Planning Commission
Planning Commission
Tue, April 25, 2023
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summaryAI-generated
Planning Commission — April 25, 2023
This was a regular Planning Commission meeting with six of seven commissioners present (Commissioner Hooper was absent). Commissioner McCarling recused himself from the public hearing item due to proximity to the subject property. The agenda was reordered at the outset to allow McCarling to participate in the GPU study session before stepping aside.
Approval of Minutes
Minutes from the February 14 and March 14, 2023 meetings were approved without discussion or amendment.
Public Hearing: Vacation of a Portion of Unused Public Alley Easement (Fair/Sheldon Streets)
What it is: Six property owners on Fair and Sheldon Streets — at addresses 407 and 413–417 Fair St. and 408, 416, and 418 Sheldon St. — requested that the city vacate its easement over a dead-end portion of an unused alley behind their properties. The easement gives the city a right-of-way over land the property owners already hold in fee title. Vacating it would free the owners to use that strip of their own land, including for ADU setback purposes (the primary motivation for the lead applicant, Nicholas Luciani of 417 Fair St.).
Background: This is a partial repeat of a 1979 action in which six other neighboring properties had the same easement vacated. The remaining alley segment is a dead end, unpaved (gravel), unmaintained, has no city utilities, is not used by emergency services, and poses ADA and drainage liabilities. City Engineer Jeff Stutzman presented the item and noted that an informal appraisal by Jeff Hornsby (a specialist in such easement valuations) found the city's interest in the easement is worth less than $1,000 per parcel — less than the cost of a formal appraisal — because the easement has no functional utility value to the city.
Public comment: Three speakers appeared.
Nicholas Luciani (applicant) described five years of effort to navigate the process and noted he personally bore all costs, including surveyor fees. He argued the city would benefit fiscally from the resulting ADU through permit fees, property taxes, and school fees.
Steve LaFrankie (project surveyor) clarified that alley easements are routinely vacated in portions — not necessarily all at once — and that this is consistent with practice in other jurisdictions.
Dan Cree (421 Fair St., adjacent property owner not included in this vacation) said the owners not participating simply prefer to keep the alley open at their end, and that the six-parcel grouping makes logical geographic sense as a stopping point, just as the 1979 action did.
Commission discussion: There was significant debate over whether to proceed now or require that the remaining un-vacated parcels be included first.
Commissioner Cader Thompson expressed frustration with the "piecemeal" approach, saying the city has been doing this since 1979 and should not repeat that pattern. She asked that staff proactively reach out to the remaining property owners before the item goes to City Council, and stated she would not support the action until all parcels are included.
Other commissioners — including the Chair, Rakersan, Weisman, and Potter — were more sympathetic to the applicant's situation. They noted the city cannot compel the other owners to participate, that the applicant had already paid all costs, that the easement offers no value to the city and is a maintenance liability, and that housing policy (ADU production) supports moving forward. Potter suggested approving tonight's request while directing staff to pursue the remaining parcels separately for a more complete resolution over time.
Staff clarified that the commission could theoretically strip the resolution of its Council recommendation and continue the broader effort, but that would require a return to the Planning Commission for the remaining parcels anyway, and would impose additional costs on the current applicants.
Vote: Motion by Commissioner Potter, seconded by Commissioner Weisman, to approve the resolution making a General Plan conformity determination and recommending Council adopt the summary vacation. Result: 4–1–1–1 (Weisman, Rakersan, Bauer, and Potter in favor; Cader Thompson opposed; McCarling recused; Hooper absent).
This recommendation now goes to City Council for final action granting the vacation.
Study Session: General Plan Update (GPU) — Past, Present, and Future
Commissioner McCarling returned for this non-voting study session. Planning staff member Christina Paul gave a detailed presentation on the General Plan Update's structure, progress, and the Planning Commission's role in the process.
Key points from the presentation:
The current General Plan dates to the mid-2000s and was developed during the Great Recession in a pre-SMART, pre-climate-crisis context.
The update must include eight state-required elements. The Housing Element was adopted in March 2023 and is the only element subject to state certification; all others are subject to internal consistency requirements.
Staff is currently working through administrative-draft policy frameworks on roughly 12 topic areas. The Land Use Alternatives phase — which will come to the Planning Commission for input — is the next major milestone.
Two significant work streams are running in parallel: a greenhouse gas reduction strategy (expected for public release in spring) and updated flood/sea-level rise modeling being conducted with consultant West Consulting and local expert Roger Leventhal. The flood modeling is using cutting-edge methodology to account for water flowing both down and up the Petaluma River simultaneously under climate change scenarios. Results will inform the land use map and adaptation policies, but the timeline remains fluid pending peer review.
The Planning Commission's role is to provide high-level review and recommendations to City Council after content has been developed by the 24-member General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) and community input processes. Commissioners are encouraged to submit written comments on draft materials and to participate in GPAC community meetings as community members.
Commissioner discussion highlights:
Commissioner Rakersan asked about the relationship between the GPU and updates to the zoning code (IZO/Municode). Staff confirmed that targeted updates can and do proceed in parallel, a comprehensive IZO overhaul is planned to follow the GPU, and staff maintains a running "red-line" document tracking needed changes.
Commissioner McCarling raised concerns that issues of sense of place, urban design, and key public corridors (Petaluma Boulevard, D Street, the Petaluma River) are not visibly addressed in GPU materials. Staff confirmed these topics are planned for the Land Use and Transportation chapters, and referenced the 2022 Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) process on arterials as informing that work.
Commissioner McCarling also raised concerns through the Tree Advisory Committee report that major street improvement projects (D Street, Maria/McDowell) are proceeding without coordinated Urban Design or tree committee input. This was flagged as an organizational coordination gap, not resolved at this meeting.
Commissioner Cader Thompson noted that some GPAC meetings will be held in person (the flood mapping session is planned at the Rec Center in May) to allow better engagement with large-format maps.
Vice Mayor Cader Thompson reported from a recent League of California Cities forum that the state fairgrounds property is being actively considered as a potential state-owned housing site under Senator Wiener's direction.
Planning Manager's Report and Commission Business
Planning Manager Andrew Triple reported that upcoming hearing items include Oyster Cove mixed-use (May 9) and the Floodway Market conditional use permit appeal (May 23). Objective design standards are targeted for a Planning Commission workshop in July or August. A package of five ordinance amendments — covering child day care, visitability, ADUs, state density bonus, and SB 9 implementation — is being drafted and is likely to come before the commission in late summer.
The commission unanimously agreed to move its regular meeting start time from 7:00 PM to 6:00 PM, consistent with most other planning commissions in the region. Staff will provide prominent public notice of the change. Commissioners also asked staff to pursue hybrid (Zoom + in-person) meeting capability for the Planning Commission, following the model now working for City Council.
Commissioner Rakersan noted that the applicant on the previously approved Labcon project had agreed to work informally with the Casa Grande Anglers Association and other local stakeholder groups to address environmental concerns — a collaborative model he suggested could be replicated in future cases.
Key Takeaways
Alley easement vacation approved (4–1): Six Fair/Sheldon Street property owners won Planning Commission support to have the city vacate a dead-end, unmaintained alley easement over their land; the item advances to City Council. One commissioner dissented, wanting all remaining alley parcels addressed at once rather than piecemeal.
General Plan Update is at a pivotal stage: The Land Use Alternatives phase — the next major decision point — is coming soon. Updated flood and sea-level rise modeling (still in progress) will directly shape where and how development is directed in the new plan.
Planning Commission meetings will now start at 6:00 PM, moving from 7:00 PM, effective as soon as staff can implement the change.
Hybrid meeting format (Zoom access for the public) is being pursued for Planning Commission meetings following its successful rollout for City Council.
Urban design and street corridor coordination emerged as a recurring concern — commissioners and staff acknowledged a gap between individual improvement projects and the broader sense-of-place vision the GPU aims to establish.
AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.
What happened at this meeting
Study Session – GPU – Presentation of past, current, and future General Plan Update (GPU) activities. Review key Planning Commission input opportunities for the remainder of 2023 and beyond.
# Study Session Summary: General Plan Update
Staff presented a comprehensive overview of Petaluma's General Plan Update (GPU) process, explaining that the city is updating its 2025 General Plan to address climate change, housing needs, and community priorities such as carbon neutrality and river focus, while ensuring better implementation through updated zoning codes and functional plans. The GPU covers California's eight required state elements (land use, housing, circulation, safety, environmental justice, conservation, open space, and noise) and involves a multi-phase workflow including existing conditions analysis, vision development (completed last year), policy concept development, land use alternatives analysis, and draft plan development, with progress tracked at plannedpetaluma.org. The General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), a 24-member community body, leads the GPU steering process through working groups conducting outreach and policy recommendations, while the Planning Commission provides high-level feedback and recommendations to city council on land use planning and policy frameworks. Staff clarified that targeted zoning code updates (such as ADU standards) can proceed in parallel with GPU development, with a comprehensive zoning code update planned after GPU completion, and that the Housing Element is the only element requiring state approval, allowing other elements to advance independently. Key concurrent work includes housing element implementation, greenhouse gas reduction strategy (spring 2024), flood and sea level rise modeling with consultant West Consulting and peer review from Marin County partners, climate adaptation planning, and river corridor enhancement, with staff welcoming commissioner feedback to share with appropriate committees.
