p it just doesn't pencil out. This is what we need

to do. we've had these um you know personal situation that is keeping them in Oakland and the numbers didn't work out to do a long-term rental and I just don't think that is a reasonable response to um inconvenience the rest of the neighborhood and really change the culture of our neighborhood. Thank you for your time.

Thank you Deborah. Hi, my name is Deborah Buren. I live at 1012 Hosianda Drive and I used to come to this chamber as a reporter for uh the Contraostasa Times and uh also representing Walnut Creek on the county library commission. Um, but here I'm today as as a longtime resident and I want to ask you guys, do you not remember what happened in Arinda with the Airbnb? Okay. Hello. You know, parties, absentee owner, out of control shootings, deaths from a party. We don't need that on our street. We're already having transgressions, robberies, things we never had before since this came on. And I don't know if you all are wellversed in tenant law, but I have a a tenant, a lawyer in the family who also owns properties in in San Francisco. And the tenant law states that if you your if it's to move in a family member or you and your family, you are indeed allowed to move out a tenant without penalty. Okay. It's it's it's in that and um my thing. So um anyway, so this these owners apparently have knowingly operated illegally, no host on site, already started operating an Airbnb, which is not a bed and breakfast where the cheerful lady in the apron is serving you muffins and coffee in the morning. This is a very different animal and you should not confuse the two, please. But um they've been has so they've had uh no permits, no transient occupancy tax. So I feel like granting

them a permit would reward that non-compliance. Okay. And uh that's not a precedent we should be setting and also not taking a house out of the need for housing. They could have someone on a month-to-month lease. Why not? You know, that would that would solve their problem. Thank you very much. Thank you. Last one. Sorry, Jane West.

Good evening. My name is Jane West. I live at 1078 West Holly Drive. I've lived there since 1984. And it's great. It's just great. Um, thanks for being here this late. I know what it's like working late. I was an RN for 40 years, so I remember those late shifts. It's it's rough. It's hard. Um I echo many of the sentiments that my neighbors have um stated, particularly Kimberly and Monica, you know, and Deborah about the issues with um parties. when someone has a party and it's out of control. Um, we all have busy lives because this has happened to me, you know, and so the party's out of control and you're always hoping, oh, in about 30 minutes, you know, it'll be quieter, but that doesn't happen. So, it goes on and on. Then an hour passes and finally you think, oh, I need to do something. But by that time, you lost an hour of, you know, um, your life and you're irritated and who do you call? you must have to call the police or something and then they have to call this lady and then it goes on and your whole evening. I've had Fourth of July events ruined because of parties that get out of control. Um, and then she indicates she screens the guest. Get real. I mean, screening. What kind of screening can you do if someone wants to rent for seven days? Um, and I echo also about the bed and breakfast. I think that's a misnomer. I I personally experienced this. My husband and I had a wonderful cabin up in Groveland in a gated community called Prine Mountain Lake. And people would call it heaven on earth. It was

wonderful. But then about 2014, Airbnb came in and suddenly you would walk around and it changed completely and we've sold the cabin after 17 years. Thank you. I'm going to close public comment, but I appreciate everyone um who spoke. So now I'm going to bring it back to the commission for any comments, questions, thoughts. Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting to do that today. Sorry, guys. It's late. Would you like to speak again? If you want to reopen public com

Sorry, I'm going to reopen public comment. Would you like to speak again? You have five minutes. I appreciate everybody's comments and um I am open to a 30-day stay if that's what it means. And I'm also um open to a sunset clause, too. So, I think we're just trying to make something work in the meantime. I respect whatever decision you all make and we will take the appropriate next steps to make sure that that happens. Thank you.

Thank you. Now, we're going to close public comment. And now I'm going to turn back to you. Any thoughts, comments, discussion, points? Commissioner Moran? I just have a quick question of um I guess order procedure c is can we make a condition permit with conditions that make sense right like uh granted uh but there's some extra you know rules around are you are you asking if the planning commission can correct can create new conditions of rule yes yes okay that's all for now

all right I have a couple of thoughts on this um conditional use permit. Um so yeah, I do I do after reading the um the staff report and the resolution and the additional materials do share the sentiment that this permit can be seen as rewarding the applicant. Um and so that's one perspective to look at it and it does uh it does make me pause um if if it makes sense to to say like oh after six months of uh operating the Airbnb um would this be seen as a reward? And so the other thought I had to that was, well, is it more important to bring someone into compliance with the applicable laws and regulations that govern what they're doing? And so I'm in my mind weighing um the benefits and the the downsides of saying, you know, should we approve this permit and risk seeing it as a reward or should we is it better to put the framework in place so that we can say have something to point to in the future that if there continue to be violations of the permit then we can say look um we approved or we took action on a conditional use permit. with these conditions, the applicant has decided to continue not to abide by those conditions and we do have the ability to revoke or modify that conditional use permit. So I think the benefit of establishing the legal framework or the legal um regulatory environment for the applicant would allow us to do a lot more um to manage the the environment and to um to address the neighbors concerns.