Staff presented a comprehensive overview of Petaluma's General Plan Update (GPU) process, explaining that the city is updating its 2025 General Plan to address climate change, housing needs, and community priorities such as carbon neutrality and river focus, while ensuring better implementation through updated zoning codes and functional plans. The GPU covers California's eight required state elements (land use, housing, circulation, safety, environmental justice, conservation, open space, and noise) and involves a multi-phase workflow including existing conditions analysis, vision development (completed last year), policy concept development, land use alternatives analysis, and draft plan development, with progress tracked at plannedpetaluma.org. The General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), a 24-member community body, leads the GPU steering process through working groups conducting outreach and policy recommendations, while the Planning Commission provides high-level feedback and recommendations to city council on land use planning and policy frameworks. Staff clarified that targeted zoning code updates (such as ADU standards) can proceed in parallel with GPU development, with a comprehensive zoning code update planned after GPU completion, and that the Housing Element is the only element requiring state approval, allowing other elements to advance independently. Key concurrent work includes housing element implementation, greenhouse gas reduction strategy (spring 2024), flood and sea level rise modeling with consultant West Consulting and peer review from Marin County partners, climate adaptation planning, and river corridor enhancement, with staff welcoming commissioner feedback to share with appropriate committees.
Approval of Minutes for the meetings of February 14, 2023 and March 14, 2023
The Planning Commission approved minutes from the February 14, 2023 and March 14, 2023 meetings with no edits or additions requested by commissioners. The agenda was reordered to accommodate Commissioner McCarrolly's recusal on a subsequent item. The Commission then moved to Item 2, a public hearing on a Resolution Making a General Plan Conformity Determination regarding vacation of a portion of an unused public alley easement located between Fair and Sheldon Streets, with City Engineer Jeff Stutzman presenting. Commissioner McCarrolly recused himself, noting he lives within 300 feet of the property in question, as required by the city attorney.
Resolution Making a General Plan Conformity Determination and Additional Findings Pursuant to Streets and Highways Code Sections 8300 et. seq. with Respect to the Vacation of a Portion of an Unused Public Alley Easement Located Between Fair and Sheldon Streets, north of English Street, on Assessor Parcel Numbers APN 008023011 (407 Fair St.), 008023019 (408 Sheldon St.), 008023012 (413 Fair St.),008023013 (417 Fair St.), 008023005 (416 Sheldon St.), and 008023006 (418 Sheldon St.), and Recommending that the City Council Adopt a Resolution Granting a Summary Vacation of a Portion of the Unused Public Alley Easement
# Summary
Staff presented a resolution to vacate a city easement on an unused, unimproved alley segment between Fair and Sheldon streets in Petaluma that poses maintenance liabilities due to lack of ADA compliance and drainage issues, with no utility value to the city. Commissioner Rockerson sought clarification that the $3,000 valuation reflected the city's perceived value rather than fair market value, and Commissioner Westman confirmed that upon vacation, all city maintenance responsibilities and liabilities would transfer to the adjacent property owner. Council Member Cader Thompson raised concerns about the piecemeal approach dating to 1979 and recommended including all affected adjacent parcels (14, 15, 16, 17) rather than just the six participating property owners to enable more efficient housing development consistent with the city's housing element. While Commissioners Atkinson and Wissman supported the proposal as relieving city liabilities with no downside, the motion ultimately passed with four yes votes, one no vote from Cader Thompson, one recusal from McCurling, and one absent member.
Staff presented a resolution to vacate a city easement on an unused, unimproved alley segment between Fair and Sheldon streets in Petaluma that poses maintenance liabilities due to lack of ADA compliance and drainage issues, with no utility value to the city. Commissioner Rockerson sought clarification that the $3,000 valuation reflected the city's perceived value rather than fair market value, and Commissioner Westman confirmed that upon vacation, all city maintenance responsibilities and liabilities would transfer to the adjacent property owner. Council Member Cader Thompson raised concerns about the piecemeal approach dating to 1979 and recommended including all affected adjacent parcels (14, 15, 16, 17) rather than just the six participating property owners to enable more efficient housing development consistent with the city's housing element. While Commissioners Atkinson and Wissman supported the proposal as relieving city liabilities with no downside, the motion ultimately passed with four yes votes, one no vote from Cader Thompson, one recusal from McCurling, and one absent member.
Agenda items (3)
General Business
1General BusinessStudy Session – GPU – Presentation of past, current, and future General Plan Update (GPU) activities. Review key Planning Commission input opportunities for the remainder of 2023 and beyond.
What happened
# Study Session Summary: General Plan UpdateStaff presented a comprehensive overview of Petaluma's General Plan Update (GPU) process, explaining that the city is updating its 2025 General Plan to address climate change, housing needs, and community priorities such as carbon neutrality and river focus, while ensuring better implementation through updated zoning codes and functional plans. The GPU covers California's eight required state elements (land use, housing, circulation, safety, environmental justice, conservation, open space, and noise) and involves a multi-phase workflow including existing conditions analysis, vision development (completed last year), policy concept development, land use alternatives analysis, and draft plan development, with progress tracked at plannedpetaluma.org. The General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), a 24-member community body, leads the GPU steering process through working groups conducting outreach and policy recommendations, while the Planning Commission provides high-level feedback and recommendations to city council on land use planning and policy frameworks. Staff clarified that targeted zoning code updates (such as ADU standards) can proceed in parallel with GPU development, with a comprehensive zoning code update planned after GPU completion, and that the Housing Element is the only element requiring state approval, allowing other elements to advance independently. Key concurrent work includes housing element implementation, greenhouse gas reduction strategy (spring 2024), flood and sea level rise modeling with consultant West Consulting and peer review from Marin County partners, climate adaptation planning, and river corridor enhancement, with staff welcoming commissioner feedback to share with appropriate committees.
Procedural (1)
2ProceduralApproval of Minutes for the meetings of February 14, 2023 and March 14, 2023
What happened
The Planning Commission approved minutes from the February 14, 2023 and March 14, 2023 meetings with no edits or additions requested by commissioners. The agenda was reordered to accommodate Commissioner McCarrolly's recusal on a subsequent item. The Commission then moved to Item 2, a public hearing on a Resolution Making a General Plan Conformity Determination regarding vacation of a portion of an unused public alley easement located between Fair and Sheldon Streets, with City Engineer Jeff Stutzman presenting. Commissioner McCarrolly recused himself, noting he lives within 300 feet of the property in question, as required by the city attorney.Public Hearing
3Public HearingResolution Making a General Plan Conformity Determination and Additional Findings Pursuant to Streets and Highways Code Sections 8300 et. seq. with Respect to the Vacation of a Portion of an Unused Public Alley Easement Located Between Fair and Sheldon Streets, north of English Street, on Assessor Parcel Numbers APN 008023011 (407 Fair St.), 008023019 (408 Sheldon St.), 008023012 (413 Fair St.),008023013 (417 Fair St.), 008023005 (416 Sheldon St.), and 008023006 (418 Sheldon St.), and Recommending that the City Council Adopt a Resolution Granting a Summary Vacation of a Portion of the Unused Public Alley Easement
What happened
# SummaryStaff presented a resolution to vacate a city easement on an unused, unimproved alley segment between Fair and Sheldon streets in Petaluma that poses maintenance liabilities due to lack of ADA compliance and drainage issues, with no utility value to the city. Commissioner Rockerson sought clarification that the $3,000 valuation reflected the city's perceived value rather than fair market value, and Commissioner Westman confirmed that upon vacation, all city maintenance responsibilities and liabilities would transfer to the adjacent property owner. Council Member Cader Thompson raised concerns about the piecemeal approach dating to 1979 and recommended including all affected adjacent parcels (14, 15, 16, 17) rather than just the six participating property owners to enable more efficient housing development consistent with the city's housing element. While Commissioners Atkinson and Wissman supported the proposal as relieving city liabilities with no downside, the motion ultimately passed with four yes votes, one no vote from Cader Thompson, one recusal from McCurling, and one absent member.
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Reorder agenda
aye 6 · absent 1
Baueraye
Cader Thompsonaye
Hooperabsent
McCarlingaye
Potteraye
Rakisonaye
Wismanaye
Approve meeting minutes for February 14, 2023 and March 14, 2023
aye 1
voice voteaye
Adopt resolution making General Plan Conformity determination and recommending summary vacation of unused public alley easement between Fair and Sheldon Streets
aye 4 · nay 1 · absent 1 · recused 1
Baueraye
Cader Thompsonnay
Hooperabsent
McCarlingrecused
Potteraye
Rakisonaye
Wismanaye
Verbatim transcript available
65 transcript segments indexed
welcome everybody miss L Ellis will you please do a roll call kator Thompson here wisman here racism here Bauer here my curling here Potter here Hooper absent we have um six commissioners attending thank you very much Miss Ellis we'll now go on to General Public comment during general public comment the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the Planning Commission subject matter jurisdiction that are not listed on the current agenda public comments are limited to three minutes per person depending on the number of persons wishing to address the Planning Commission time will be allocated in equal shares totaling no more than 15 minutes if anybody has any wants to make any public comments please make sure they give their speaker cards to the clerk Miss Elsa are there any speaker cards tonight there are no speaker cards no speaker cars if if there is anybody that wishes to speak now or forever hold your peace or until the next Planning Commission I don't see any so we'll go ahead and close public comment um we will now move on to um something slightly unique for our meetings and that is I would like to request that we reorder the agenda tonight because we have um commissioner mccarroly needs to recuse himself so we would like to reorder things a little bit so that he can speak before he has to recuse himself so I am proposing that we reorder the agenda so that the approval of the minutes and public hearings and matters for consideration
will be acted upon before presentations so that the public hearing recusal can be facilitated if I can please get um somebody to move that approval please do so now I'll move that okay can I get a second oh second okay and can I get a roll call vote on that please Michelle us yes Cader Thompson here wisman yes rakison yes Bauer yes mccarlane yes Potter hi Hooper absent thank you very much it looks like we can reorder the agenda tonight and so we'll go on then and do the approval of minutes tonight we will be approving minutes for the meetings of February 14 2023 and March 14th 2023 does anybody have any things on those minutes that they'd like to edit or ADD I don't see any so we'll go ahead and approve those minutes and then we'll close that item and we will move on to public hearings and matters for consideration and um tonight um well are we going when are we going to be doing the um Andrew when are we doing then the um our uh or comments the planning managers report is still going to come at the end yeah okay awesome okay great okay then um tonight we'll be looking at now meeting item number two which is public hearing for the summary vacation item two resolution making a general plan Conformity determination and additional findings pursuant to streets and highways code 8300 with respect to the vacation of a portion of an unused public alley easement located between fair and Sheldon streets and recommending that the city council adopt a resolution granting a summary
vacation of a portion of the unused public alley and this is my time where I will indicate that commissioner mccarrolling will be recusing himself um because he lives within 500 feet of the proposed summer summarily because he lives within 500 feet of the property that we're talking about tonight um commissioner Caroline you need to recuse yourself I was requested by the attorney to state that I am within 300 feet of the property so I have to recruse myself thank you thank you thank you Mr commissioner Caroline so we'll go ahead now and um have the staff presentation by our city engineer Jeff stussman thank you Jeff thank you everybody [Music] uh Jeff stutzman city engineer thank you for having us I also have people Frankie who's the applicant's conservator over here well the owner Nicholas I don't think your mic's on I'm being told from someone watching that they can't hear it yep better there we go thank you um sorry about that do you want me to repeat me now I think it's okay go on sorry about that um so I'll just it prior to 1979 the easement was a thoroughfare so was you able to go from one side to another um when that vacation of easement happened in 79 to six of those properties vacated that easement and basically created that alley as a dead end preventing access from English from Dana Street to English Street so it was kind of shortened that scent it wasn't a full vacation of easement but a partial one at that point kind of setting the Precedence of the use of this
easement and the real benefit of it to the city so as we kind of move into to today um Nicholas reached out to me um he felt like there was an opportunity for him he wanted to build an Adu he needed the property to be able to set those offsets he knew that the easement wasn't being used by the city high weeds gravel so I talked to talk to him about the process of doing a vacation he got the help from civil Frankie to kind of start that process start the legal descriptions he reached out to all his his neighbors to see who would want to be interested obviously the goal of of it was to kind of band all the remaining neighbors together to get a kind of a complete vacation easements for the whole alleyway for whatever reasons some some members wanted to be a part of it others didn't so we kind of end up with the same situation we started with in 79 of six people were very interested in doing it so we're kind of extending what we did in 79 to now where it's kind of a partial vacation of the whole easement but nothing really changes because it's still a dead end alley um foreign the vacation easements is appraisal um part of our um who Charter requires of anything over three thousand dollars the city Encompass property it has to take it to council for an ordinance a product that ordinance is obviously we would be paying fair market value of that land and in that case you would get an appraisal to see what that value is in this case in lieu of doing a um appraisal we reached out to
um a firm who does does these appraisals because in many cases like this where appraisal could cost more than the value of the land itself so he reached out to him he was his name is Jeff Hornsby he does a lot of work in the city he does a lot of work in Santa Rosa it's kind of his Niche is this type of land Exchange and I think one of the documents sent this late afternoon was email from him just casting what the what his perceived value of the land was I mean it's it's a dead-end alley the city doesn't have any real benefit to it no utilities that it's really the cost of um to each parcel is really less than a thousand dollars just because that's really like the administrative fee to make the transfer of land this really there isn't much value in the land to the city it's more in that little bit of land for them is more important so we did that um part of the appraisal kind of looks at utilities I mean we reached out to all the utility agencies City doesn't have any utilities in this alley um PG e 18 T all the Telecom folks that work in the city there's no they don't use this alley they don't have any need to use it um and there's no easements either as well as Emergency Services there's talk to fire there's no um they have no need for this alley either they don't use it to respond to calls or need to fight fires or anything like that and then I think if the main thing that comes down to is is maintenance right it's it's an unimproved alley so it's gravel as you saw some of
the photos today the grass is is high it's just it's a maintenance liability for the city because it doesn't meet Ada there's gravel everywhere it's it's it's just it's an issue that requires City's attention there's no drainage so from the city's perspective it has it has no value it's just it's it's something that makes us do more work than we really need to be doing right now um focusing on other areas of mowing gravel is something that we would rather do um and like with that I don't know if Steve or um there's a time for Nick to come up and say anything either but that's the end of my presentation so I don't know if you guys have comments either um all right thank you very much uh Jeff uh in your presentation um yes can we do ex parte communication oh yes thank you yes are there any ex parte Communications right now nope I don't see any okay um then we'll go on now to um commission questions for staff chair I mean commissioner Potter I was just wondering if you could clarify that the easement is um not a property owned by the city but is part of the property owned by these property owners over which the city has an easement for a potential future use or another use so with that in mind I'm just wondering if the city has the authority to vacate easements without property owner agreement because we've spoken about a number of times that this has been a struggle to vacate the whole alley is it required that the property owner agree in order for the city to take an action
such as that I can answer that one Sharon no it's not required uh but obviously the city would obviously like to have the property owners agreement before the city pursues any vacation them yeah hopefully that answers your question yeah and I guess my point is that it has been a long time since 1979 but it does seem a little inefficient to proceed with these piecemeal-like and not have the full use of the alley particularly because the um use that's being proposed here is something consistent with our housing element in a an idea that maybe neighbors would also want to um at some point take advantage of building 80 is so that's my only thought okay are there any other questions commissioner rockerson yeah just about this uh piece on the three thousand dollar threshold value and from your statement I think you kind of answered these two questions but when we think about that value is it the value of the parcel to the city or is it a value of this 350 square foot parcel kind of fair market value or value to property owner I think it's the value to the city um because that's when we're looking at it if there's utility easements it has it has a value to the city um because that's what they would be paying like if Nick were to purchase if we would vacate the easement had a value he would be paying the city for that that perceived value that the city has in it but because we don't there's nothing there we don't have utilities it's interesting alley like the purpose of it and what
the history really was behind it because there are alleys that are used there are alleys that have you that are good for utilities and like this case there is just there isn't any real need well it's an important distinction I know uh council member Cader Thompson posed a question before this meeting about the relative value given an ad unit so that makes more sense if we're talking about the city's value not necessarily the property holders value uh and then I'm assuming this applies to each of the vacated Parcels in question not the combined for all the area being vacated right this three thousand dollar threshold the three thousand and you can clarify but I believe three thousand dollar threshold would be each 350 square feet because it's separate property owners correct okay um and then I have other questions just about you know practical use of this area but um I I don't even think those are relevant I think that was my most important question so thank you thank you thank you commissioner rockerson commissioner Westman yeah clarifying question uh which is the the actual area that we're talking about who has title to that here is it a part of the budding property owners parcel yeah and so all we're talking about is the easement phone yeah okay and it's just it's interesting instead because if you go through that 1979 the original one they they made the distinction and they had to come back with or like a recusal of it to come back and say it was a vacation of easement so
it was it was very clear in documents that it was in Eastman over over their land so there's yep probably the report indicated that it was initiated by the proper property owner 417 Sheldon but I believe it was 4717 Fair yeah and I forgot to mention that so there was there was a mistake if you go down the second paragraph in background they would note it as 417 Sheldon Street but it should have been 417 Fair Street okay apologize so um can anybody inform us it's it's a hard one to answer I I mean we've had I mean I think since I've become city engineer I think we've had the most I think I've done three in the last year but working with with Steve who's been a part of the city for a long time trying to figure out the process and examples there hasn't really been that many um last couple I know I've been there's one for St Vincent's in the past um we just did one for North River Apartments um Wallenberg way so there really hasn't been I would the ones that I could think of are probably been maybe four or five so it doesn't happen very very often no apologies I mean I still have a problem that um oh sorry yeah um the only the last question I have is um so once the once the easement is is released by the city or or vacated um are are there any contingent liabilities this city has um or do those go away or maybe the city doesn't have any liabilities right now as it is but if the city does have liabilities do those go away you know immediately upon the vacation yes and I can answer
that one Jeff uh so the city as the easement holder we have a right to maintain that easement so as soon as it is vacated the city would no longer have that responsibility to maintain and the liabilities would go away okay and in the underlying liabilities for hazardous waste store or anything that might be there those are either already assumed by the property owner or or transferred to the property owner ah correct okay that was it for me chair thanks great thank you very much commissioner Westman council member of caterer Thompson just for clarification so you're saying that this is just an easement and those Property Owners actually own that easement yes I mean they own the underlying fee title of of it and we we have an easement over the top of it so they have the title to this is what you're saying yeah we have there there is a easement over the top and I don't know if Steve if there's any more clarification to that but it is it is just an easement over the top we don't we don't own fee for that land so what is the difference I mean I don't know I'm I'm finding it it's very difficult to see that there's 15 16 or 14 15 16.