Can I ask a question of staff in response to that? Um, if we were to deny the permit, then uh I'm just trying to picture what that would mean. Um, would it mean that then this property could not be listed on Airbnb at all? It could not be a short-term rental, but it could still be, as was mentioned, um, a longer term uh, rental lease like a regular month-to-month or year-long lease. Correct. It could be a long-term rental. Um it would I mean it in in theory she could continue to be to you know be on Airbnb illegally. We don't have [clears throat] a whole lot of code enforcement ability to track down. There's there there's there's more than one in town. Um so we don't have the ability to track all these down and you know bring them here. I got to say that once once she was contacted um she was very quick in in bringing into compliance which is not typical.

Is that true though if it was still listed in the beginning of November that it was in compliance? [laughter] If if it if let's just say that if if every day that the um um that property was rented or used as a short-term rental or a bed and breakfast as our code calls it, that's that's our codes issue, right? That's not that's because it's behind the times.

Um would be an illegal activity, locally illegal activity. So you just said and I want to clarify uh that I understood it that we don't have an Airbnb set of rules and a an Airbnb no yeah an Airbnb and a bed and breakfast set of rules. They are one correct set of rules. Um, if if you want to do a short-term rental is what is if we if we rewrote our code to be up to date, it would be a short-term rental, not a bed and breakfast. That was a sign of the times. Okay.

Um, every the cups that we do have in place for bed and breakfast all operate as a as a VBO or an Airbnb or an unhosted property.

And and I do just want to say that I tend to be a person who believes uh the best of people. So I I'm making some assumptions that our petitioner may have worked in different cities, environments, etc. So I I'm not ascribing negative uh motivation to her, but I do think there's a lot of misperceptions and a lot of miscommunication clearly that's happened uh between the parties. So I appreciate everybody speaking up about that. Thank you. And just so if I can just offer a thought on that comment, um the commission the project before you is a land use project and so what you want to consider the findings that are in the um resolution and whether the land use issues of the project, you know, you can you're able to make those findings or not and that I think that's what I would offer to the commission about what you should consider. I want to go back to um did anyone have any discussion about the stay the duration and the reason and the only reason why I brought I brought that up is because that was something that the applicant had mentioned and I'm trying to in one of the findings if I'm not mistaken says seven. I believe it's our ordinance that says uh if you're operating as this bed and breakfast in you have a maximum of seven days. So,

okay. She would not if she wants to operate, if we approve a conditional use permit to operate as a bed and breakfast, then no one can stay longer than 7 days is my understanding. I believe the code is 31 days. Can I just clarify something real quick? So, according to our code, short-term rentals are classified as anything under 31 days. Under the bed and breakfast, what Chip correctly identified, it's it's out of date. A bed and breakfast cannot exceed seven days. I'm sorry. I stand corrected. Okay. So, and the [clears throat] bed here tonight is the request here tonight is for the bed and breakfast or seven days. That's the max. That's she's asking for. That's it.

For a 30 day or 31 day, whatever. What What was that category called? A short-term rental is 31 days or less. So would she need a different kind of permit for that or she can just do that? No, she can't. That's a land use classification or a definition. The requirement is seven days for this. Got it. [clears throat]

Okay. Sorry. So the land use classification that that is proposed before us today is bed and breakfast, not short-term rental. We we we don't have a short-term rental is more of a definition. Um the the land use classification is bed and breakfast. And we've we've processed all short-term all bed and breakfast as short-term rentals with a with a with a period of up to 31 days if they want it. And our city has only three and they're all hosted.