and so I feel like either it's all or none and there's you know the property values the property definitely has a larger value if you can put an Adu on there but if they own the property then there's no money exchange correct so the the but you did get an appraisal is that right yeah we reached out to Jeff Hornsby to get what the perceived value of that easement would be because he was working on similar projects there was one in Santa Rosa that's where we're saying it it really was his his cost was about less than a thousand dollars for that that easement because it just there is no real value to the city to have that easement well I still have a problem that we're not bringing in everybody and we're just piecemealing this and that was a problem back in 1979 and I don't think we should be moving in that direction agreed I don't know I don't think I mean I think the ultimate goal would be to vacate the whole easement um I did not have the conversations with the other owners I could imagine that it could be the process that Nick had to go through and work with Steve it was um possibly a cost issue I mean the Mad time it had it took it took a time and effort and money to put the legal description together and put the application together for staff to review and all everything that's involved with the process um but I don't disagree with the whole whole thing I mean we've been piecemealing it could it be another 30 years do we come back and do the others you know and and no I
don't want to do that I'd rather bring them all in at one time and his staff actually gone and talked to all of those Property Owners to see if they wanted to be part of this I have not talked into all the property owners I would like to see staff talking to Property Owners about this and getting everybody included before I certainly can support it okay is that are there are you done council member Cader Thompson sure okay thank you um I I it correct me if I'm wrong but we can't make the property owners uh buy into this so to speak right I mean because it is somewhat costs some money and we can't force this upon them right it needs to be they need to say okay to this so we can summarily Abate there's a couple uh prerequisites I believe that the city hasn't maintained it for five years or there hasn't been vehicular access for five years but if we are able to meet those findings then we could summarily be without the property owner's approval can we do that tonight well not tonight because I'd be concerned about the brown act that those properties weren't listed on the agenda title okay um okay well at this point um yes uh Mr triple sorry I was going to make sure I turned it on I did have a question for assistant City attorney Brady because this evening's action is a general plan conformance determination could the commission still make a decision on the action before them but direct staff to before taking it to council for the summary vacation direct staff to do additional
work so thanks Andrew for that question how the resolution is drafted is it does make the general plan conformance finding and then it makes recommendations for Council to approve the summary of vacation so we could get rid of those recommendation findings but we would then need to come back to Planning Commission for those other three or six Parcels out there that aren't involved with this summary vacation so we would be back here regardless I think Andrew and can I follow up on that would that action cost the current parcel owners that are requesting this any additional money I don't know that question I think the legwork's probably already been done I mean it's somewhat of cost cost recovery so the effort that it would take me Dylan whoever else is involved with it to do the public Outreach to do it um our time would be recovered similar to like a planning project from so there would be costs associated with doing that additional Outreach from the applicants yeah right I'm the only applicant currently um that's the that's the rub yeah so Heidi okay commissioner uh Potter I'm wondering because of the way that the resolution is drafted and the noticing occurred if we could move forward with the recommendation on these six Parcels but with the direction then to staff to pursue the remaining Parcels for a cohesive um change in status for that alley well I think let's listen to public comment first and um then we can say what we think about this we could share our comments on
that and that you could present that as an idea okay all right thank you um okay let's move on to General Public comment no if are there any um I mean not general public comment public comment on this agenda would anybody like to speak on this okay if you um yeah just when you come up state your name and then afterwards you I'd like for you to fill out a speaker card and give it to the clerk please okay all right uh Nicholas Luciani I'm actually the applicant for this uh motion um just in general I think uh over the past five years since I actually purchased the property I've been attempting to kind of go down this road and finally uh last year with Jeff's help I was able to get to the point where I kind of understood the process and started having the conversations with a multitude of neighbors I've already reached out to um pretty much all of them one of them happens to be a renter that I don't know the property owner actually um but of the people who live on the Block the ones that I are call enlisted or uh asked for their participation in this those are the ones who definitely wanted to get on board um all the other ones were not as enthusiastic and to note on top of that you talked about cost and kind of you know recovery of cost at this point I'm the one paying for all of the cost incurred um whether that be yes time the city fees or Steve lafranki's time to put together all the documents for this so um yeah and I think to answer the question you know is it uh to Mr
accusin is that correct um I think that if anything right the value to the city of an added Adu and the tax implications with that right gonna have some fees on top of that with you know Planning and Building some added School fund all those things are a benefit to the city whereas currently it's a liability like Jeff said so I want to make those two notes and then um yeah thank you very much for having me and seeing the uh this on the docket and taking the time so thank you thank you very much just um yeah please do fill out a speaker card thank you Mr lafranki yes Steve and Frankie you have two minutes you have three minutes too and you need to also fill out a speaker card when you're done so Stephen Frankie I'm the uh the project the surveyor on this and I think a little clarification is this isn't like a fee simple land like a parcel of land I mean alleys and streets are this glorified easements and uh and it it doesn't happen a lot in petalumus was was uh was stated but to uh imposed and taking the entire alley it'd be uh for instance on St Vincent's property the Cherry Street there's a there was a number of parcels where the public right-of-way extended in it wasn't being used but it was that one vacation was it didn't take all of the length of Cherry Street it just took the one property owner who wanted that portion of it vacated it's a little odd with the alleyway because it's a series of lost but in principle it's the same it's the same purpose so um you know in a
perfect world have been great if everybody just you know wanted it all vacated but um you know the jurisdictions other places portions of of streets and portions of alleys and easements the entirety isn't always just vacated there can be portions of it so I just wanted to make that clear thanks thank you thank you Mr Miller Frankie please fill out one of those cards and I think those are that's the last of the public comments so we'll go ahead and close um oh yes please do come up and state your name please my name's uh Dan cree and I I live at 421 Fair Street which is just down in in the alley is part of my property as well so um but just to answer the question in terms of all the neighbors it's really you know the the original in 79 and you know the year that it was closed off that was a logical shut off because those neighbors decided to share that property and this again to me seems like again it's a logical stopping point because those six neighbors are agreeing say hey we want we want that property so and I'm at the other end I'm I'm at the part you know I'm two from the end so my section is not going to be blocked off and that's fine with me so and I think that if I'm to speak for the other neighbors it's similar from the standpoint that my neighbor next to me that's not going to have their property shut off they as well are not interested in having that property there there they they prefer the alley and and then the person at the corner same thing that's a rental so
that that property owner is not really anxious to to get that property and then there's another the other property that joins that alley is is um is two lots one is a rental and then one takes up two lots of that that alley so again to answer in in my opinion again it seems like it's it would be a fine um deal to do just again a sectional shut off as opposed to trying to get everyone to agree to to a full shut off which again it was done in 79 it seems logical that it could be done that way in in my opinion and I'm I am one of the owners of the area to me I I am fine with it being shut off at this point and and that section behind me staying open great thank you very much okay uh well now we'll uh close public comment and we'll move on to uh commissioner comments and I think I'll go first I usually don't but I think I'm going to go first this time because um I I think this is this is our job this is we serve the public and um to me these people have had an easement over their property for many many years now and now is our opportunity to give those that paid for it and want it back back and I think they should be able to get it back now since we're not using it plus I think it is a liability for the city so um I would gratefully remove the city of that much liability whenever we can and I think if the other property owners at some point in the future want to come back and they change their mind and they pay for um somebody to do the paperwork and the um and they pay us for
our cost recovery for our city engineer then let them do that in the future that's their business and we're here to serve I don't mind really doing it piecemeal if we can make the lives of some of our residents better so I am supportive of this as it stands and I'll move on to other Commissioners now commissioner rockerson thanks chair I guess just a follow-up question from all this for City staff is there any downside to limiting it to this area you know we've heard about 1979 was the first decision we've kind of Daisy chained this onto that particularly like SQL considerations I mean is there any downside to doing just this part and then if in 30 years we do another aside from like our Aesthetics of all these Parcels being in one lump is there a downside is there an additional cost for the city liability for the city danger we might have to do a more complex procedure later anything like that no it's from a city's perspective it's kind of status quo I mean it's we've had six and now hopefully we'll get these 12 so then we're just we're slowly shrinking it so we're not adding to it um a maintenance cost is still there it's a little it's a little less um but again we're not there's though there's no additional liability associated with it well then just from everything I've heard I don't think it's fair to burden the applicant with all the additional Parcels I think in terms of General plan conformance we are advocating for more infill we are advocating for density and