Correct. They're they're they're not hosted. Oh, my understanding was they were all hosted. Oh, they are. Camino Verde is the other one Shuy Avenue. One of them is hosted by retired police. Okay, that's right, Captain. Yep. Okay. Yep. So, my concern here is that if we approve this, it is a new it it's new for the city that it would be our first unhosted uh if the comparison is to what's been approved. Yes. But under the bed and breakfast in findings, that is not a finding. You don't have to host or unhost it. It's not listed as

correct. It's not listed as as a finding that's required under the bed and breakfast findings. It's not a finding that you have to host or or it can be either hosted or unhosted. Correct. It's not a requirement that they have somebody living there. question is it's when in spite of tonight when will the city kind of coordinate these rules and regulations and land use problems and

update get us back into the 21st century please. Well, the u the the time has caught up with our zoning code. Um, and there's several um sections portions of of the code that are um that that need to be addressed and that's one of them

to to answer the question. We'll we'll we will um u with the general plan update process which is um underway we will do a a complete overhaul of the code as well. grandfather.

I had a question about I. So it says if the planning commission determines that the proposed bed and breakfast is an appropriate location for special events to occur, additional conditions related to hours operation, number of guests, additional parking. So does the it says that the host intends to not allow special events. Does that have to does that have to be a finding that's included that no special does that have to be an additional condition that no special events are allowed? I'll go to Gerardo. My batting average isn't very good. [laughter]

So you're asking if the planning commission may allow special events. Correct. No, it's it's what I'm trying to figure out is do we have to determine whether special events are allowed as part of this? You may allow special events. So that's a determination you can make. But for this one in particular, she is not having any special events. Therefore, you don't have to consider it. Okay. Condition. Or do we need to make a condition that she has no special? It is in the conditions. It says special no special events are permitted on site under number six. Number six

of the planning conditions. I see number [snorts] six. Number three and then number six. So number three specifies hours. Yeah, there it is.

Yeah, go ahead. Um, so I see special events as capitalized and I am assuming there's a specific set of occurrences that would constitute special events. So for example, um, in the applicant's presentation, there was the mention of wedding or couples, wedding couples, or there guests that would stay at that rental. And I thought, oh, maybe that's one of the reasons why there's parties being thrown after the wedding. Maybe it's a reception going on. And so are special events things like that where is it quantified by number of people on the property at any time? Is it noise or if we say no special events? What does that look like? In other words, how is that enforced? How would a neighbor say, "Aha,

this is a special event. I should call someone. [laughter] So, um I guess based on the there is a special event um permit set of regulations and so um what I'm told is that it's based on the occupancy of the the place. And so in this case would be you know exceeding the occupants of the house. So if there's a large group of crowds, it's, you know, they're beyond the occupancy of the home, then that would count constitute as an occurrence or a party.

All right. Thank you. A party.

I I have a question. I I heard um there was discussion about commercial fleet type vehicles being parked and there was some sort of occurrence about damage to a tree or a um mailbox. Did that get reported to the because you had mentioned no nothing was ever reported to the police. So, when I spoke to uh Lieutenant Olsen, I I asked him specifically about the three other um short-term rentals that have been approved, no calls for service, and he had no issues or no comments for this address as well.

Okay. Are there any other um it's I I had a a thought. Um does the city of Walnut Creek have It's interesting because when I see commercial fleet type vehicles, it usually has a certain type of parking permit because they're larger vehicles. Um that that was just a thought I had but a bit of conjecture because I I wasn't there. Any other um comments, thoughts, motions.

So I think we need to kind of back up and and realize what we're we're being asked to do here and that is to see whether the it complies with the municipal code. Right. Staff believes that it does. Um, and I'll get to that in a second, but there's a larger issue at stake. We're not here to litigate that what the code says and what it shouldn't. And that's unfortunate. Um, I asked my original question if there was a way to condition the conditional use permit because it might be worth thinking in terms of um because it meets all of the criteria for the code and we are not lawyers and we're not sitting here writing the code again. Uh, we should approve it with certain conditions that we might feel are appropriate based on the specific circumstances. Um, and I don't have those uh exactly right and maybe we can discuss that, but maybe there's like a two strikes rule and it comes back for um review. Uh, maybe there's a cap on the number of stays per month, something like that. Um, where where I come down though is that it the facts are the facts and what the applicant has and what the staff says is that it meets all the criteria and we can't really argue that there's it's 500 feet and all that other stuff and my sympathies are with the neighbors because I understand um but our jobs right here are to make a decision based on what's in front of us, not what we believe is right. Nope. Sorry. Um there's a larger question here, right? And that is when the general plan gets redone, how do we view short-term rentals in Walnut Creek, um with a low housing supply, is it better, um served for investors rather than owner occupants? Um what does it do to the character of the neighborhood? And I get