efficiency when we can and I think you know this is definitely moving Us in the right direction it's pretty obvious it would be great if we could vacate the whole area but I think for the sake of this applicant and what we can get done now uh I would support uh this as it is thank you commissioner Atkinson commissioner wissman uh yeah I similarly um just from hearing uh reading the report and hearing the testimony tonight I I it appears that it's a net upside and no downside as a matter of fact I think the the city is giving up you know responsibilities and liabilities um that right now have no value so in vacating that easement it's a benefit to the city and it's also a relief and encumbrance on the property owners um so I I really see only upside and no downside so I'm inclined to support it all right great thank you commissioner Westman who's next uh council member Cader Thompson so the remainder um is not a liability now the remainder properties so we're talking about liability of one area and now we're saying oh there's no liability but yet there's liability so who's going to maintain it it that's why it just stays kind of status quo right I mean we we City already maintains it it's a cities meant it's it's an unimproved roadway um we are shrinking that area down by a quarter or so um so to say that there is no liability some of that still continues right but it reduces it reduces some of it I mean it's not I don't think we and gain any liability by this action but we
don't lose it either we don't we don't necessarily lose anything yeah I I'm going to stand um the way I feel is that all these others should be included in it and we should not be piecemealing because we you know we've peeled piece milled a lot in this town and this is an opportunity not to piecemeal and I'm a little disappointed that staff didn't go out and send at least a letter to Stats to the property owners that didn't want to participate and I'd rather just do the whole thing and not for certain just because six of them want it and the other ones don't I just think it's it's continues in 1979 thinking and I understand the adus but I'm not going to be held hostage by saying adus and we need the housing we can use that excuse for any project and um I just think that the rest should be brought in and I think staff should send a letter and meet with people and make sure that they're all included and we'll see where it goes thanks thank you very much council member Cader Thompson commissioner Potter so I um really appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this and the applicant's effort to be able to achieve his use of his property and just for clarity the parcels are not gaining property they're just getting unfettered use of that part of their existing parcel for which there was an easement the easement was placed there by the city historically for a transportation Corridor that they that was being used it's no longer being used so part of our job as planning
Commissioners is to direct the orderly development of the land and so that's where I come from in terms of if it's not going to be an easement for a potential Transportation corridor then it has no meaning anymore when it's broken up um I do support moving forward tonight with this proposal as requested by the applicant but I would like to see some commitment in the future to think about what this property is and how we would like to see it being developed and we can't do that when it's a patchwork of an easement that's not being used for any other purpose and just because of the work that I've done Eastman's come from all kinds of jurisdictions from utilities from Parks and open space so they can be laid over on land for a lot of different reasons and when they're no longer used they are usually vacated and often at no cost especially if they've never been used but it just seems like in this case we could move forward with granting it in this part and then take a harder look at it in the future thank you commissioner Potter for those thoughtful comments so I think we've all said our thoughts on this so why don't we go ahead and um will make a motion to um let's see we'll make a motion momic can I get a motion to make a resolution I'm making a general General plan Conformity determination and additional findings pursuant to streets and Highway codes section 8300 with respect to the vacation of a portion of the unused public Allie easement located between fair and Sheldon
streets and recommending that the city council adopt a resolution granting a summary vacation of a portion of the unused public alley easement so move thank you commissioner Potter on a second please commissioner wissman Ms Ellis will you please take a roll call vote Cader Thompson no wisman yes en yes Bauer yes mccurling oh recused Potter I Hooper absent that looks like four I four yeses one no one recusal in one absent thank you very much we'll go ahead and close this public item thank you very much to the residents and applicants now we'll move on to meeting number three and we'll ask for commissioner mcgarylain if if you could hear us if you could please come back [Music] welcome back commissioner mcarling thank you so we'll now move on to a medium meeting item number three presentation for the general Plan update um we're gonna the general Plan update we're going to look at the presentation of past current and future General Plan update activities review key Planning Commission input opportunities for the remainder of 2023 and Beyond so we'll go ahead and we'll have our staff presentation now thank you thank you Commissioners and chair Bauer and vice America Thompson I am just trying to remove these black boxes from my shared screen I'm sorry that I can't hear you I'm sorry I'm fighting with zoom uh I'm I'm trying to remove these boxes from the display on each of your displays do you see these obnoxious gray boxes also yes let's do something different I apologize every
time a computer gets plugged in it wants to do something different bye that's gone better let's see let's see if I can get the whole screen to share sorry commissioner Bauer yes um oh somebody was not getting sound now or they are getting something thank you yeah all right I um I think that we're gonna vote for I'm gonna go with showing you the slides without the gray boxes and I do apologize that um uh that means that we're gonna see some of the surrounding material but I think that that's preferable to not seeing the not seeing the whole slide then I will try to make it as big as possible if somebody wants to come over here and Whisper how to turn off notes while I'm talking that will be great okay all right so uh thank you for having me with you here this evening I am here to talk a little bit about the general plan uh some of this will be not news to folks who have been here for a while or listening in ing for a while but we want to make sure that everybody's starting from a place of understanding the general plan and the general plan's role in uh governing land use and what that means for the process of updating the general plan that we are well underway on I'm going to go through an overview of the general plan and how that fits in with other planning tools that we have and other types of plans talk about the essentials of a general plan and what it needs to include the general plan workflow that we are going through and the role of the Planning Commission in the
general plan development process we are updating the general plan because the community has been increasingly interested in updating the current document that we have much has changed since that time particularly an interest in carbon neutrality different focuses on the river and many of the topics that you see here that weren't completely covered that aren't completely covered in the current General plan another important piece of the general plan effort is to establish methods and tools to implement this General plan there are many wonderful ideas in the current General plan that were for one reason or another not brought to fruition so we're looking at how we can remain Nimble keep the general plan a living document and then also make sure that implementation is possible and then we are legally compliant with State requirements the general plan is our umbrella planning document we can also develop the zoning code which implements the general plan functional or topic plans like a active Transportation plan or sub-area plan such as a specific plan or an area plan these are each more detailed steps that we can take to to provide additional guidance for development or to shape development in each of these areas the city's role is to uh to inform city council actions as well as committees boards and commissions City budget ideally the general plan will be tied to the city budget so that the city is able to implement the general plan if that tie isn't made then there can be a
discrepancy between the goals and the actions the city is able to undertake um we're also engaging with with residents both in the development and the implementation of all of these plans as a jurisdiction we have a significant amount of ability to shape development but are still reliant on the community to provide feedback expertise and then ultimately Market forces to provide the development that we are working on shaping so the general plan provides a larger vision and policy landscape more topical plans are either specific geographically or for a particular issue and then it's up to Citizens and city leaders to follow the visions and policy directions and and provide that market impetus for development the purpose of the general plan is like a constitution for the city and legally is important because it forms the basis for land use decisions that the city can make it's also a long-term policy document to guide future actions and helps to establish that long-term vision of 20 25 30 depends on how optimistic you feel about how prescient we are at this time in anticipating what the future will be in shaping policies for it but we do want to again you know while we're doing a long-term plan put some tools in place so that we can be checking in regularly on the continued relevance of the general plan and allows the community to come to together to develop a shared vision the state of California does have some updated General plan guidelines that were issued in 2017 these are
different than the ones that were in place for the last General plan obviously um we have these eight required elements as you will remember from a couple of months ago we have recently adopted updated housing elements so that's one of the elements and we're working on updating all of the rest of them that are required um I do want to note that there's no there's no planning period or no planning period requirement for a general plan so unlike a housing element which needs to be updated every eight years the state it does not have a requirement for updating a general plan and cities vary quite widely in terms of their approaches for updating it can take some cities 40 years to decide that it's time to update their General plan the average is between 15 and 20.