all that. What I'm trying to say though is that we here today probably aren't willing to uh go against what the code says because it is what it is and our jobs are not to just rewrite the rules because we see we see fit. That said, we can put parameters around what I think uh we might want to do

in terms of uh issuing a permit and I'm open to discussion about that. So I will So right now what I'm looking at to help us with this discussion is that there's essentially 11 conditions that we're looking at because then 12 13 14 and it's supposed to say 15. It says 11 um is really more about indemnification city fees you know abide by Contraosta County Fire Protection District. So is it to your point about the timing? So if I'm not mistaken, the CUP is only one year. Did I read that correct? Condition number 10. So it's just a one-year permit.

No, the that is they have to like establish the use other. Oh, okay. Okay. So, so as of right now, there is no t uh timeline for the cup. It's just Yeah. Yeah, I believe. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct.

Okay. Um, but that also, so it's interesting, but it does say if a guest creates a nuisance or does not abide by the rules outlined in the business plan, and the business plan did talk about no parties, no unregistered guests or visitors, no smoking anywhere, quiet time, parking provided, no eating and drinking allowed in bedrooms. Um if those rules are not abided by then at that point condition number four comes into play the guest shall be evicted um immediately and then number nine but but it's interesting. So that just talks about eviction and then code number uh condition number nine says it will comply. So are there any ramifications of not abiding by the business plan there? There isn't right beyond beyond just eviction. So the the so if you read condition number four under condition 10 um or I shouldn't say that but the city does have I think that's refer to a different thing but the city has in the municipal code the process for modifying and revoking cups and that is when um you know city on it own valition can call up a cup that you know where the applicant is not complying with the conditions um and you've seen this in bars for example that's what you know it's an AUP but it's the same idea that you can the city can do that and so that's that's the you know ramification for not complying with the condition um and then the number four you know specifically calls out that the obligations of the applicant to not have the guests behave that way

can can I just back up for a second here first though because I feel like this is written for the bed and breakfast category of maximum stay of seven days, which is what the applicant applied for. But what I heard in the conversation here between the applicant and the neighbors was that she is okay with something that was a minimum of 30 days. So it sounds to me like there's more discussion to be had here between the neighbors about what exactly the the right land use is and that it might not be this.

So the so just to clarify that use is bed and breakfast. So if you if you're you're you're a short-term rental in that you're not you know it's not a longterm it's not being resided in by someone. You come in, you want to do a short-term rental, you are a bag and prefix. You have to comply with the rules of bed and prefix. So, there's not a separate short-term rental use where you could go beyond 7 days, for example. But 7-day is the requirement. So, you have if you want to come in and operate legally, that's the that's the limitation. So, the only way to do a short-term rental in the city of Walnut Creek currently is to do a maximum of seven days. You couldn't do like a 30-day That's right. short-term rental because that doesn't exist. Correct.

In our Okay. So, what So, the other options would be something that's not a short-term rental. Like, if if someone just has a month-to-month lease, what is that? Is that allowed in the city of Walnut Creek? Yes. Well, that's a residential that's a residential purpose, right? That's a that's somebody living there. So, if it's a it's a residential use, basically single family. Okay. So, if the applicant chose to do that, they would not need this. No. and they would not need a different type of permit to do that. That that's already something that they would be allowed. That's like you're renting your house out to someone, but your lease is by month, monthto month,

right? So, so if what actually works here for the applicant is a regular month-to-month rental lease, then we would not actually need to approve anything tonight. Is that correct? That's that's correct. Yeah. Question on procedure. At some point we have to say yes or no to this thing. Is that correct tonight or [laughter] to this? The the decision is yes. We have to make a decision. You can't you you continue it like continue it. You want more information that commission can do that. All right. Um one other question. Are you going to do a motion?

Oh, I'm sorry. Are you going to do a motion? Do you want a question or I can motion a question? Okay. You talked about sunset. The suggestion was a sunset. I mean, we that is a condition we could add on this that it's only for a year or two years or something like that. It could be for Yes, it could be a limited amount of time. Um, you know, you could have something like you want to come back after two years for review or sometimes we do this for commercial CUPs. Um, so that could be a an option. That's what I thought. number 10 was originally saying like it was for a year and then that I got confused.

Um s super quick condition number seven says the property shall remain the primary residence for the host for as long as the bed and breakfast remains operational but she that's being deleted per the slide. That's right. That's right. That's right. Any other comments about Okay. motion it. All right. I'm going to open the motion. So, I motion I move that the that we approve the conditional use permit application number Y25-066 um Zung Bed and Breakfast in Airbnb at 10002 Hosi Drive and that's as modified by

as modified. Yes, that's correct. Should we take it back for a little bit more discussion? No.

Okay. Is there more discussion? I move to continue this to a future. So, hold on. There's a motion and a second. No, there's no second. There was no second. But but the motion but I know the rules now. You can have discussion before the second motion, but nobody Well, there's no So, there's no second on the first motion. So, that motion dies. Okay. Is there a second motion that is being I I there's no I don't have a second motion, but I have something to say, but I'll I'll stop.

Okay. If there's no second motion, the commission can continue to deliver it. Um I would like to maybe discuss some parameters that we can put in for the conditional conditional use permit. Uh I suggest a two strikes rule. Um that once there are two um uh violations of the permit as written then it comes back for uh review by this body. Uh, and I'd also like to uh make uh it sunset after a year and we can review how things are going after that. Um, and those are my two thoughts.

Question on that. The strikes, who who determines the strike and where do they report them to? Well, I believe um if a complaint gets made to the municipal code uh enforce code enforcement or police department, um there has to be something in writing and there has to be some sort of investigation. I would I would imagine um I don't know exactly how it works in practice, but I think there's probably an easy way to do that where if a complaint gets made, someone sees did it did it incur, did it not incur um and it's goes from there.

So what happens if there's no strikes and then the the year is up? Does it do they have to come back to this body or does it or it does become ministerial with staff? Uh my thought would be that it would just be ministerial and it would just renew. So how would this help if the if the situation has changed over the course of this meeting to where if the applicant actually wants to do a month-to-month lease? Why why would we even move forward with this?

Well, you'd have to ask her. I mean, I think she'd have to stand up and invoke it like right now in chambers in order for this to for your idea to go through. Am I wrong? So that that's why my idea was to was to was a continuence to let this move on to a future meeting to give time for these discussions to take place.

So also to clarify the CU doesn't prevent them from doing that. They can seize the use. You don't, you know, you have a cup for alcohol, you don't have to serve it or an AUP. So it doesn't prevent them from moving in and not operating it as an Airbnb ever. And so they could rent that to someone, rent a room. That doesn't prevent that use from going on. So they could still she could still the residential use. It doesn't take that away.

So I guess I'm just wondering if there's a particular rush on this rather than continuing it to a future meeting. Um, I'd like to add I think that our condition of approval 11, which says if any of the conditions of the conditional use permit are not complied with, the planning commission after written notice to the applicant and a notice public hearing may in addition to revoking the permit um amend, alter, delete, or add conditions to this permit at a subsequent public hearing. notice for such action I think gives us the um the abil the tools that we need to um revisit the permit if if it turns out that whatever action we take tonight doesn't work. So I one of my concerns with doing a two strikes proposal is that it boxes us in a bit where the condition of approval 11 gives us more flexibility where if we say okay after one instance of non-compliance we want to notice the hearing to revisit it and notify the applicant. Um that gives us more flexibility and saying okay after two strikes then we're going to consider. So I think that the resolution is written is good. It gives us it covers all the bases. Um and it also gives us the opportunity to revisit this permit if we need to. All CUPs have that language if I'm not mistaken. So

that's correct.

That goes without saying. What I personally would like to avoid is there's there's an incredible amount of I mean we're free but there's an incredible amount of money taxpayer money spent for everyone to be here and it's 10:15 so I want to avoid coming back here. Um so I like the that's what I'm trying to figure out. I like the idea of fine if today is the night of everyone needs to be a good neighbor. Today is the good neighbor night, right? So if we do impose this two strikes, you know, which I truly hope that doesn't happen, we we all do, then would folks be in favor of revoking and then they would have to come back here if they want to reapply because we've had that before where people what's what's with the face?