Sacramento works on updating pieces of theirs every five years again in an effort to remain relevant when we say for example the 2025 General plan that's currently in place that date is not a deadline that date is an estimate of the build out that is expressed and planned for in the general plan interestingly enough that the city isn't actually approaching that that build out in terms of the number of residents that were that were anticipated in that plan it is required that the general plan is internally consistent and you'll notice that we are then constantly referring to General plan consistency in implementing General plan or the zoning code or other related documents um and we can't have elements that are in Conflict within the general plan so in the general plan we set land uses identify long-term Direction set metrics and targets and consider environment consider and work to mitigate environmental impacts but while this is an exciting process to develop the general plan it's not an opportunity to solve all of our issues and it's a general plan not a not a specific plan so there are there's a certain level of detail that will be stopping at um the general the current General plan took seven years to complete and was completed in a very different context during the Great Recession or just before it um there was no smart service and now we're facing the increasing climate emergency and housing crisis so these are some of the triggers for this General plan effort you'll
remember from a few slides ago that there are eight required General plan elements it's possible for a city to have a fair amount of license in terms of how the content required in each of those elements is arranged and it's also possible to add extra elements some of which the state provides guidance for and some of which they don't you know for example we have Economic Development we have water resources in the current plan and so while we're developing content we're thinking about how all of these things knit together we haven't ultimately decided what each of the elements are called we are covering all of the topics that are covered in the current General plan I'm going to go through a few of the key elements one is the land use element which will be the next big piece that we'll be talking about with you that just defines the future allowable types distribution and intensity of parcels and includes a map or diagram it includes density for residential and non-residential uses and again must be in concert with the rest of the general plan this map then informs an update of the zoning code which can be more specific and implements the general plan the housing element was adopted in March of 2023 if anybody wants to talk about that later I'm open to it but I think we're okay for now the circulation element is required to cover the circulation of people Goods energy water sewage storm drainage and Communications again we may take that utilities piece out of the transportation
element for example but still be covering those topics and a new requirement is for a balanced multimodal Transportation Network safety element looks at mitigating and responding to natural disasters and other disasters providing adequate safety service and facilities and responding to climate change adaptation and resilience an environmental justice element is a new requirement if a city has a the technical term for them is a disadvantaged community that has a legal definition um though there's some debate about that term if the city has disadvantaged communities then there's a requirement to prepare an environmental justice element we went through a fairly exhaustive analysis of Petaluma that we presented in the existing conditions report and are planning to prepare an environmental justice element and that involves working closely with the members of those communities additional required elements include conservation open space and noise so we'll be talking about ecosystem Open Spaces preservation of Open Spaces how that works with the park system who will be maintaining them and how Recreation and preservation work together as well as how to mitigate and address noise impacts from transportation systems and other systems we are currently in the process as a staff body of reviewing many of the draft plan Frameworks that you see listed here the draft plan Frameworks are essentially the beginnings of the general plan policy development process some of them haven't been
developed yet because of ongoing work that we're doing that will inform them and I'll talk a little bit about that but these are the topics that are significantly understudy at the moment and I'm going to walk through the process in a little bit to talk about what the review process will be but I highlighted a few of them that are for example not required in the in the general plan requirements from the state a little pitch for how to keep track of the general plan there is a website at planned petaluma.org where we work on keeping everything up to date and there's quite a bit of information on there but just in general thinking about the steps to develop the general plan we go through in existing conditions analysis making sure that we understand where we're planning and then a vision process that concluded last year thinking about what do we want to create because of our timing we needed to insert the housing element process into this workflow and we're in the process of developing those policy Concepts that I just mentioned the land use alternatives are what we're going to be talking about next again thinking about where development where projected development could go and so we're going to be coming to Planning Commission with Alternatives and then recommendations on a final alternative and then coming with a pretty significant chunk of policy work for your review and then we're going to be working on that draft plan I also want to note that as part of this process we are
working in addition to some other things on climate action and adaptation planning and flood planning so I'll go into that in a little bit more detail this is the current I don't expect you to be able to read this don't worry this is the current flow I just want you to get the impression that you know at each major point of this plan we are coming to the Planning Commission to check in and receive input we have monthly meetings with a general plan advisory committee with every stage we also go out to the community to get feedback and then this shows how the housing element flooding and sea level rise modeling process climate adaptation planning and then environmental analysis and compliance all are necessary parts and feed into the general plan I think folks are for pretty well aware of where we are with the housing element I do want to note in a little bit more detail that we are in the middle of a process to develop a public draft greenhouse gas reduction strategy across quite a few different areas in which the city can impact that including Municipal operations transportation electrification of new and existing of new and existing buildings Etc and so that is planning we're planning to bring that out in the spring and then we are going to work on whether that comes to the climate action commission and city council for acceptance or if we wait until we have environmental environmental documentation on that and adopt it with the general plan we also have heard from many
community members that folks wanted to look in detail at the FEMA flood maps and so the city has undergone a significant effort with the consulting firm West Consulting to update our flood model and the state of the art has changed quite a bit from when the FEMA model was adopted and so we're working with them and in fact with General plan advisory committee member Roger Leventhal to make sure that we are using the most current defensible methodology to develop floodplain modeling and so that that's really cutting edge work and we hope to hope to bring some of the results of that forward importantly it will inform our land use alternatives to a certain degree and then certainly our adaptation planning that you'll see policies for in the general plan foreign while we were working on that mapping we've been working again on developing these policy Concepts I'll say this a couple of times but the way that we develop each of these pieces of the general plan is to work with the gpac the general plan advisory committee in a fair amount of detail to receive input on uh on what folks would like to see that relates to the vision that the gpac developed we also work with the community and uh and then get best practices from the Consulting team to develop draft material the plan thereafter is then to bring that material to Planning Commission for high level recommendations and then ultimately recommendations on direction to city council I spoke about the land use Alternatives after that
moves forward then we're going to be coming with the policy framework and draft plan and final plan so after the content is developed in the general plan advisory committee uh gives us quite a bit of feedback we do several rounds of revision and then bring material forward we want to welcome the Planning Commission to be involved in those conversations as community members there are quite a few of them that's really where the content development and the brainstorming happen as part of this work and then it's planning commission's role to provide very high level feedback and recommendations to city council we realize going into this that it's a lot of content and so for certain parts of the planning process we're going to be welcoming Commissioners to provide written feedback you know we will some we will probably come with hundreds of pages of material and we do want your ideas it will take a long time to read all of that into the public records So the plan is that will welcome folks to to provide written feedback and that we'll put that in the in the public record and incorporate that into our our revisions Vision process just as as commissioner Potter was describing one of the primary roles of the Planning Commission is to look at the responsible development of land so we just wanted to highlight that here in one of the key places to weigh in on that will be in the land use uh in the land use planning process land use alternatives so I just want to note finally that the
general plan while it is a 20-year document it is a document that can be revised again we're planning on putting metrics for tracking success and for and timelines for evaluating a variety of different elements so that the document can remain useful for a fairly long time thank you that is the conclusion of my presentation thank you very much Miss Paul for that very thorough um presentation I just I wanted to have some clarity before we move on and um maybe it could either come from you or Mr Triple A little bit more um can you a little bit clearer um explain to us what our role is I know you know gpac has their role community members have their role city council have our their role in us as planning Commissioners because I know it's not our role to do the work of the gpac right that's their role but you know what is our role exactly in this yes I'll I'll start and I welcome Mr triple to give some feedback as well uh and hopefully hopefully vice mayor kator Thompson comes back as she was just a member of the gpac very recently but the gpac is a large community body a 24-member body that was interested by city council with the role of being primarily responsible for helping to steer and inform the general plan development process and so those folks have many the vast majority of them been with us since the beginning of the general plan development process while they have quite a range of areas of expertise they now are pretty in the weeds in terms of what the many different
factors are that we need to be considering as part of the general plan um we for example uh on the housing element well the general plan advisory committee convened several working groups to discuss and cover major considerations for the general plan and those groups did Outreach to the community and gave us feedback on key considerations for the policy development process we then after that Incorporated their ideas and have gone back to the general plan advisory committee to discuss each of the topics and get feedback on preliminary Direction so it's a very you know it's a fairly exhaustive and detailed process that they're going through to provide detailed feedback on the development of the content of the general plan so that role is is Phil and we also welcome community members throughout that process to to give feedback and then the role of the Planning Commission is to review that you have a different point of view that you get from serving on this body and so it's valuable to get your input that by the time something comes to the Planning Commission it has been significantly reviewed by the community and by staff and so at that point it's we're not really in a creative process we're in a revision process so it's helpful to get high level comments you know if there's something detailed then then we welcome those comments as well but ultimately it's the it's the role of the commission to provide input to City Council on what they should suggest and require as the ultimate
decision makers Mr triple anything to add well I I think that's a great summary and um vice mayor if you would like we'd love for you to share some of your experiences from serving on the gpac and how that content development looks or feels um if if you'd like to that would be great I'm sure but if you need a minute so I have a cough drop in my mouth sorry about that I mean it is an exhaustive process and it has been like you know from the beginning we started you know with covid [Music] it's been on Zoom which has it's a lot of Pros but it has some cons because you can't get together um what I did learn recently I was at a league of California cities Forum in Sacramento there are cities in this state that have never updated their General plan which was shocking to hear and you know a lot we're surprised at how often you know the city of Petaluma updates which is really positive but um you know it's a pretty diverse group everybody has their expertise and they're bringing that forward and I just want to give kudos to Roger Leventhal because that's the area for me that is really important is sea level rise climate change and we're really lucky to have him on the general plan going through the information with City staff I mean he seems to be part of Staff which is really great um looking forward to finding out when the housing element you know comes back um to see if ours is passed which I I'm hoping it does um and I like the idea I mean I'm just looking at some notes of what
Christina said but you know like the greenhouse gas reduction you know really diving into that and um and so it's it's an exhausting process but in the end it's going to be a good document it's going to be for 2023 and above so we're not going backwards so that's it thank you that's very good great thank you vice mayor I think also you know part of the conversation this evening that that we want to share with you is that while the content development is happening in a variety of other contexts you know please take the take the advantage of the opportunities to participate in those Community meetings to you know share with your gpac members to share with staff there's often times where you know I'll I'll email Christina and say you know I came across this Challenge and maybe is the general plan looking at it so I think that we each see the plan from a different perspective based upon what our roles are and we want to be sure that the content development process is receiving those inputs so that as it does move through the process and come to you for that review and recommendation to council when it is very difficult to go back and modify content at that point because of the way it develops it's such a massive scale that we're ensuring that you're feeling confident that it's reflecting the priorities that you bring as commissioners great thank you wonderful okay now we'll move on to um commission commissioner questions and comments commissioner rockason yeah and I just want to
thank Christina for a great presentation it's kind of my Mo that I come to a city council meeting make General Public comment about something I want to see and then the next day staff was already thinking of it and had a presentation so somehow I'm not surprised so thank you for that and you know one big question I'm going to try to give some form to this I've heard a lot of people tie updates to izo municode directly to the completion of the general plan is that literally the trigger does some of that happen in parallel you know as your team as planning is understanding what's coming through gpac they're in the you know waist deep in content creation are we already thinking about structuring the Ico Municipal Code what those updates will look like um I've heard and I've read the 2008 General plan lots of great ideas in there um and then it didn't really translate all the way through to the code piece of it so I guess to put that in the form of a question how do we avoid that and then you know when do we start updates to izio and unicode is there any way to get a jump start on that start reviewing those ideas or is it literally we have to have the general plan on the books and then that process begins yeah thank you so it is possible to update parts of the Ico in an ongoing way or in the process of updating our Adu standards for example so it's possible to do those targeted updates it is the plan that the comprehensive update of the zoning code will be reflective of the
general plan Direction it doesn't necessarily mean that we can't start that process before the general plan is adopted and that's our intention is to start the process before the general plan is adopted as you as you will recall from many of the projects that that you see the the SQL process the environmental analysis and compliance process can be lengthy and will likely take you know just shy of a year for the general plan and so during that time you know once we get a fairly clear idea of the direction of the general plan it's possible to start that Ico work but it's unlikely that we'll adopt a comprehensive update to the Ico before the general plan is adopted and I think yeah chair Atkinson if I made out we do um staff does maintain what we call the red line Ico and so we're constantly documenting updates that need to happen to the Ico that we we come across in our daily work it it always fascinates me that there's never any limit to the questions that can be asked about the about a zoning code um it's it's really truly the gift that keeps on giving I think but but so we do maintain the red line document to capture uh updates that need to happen at some point in time uh as Christina said we will be bringing forward this summer a group of ordinance updates and amendments that will reflect state law that has been adopted that we need to incorporate and we move at varying speeds on incorporation of that depending upon the significance of it how much it might impact our daily
work as well as in the case of I will be bringing forward some child day care amendments to align us locally with state law and that's really to support development of child day care in-home child day care opportunities because the state is recognizing that they need a lot of support to be able to generate the supply commensurate with demand so there's we're constantly looking at it but we do have to sometimes make those decisions on when updates will come forward the comprehensive update will be a a significant update to the code well and what I'm hearing it's not necessarily going to get short shrift I mean the mindset is clearly focused on updating closing loopholes being incoherence with the general plan as it comes together and it is occurring somewhat in parallel whether that's informally with staff so so I really I really like hearing that um and then you know my other question that I had in here was baked into you know along along those lines you know um other parts of you know City policy and whether that's committees and commissions um shaping of how we organize as a city you know do we plan any shake-ups with that you know alongside the general plan or again are those something kind of totally separate um I think that's been floating around a little bit that there may be a shake up to committees and commissions and whether or not that's tied to General plan in any way or if that's kind of a separate item again with some informal you know um what I want to say input
from this gpac process looking at the draft policies that we're beginning to see the there are some recommendations or options that are listed for how a body of the city council you know the advisory body or whatever it is can enforce the you know help help with implementation of the policies or um yeah so that is something that can be talked about as part of the general plan I don't have a you know a firm understanding or a firm point that I'm going to make about how that might happen but it's something that can be talked about and directed or recommended as part of the general plan yeah I realize that question's a little amorphous but I'm trying to get it kind of these broad impacts we might see and how they align with the completion of the German plan what I'm hearing what I like to hear is that these efforts are already starting we're not going to get caught flat-footed when it comes to codifying the outputs of these kind of policy updates and Visions which I think is is terrific so those are my questions thank you very much commissioner rockerson uh other commissioner commissioner wissman um yeah just a couple clarifying questions um the the housing element obviously is one that we've we've spent a lot of time on or very aware of is that the only element out of those eight or more that are subject to State approval that's correct okay and uh if we are not successful getting adoption of of the housing element um will that at all delay the general plan adoption or is it
can the two continue to kind of move in parallel so if the if Housing Community Development don't certify the housing element in this round we will just keep going until they do um I don't anticipate that it'll have a major impact on the general plan schedule okay and so so other than the housing element all of the other elements are they at this point I'm looking at the schedule on your your very helpful website um are all those other elements completed um all of the so what we have right now is we have administrative draft policy Frameworks which is like the underpinning of all of the policies in the general plan um on the fort well not all of them but uh like 12 different topic areas um so we haven't written the elements or determined where each of the topics should go or be treated in the general plan there's some there's some there are different ways that it can be structured the general plan can be structured so that it's targeted towards implementation so that for example what Public Works would touch would be try we would try to Cluster that in elements so that they would know where to look for their direction we would know where to look for for direction relative to that kind of work so the elements aren't completed we do have policies on the vast majority of those topic areas land use for example because we are working on the sea level rise modeling we don't have a draft yet an adaptation similarly great well thanks very much for you and all your team's hard work
it's a huge process and looks like we're um we're on Pace and uh coming up with a good document at the end of it so thank you chair wisman one thing I would like to point out that is a bit unique about the housing element implementation of the housing element program is driven in part by state regulation so we do have deadlines for meeting some of the implementation requirements and that is a bit different than some of the other elements that will come forward where other implementation of policies that are are reflected in other elements may be driven by gold dates within the element themselves but not necessarily by state requirements for implementation so we will see action around implementation of the housing element in the near term because it will be required by state and one final thing I heard you talk about the schedule on the general plan website the general plan the schedule is correct in terms of the sequence but because of needing to go forward with the housing element first and also because of needing to wait for the results of the flood sea level rise modeling we are re-looking at our schedule so we'll have to we're working on it updated schedule okay I have a question about um whether or not the opportunity sites for housing that required land use designation changes in the general plan happen during the housing element adoption or is there going to be some kind of consistency correction when we do the land use element to basically Implement that housing so
each of the opportunity sites in the housing element are currently adequately zoned for the development that we projected in the housing element so we don't need to do any zoning updates for the for the current housing element thank you council member Cader Thompson I when when do we expect the sea level rise information to come back a month too so um it's fair it's it's a it's a it's a moving process right now um we got a round of draft maps from the consultant and then worked with Roger Leventhal and Chris Chu from Marin to do some review which sent the Consultants back for a for another round and essentially for a more comprehensive methodology and so we're just beginning to see preliminary results from that that we will need to potentially do some peer review on because there's not really and established like we are in the middle of establishing the best practice for how to do this and we want to make sure that we get it right before we put any Maps out so I was having meetings about that today I wish that I knew um but the hope is that uh you know the the maps have a couple of different impacts on the one hand they will inform our land use and adaptation policies on the other and they will inform a future update to our FEMA map those are two separate process to to a certain extent and so it could be possible that while we're working through some map Provisions we can move forward with the general plan work I appreciate that because this is really an important part since