Oh, I'm not trying to just trying to follow you. Oh, okay. Um what? [clears throat] So I'm just talking this out. If there's two complaints filed of bad behavior that doesn't comply with what's written here, and it's pretty simple. No parties, no unregistered, no smoking, quiet time, park in your designated parking areas. Then if that doesn't happen and there's something filed, then at that point, are you saying it's immediately revoked? and then or if nothing happens, the city the city the city has to give them an opportunity to respond because you're granting the permit to them. So that's why that condition says with notice and public hearing.

So then it can't be just automatically revoked. We have to come back here after the two, right? If you the city is revoking the permit or altering the provisions of the permit. that that's why I'm hesitant to give the permit because I I feel like it's actually harder to enforce once you've given them permission. I I don't think it's actually easier to enforce once we've given the conditional use permit because it requires people writing it in, right? And then to get back on our schedule as well, right? I know that's why.

Sorry, Commissioner Marian, did you I don't have my glasses. The reason I say the two strikes is because that that's a number, right? This is vague and like item 11 says, you know, if there's uh there's problems, then we have the right to to do whatever we want to do, right? And I understand it's 10:15. We as a body shouldn't probably be issuing Cups at all to short-term rentals. It should just be like, do the parameters fit? Yes, great. Here's your here's your permit. I think that's going to be something that we'll have to deal with down the road. But until then, we have to kind of play in the sandbox that we made. Um, and to that end, I I I take Commissioner Quark's point that it's already built in the language. What I'm trying to do is give a little piece to the to the neighbors that says she's got two chances and if if there is there's two parties, then um we're going to come back here and we're going to look at it again. It might be a very quick meeting.

Yeah. you know, it's it's that there's no one good way to do this.

I think and I think to your point, a lot of the CUP violations that we've seen, it was after months, months of constant, it wasn't a set two, right? It had been violation, violation, violation, call, report. So, to your point, there's it it it is vague the way it's written where it's who makes right. It's a bit discretionary about when the meeting is called. Um, so now that being said, what do folks think? I think I'm going to support uh Commissioner Moran's suggestions for conditions uh the two strikes and one year. So what does that look like then? Where do we where would we put that in and how would this work?

Yeah, we would add that. So I just wanted to be clear. So there's two complaints uh you know written complaints or complaints filed with the code enforcement or the police department within one year from from the issuance of the permit then the hearing is triggered or is it one one year regardless? Is the two two complaints that trigger is that the intent?

Two complaints and one year are two separate things. There's the two complaints will trigger a review by the planning commission. And um I think it would maybe behoove everybody to come back here a year later and let's see where we're how how is this working. And the reason why that might be beneficial is because we're we're going to have to rewrite the rule book on how short-term rentals get done in in the city. And this is unfortunately a really good litmus test for that. So I think that the two strikes if you will um which have to be legitimate um I I would add uh and then uh the year uh from now we year duration we revisit it how are things going or are we going to renew

the cup? So even if there's even if everything goes well this would expire in one year unless we renew it. So get a couple questions qu clarifying questions of staff. Are these verified complaints or violations? So that's that's the point I want to make. I I think there needs to be some sort of process from the city that says we we've received a complaint. Now we need to investigate. I know I can see the sigh chip. It's it's just very difficult to do. Code enforcement goes home at five o'clock. Sure. So this is very difficult to do. So it's a lot of times it becomes hearsay. So

right. Well, that's what I we need to be prepared for that. Right. That's that's what I'm trying to to guard against. Right. You could consider calls for service with PD or verified violations of the cup, which is actually is already somewhat covered under condition 11. So if we were to the language said two verified violations of the cup would that make more or consider modifying condition 11 that if that's yeah we would add to that and say so at first level we would we would have a condition that says within one year from issuance the commission shall like it shall be brought back to the commission for review

and then the second one um you know we can modify petition 11 um to say that if um you know if two there two occasions of the conditions not being complied with but that actually now that I'm looking at it it actually narrows it a bit because it because now you know 11 it's it's even if one time they're not complying with the condition then you can bring it back. Yeah,

I understand that. But I think there's a difference between reality and what's on the paper, right? How many times do people have to complain before, to your point, commissioner, um that people get complaints and complaints and complaints and nothing gets done. If we say two and and and I understand the assistant city attorney what you're trying what you're saying is that it does narrow it but it the reality of it is that they can complain all day long and there's code enforcement has is very strapped for time and nothing will probably get done and these neighbors are going to be more upset and everyone and everyone's going to be um it's not going to get any better. We could um so so if I could just finish my thought um if we could add into this condition that including two substantiated complaints to the um code enforcement or police department. So that that would be a that would be a trigger that you can identify in the condition in addition to what's broadly stated.

What about within number 11? I think maybe the where the leeway is is that it currently says if any of the conditions are not complied with the planning commission may do those things may take action. But if we change the word may to will then or shall then

it's a little bit stronger and it would only be one not there wouldn't be a number of two. The the other comment I have the other comment I have about that is if we talk about two complaints, is that two complaints that occur on the same like if we're having a party and we're violating two conditions at the same time, does that count as two separate complaints in one instance or

That's a that's an excellent point and I actually I appreciate Commissioner Count's um turn of phrase that that does that sits better the the shall rather than may, right? Um we can so on that question we can revise it to say something like shall have the authority to revoke it because it does you do have to give a public hearing. So you can't say you shall revoke it or alter it. Um but if it's changed to say that they shall have the authority to do that then that you know brings it before the commission. Um, and if Commissioner Quakey wanted to clarify, you know, we could say we can add some qualifiers to what a substantial, you know, substantiate complaints on on two occasions on two different dates. Or if it's just two substantiated complaints, you know, it doesn't matter when when it happens. If there's 50 violations, then, you know, two gets them over the threshold.

Okay. So, it sounds like it's up to our discretion. Um, if we come if it comes before us to review, if we consider it to or how we interpret that. Okay. Yeah, it does give you that discretion. I think we were saying we don't need the number two in there. Correct. If we if we're using the shell language. Okay, that's that's clear for us.

Um not to throw a wrench in this um but um can we throw in some language that says do complaints committed by guests? What happens if there's a time frame when it's not being rented out? Code enforcement gets complaints about weeds, but that's against the property owner. What if the property owner chooses to spend a weekend at that location and the property owner decides to throw a party? That's fine because it's the property owner. So that's what I mean. So committed by guest, I think that would be my suggestion. So that's where again the number two is is hard to quantify. But under number 11, if it just says if any of the conditions of the conditional use permit are not compliant with and we change the word may to shall uh that we that we will have a hearing, it will come back to us. So then it's just about this use permit. So it wouldn't we wouldn't need to define whether it was guests or

correct at that time it would be a single family residence. Exactly. Right. Thank you. Okay. So um the two conditions we will So we don't need the number two because that

right we don't need the number two. We will add a condition 16 to reflect that it um the planning commission will hold a review hearing within one year from issuance. And we would um modify condition 11 to change the phrase may in addition to to say shall have the authority um to revoke the permit, amend, alter, delete. And then as written, does that reflect um what you're looking for?

It does to me. Yeah, that satisfies my conditional. Okay. If that does, I just like to ask the applicant to um come up here if you agree with the conditions and if you can say that on the record. Yes. I [clears throat] I agree to the changes that are being made to the conditional use permit that's being discussed currently. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion. Sure.

Uh that we approve the um sorry I don't have it in front of me. Um we uh we approve the conditional use permit application uh to allow the establishment of bed and breakfast in at 10:02 Hi Drive subject to the following conditions uh as amended uh in the language uh that we've changed in uh item 11 and also adding uh item 16 having to do with the uh year sunset. Yes. As read into the record right now. Second. Commissioner Moran. Yes. Commissioner Quac.

Yes. Commissioner Count. Yes. Commissioner Klopp. Yes. Vice Chair Knighting. Yes. Motion carries. No. Commissioner Strongman. Sorry. No. [laughter] No. Okay. How did that happen? Motion carries. Do you have different?

Okay. Um, what I would like to say is as provided in part four of article 5 of Walnut Creek zoning ordinance, any interested party may appeal a decision of the planning commission within 10 calendar days after the mailing decision by filing a written appeal and the applicable appeal fees with the city clerk's office. Thank you. Okay, I lost the agenda. Um, thank you everyone for being here now. Um,

guys, we're still having a meeting. Commission considerations. I have some I have a staff report. Oh, I have a couple staff reports. Yes. Okay.

This is the last meeting of 2025. Thank you, commissioners, for uh the year. Um the next scheduled meeting is January 8th, 2026 and that meeting has been cancelled. So the next time we will be together is on the January 22nd and we have a few items on that agenda. Um also parking passes. I have the 2026 parking passes here and I'll I'll pass those out as soon as we adjourn. Um the condition is you return the old ones next time. That is all. Okay, perfect. Well, I think with that we adjourn. Thank you so much.

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