you know we're known for flooding and so appreciate that and I'd rather spend more time or have a more length and get it done right so and do you know who would do the peer review that's just an idea that came up today I don't I I I am not a flooding modeling precipitation sea level rise modeling expert and so I don't know I don't know who is but I think that we'll we have to look for those folks okay thank you okay commissioner Caroline yeah microphone commissioner McAllen okay thank you um I like the idea of the general plan being a bigger vision more cohesive comprehensive vision and I I just wonder where in the general plan I didn't see it in the general blend documents but issues related to sense of place physical design what it looks like what it feels like all the public corridors that form that image all the main boulevards the roads the Petaluma River Corridor I don't see those treated as any kind of structural framework or any idea in the general plan of what role they play or what policies are going to be developed to protect them streets like Petaluma Boulevard should have an idea what it could be what it should be what are the priorities how do we achieve them does it exist so nothing happens they pave the whole Road and do nothing at a bike trail and they feel successful but I'd like to find out where does this whole concept or what is Petaluma what does it feel like what does it look like all the public corridors are public spaces that's what form the image of
Petaluma for most people and there's nothing I see that deals with it the other thing there's a 1996 Petaluma River Corridor enhancement is that going to be re re-enhanced or revised because it's certainly something is needed to deal with the Petaluma River as an urban design ecological design elements but is that part of the general plan yes thank you and we did have a general plan advisory committee sense of place working group that provided some input onto what kinds of policies they would want to see there's also a significant amount of that kind of language around sense of place in the vision document so we anticipate that the draft policies around that will be coming with the land use chapter and that and that policy framework in terms of the river enhancement plan you know whether or not that document specifically gets updated or some other document that covers the same topics I think is something that we can talk about but updating those policies is something that's in the current draft you what about the Urban Design component is there is that so yeah Urban Design intensive place will be in the land use as well as Transportation chapters we are for example working really closely with the folks who put together the sustainable design assessment team the s-dot process that was Last Summer the folks came to town to talk about what should we do with our arterials and how we how could we create neighborhood hubs so that's something that's that's really top of mind for the
planning department and is going to be worked into the general plan thank you commissioner Caroline and I also I just have a general question if we as community members and planning Commissioners have anything specific like what commissioner Caroline was saying that we wanted to see that the gpac might consider as they're moving forward we are welcome to submit those as comments right so you know that might be useful for them to see coming from us so yes that's always an available option to us right okay good thank you you are welcome to send any recommendations that you have to me there's also a general plan working group they're not particularly active right now because they provided a lot of feedback that we're working on encouraging so you I think right now if you send it to me I can share the rest of the gpack [Music] um yes commissioner I just want to follow up with what Heidi was saying I think it's really important that the Commissioners send comments in I mean it really it makes a big difference and I appreciate I'm commissioner recusen's you know comments on um you know it just kind of leads right into the general plan and and please do I think it's really important I agree I think we have a lot to say in getting that information to the right um committees is important so having a way to do that is a good idea commissioner rockerson just to follow up on commissioner mcarlin's Point um objective design standards we've talked about it a lot I'm assuming the general
plan has to have reference because we are you know looking at some state laws that are going to move us more in that direction is that planned in parallel again is that because we've got some massive updates going on all over the place where does that fit into the general plan puzzle as it were the objective design standards development of the objective design standards is in the housing element as one of our policies in the housing element so that is there um and we have a draft and you as you just noted there are lots of things going on um so we're working on doing some refinements of that document and then plan to do some community outreach we for the folks who were on the on the commission a couple of years ago I think at this point we did do some Outreach to begin to develop the design standards with local Architects and affordable housing developers so we plan to do some Outreach again to talk with them about more specific draft language as well as climate action commission members and we plan to bring that document to Planning Commission for a working session workshop and then for approval so it will come back a couple of times councilmember Cader Thompson is the commission going to be meeting in person I know that they're still doing Zoom I mean the gpac the idea is that uh we were working towards a mapping a flood model meeting with them and the idea is that that will be in person and at the rec center so that there's a fair amount of space so the community members
can participate as well I don't think that our regular meetings are going to be in person but there's some we're working on scheduling an in-person meeting for that particularly because it's helpful to look at these very detailed maps as really big maps and so that's better to do in person okay and and sometimes I ran into people that were in the commission you know once we didn't have our masks on I didn't even know that one person was tall one person was short because you've just been on Zoom the whole time so I think it's really a good connection for the group to meet in person and and this is the perfect one to meet with so there's no date obviously well we're working on doing that for the May meeting but given you know given the new mapping I need to confirm that with the stuff thank you I just have on a long question about the um flood map so I was really happy to hear that that is being updated because that was long overdue and I'm glad that Roger Leventhal is involved because he's really bright and just yeah at The Cutting Edge of that so I'm really happy to have him on board and I was just wondering if um the updated flood map maybe if that would um at all like uh change any of the um land use zoning possibly going forward and how that would work but potentially yeah okay I mean um and we'll see that I suppose if that happens how would that happen well I think that that would be part of the adaptation planning and that would feed into the land use map okay so that's
that's some of what we're looking at when we're when we're trying to develop the land use map we're hoping to have these Maps kind of finalized so that we get an idea of the impacts and and where land uses could potentially change or where there is for example there's there are developed Parcels that are in the flood plain um and so would Redevelopment on those parcels need to have particular adaptations to account for increased risks that from sea level rise and climate change and one of the you know one one of the major pieces of this effort is not only looking at a more precise 100 year or so one percent chance every year uh flood map but also looking at the impacts of climate change and sea level rise as that changes with climate so we're looking at the water coming down the river and all the tributaries as well as the water coming up the river you know and what happens if water is going in both directions at the same time what the likelihoods of those things are and then how do we plan for various risk levels and you know potential various levels of inundation great thank you any other comments not right now um okay it looks like then we are going to open public comments so we're going to open the public meeting and we'll be opening public comment I don't see anybody here so um we'll be closing a public comment okay um okay then I think we'll be um closing this meeting and we'll continue on now we'll move to um our business part of the um agenda and that's starting with
commission comment so we'll be starting with our council member liaison's report and that will be council member cater Thompson um recently I was at the league of California cities in Sacramento I just went for one of the three days but one thing that's really important and I just want to talk about um is an example of the fairgrounds property if the state actually has the lease then the state is actually looking at State lands to put housing on there and that would be you know a perfect area for the state to look at and that was very clear in these meetings that that was a direction that weiner wants to go so they're updating um policy and so just to put that in your mind um the other thing is scta Sonoma County Transportation Authority is looking at doing some sort of a tax measure for climate so they're trying to figure out what would who'd support it um what's the threshold and what direction is the parcel tax um or is it a bond or is it an airport tax I mean it could be all different directions and so we're moving on that and I'll know more next month and that's pretty much much it thank you very much is that um are you kind of thinking about a carbon tax or something like that looking at all kinds of different options we're actually looking at about three options to do polling and so um you know I'm not sure if a sales tax would go I mean petaluma's at nine and a half some you know cities are at eight but everybody's around nine and I think the threshold is 10.25 which
is you know it's a big ask and so I'm I can't give you a good answer because I really don't know until the next meeting to see how they're going to pull it together and decide what three questions you know or options and how to frame those for a poll okay right thank you and now we'll move on um we have the um p-back and that would be uh commissioner Hooper but he's not here today so we'll move on to the tree advisory committee and that's commissioner Caroline yeah the tree advisor committee um we we're succeeding in meeting we're revising the tree list it's in process and we also had some limited input with the city engineer and trying to together with relief trying to add trees to the Improvement plans for Maria Drive Maria and McDowell uh kind of late it's under construction so it's a little late in the game to add trees so we had some input and I hope they still have to get approval and budget approval from Council for the city manager but I hopefully will get a few more trees along these streets which have which needed uh but the engineer felt very kind of interested in trying to improve what the engineering department is doing in terms of planting trees with streets which is a big foot in the door I think for us um so the tree committee expressed interest in being aware of other streets that are coming up and how we can be of assistance um so that was left then I kind of discovered that there's a meeting tomorrow on D Street Improvement and again the tree committee is
not aware of any involvement it has not been part of this but D Street in my mind is one of the most iconic important streets in all of Petaluma I mean Petaluma Boulevard downtown and then D Street is the image Street the High real estate Street historically very important in what it did and what it still needs to do and there's very little protection or ideas about how to how to formulate that so this the meeting is trying to solve traffic problems accident problems we're in collision and stuff but it feels to me like it's more of a bike trail solution that everything else is wrapped around and I'm a little concerned that a committee studying these three they're making decisions Improvement decisions without the involvement of the tree Community without the involvement of any Urban Design skill set are going to make decisions that don't necessarily make the best results and and I'm a little concerned that even the tree committee is operating someone on our own doing our own thing and and I don't understand who's coordinating who's trying to piece together these things because the overall vision needs to drive these committees not the committee driving their own sense of purpose and I don't see that overall Vision happening and I don't know who's I don't know who should do it or what's the best way to do it but I'm you know putting I mean on even on B Street there's some experiment where they move the stop signs and put some temporary curves out there and painted some stuff
that it looks like it's dumb rude Goldberg solutions by the engineering department but I have no idea what they're trying to do or does it what it solves but things like that destroy the quality of these streets and destroy the image of Petaluma and I think you know little by little D Street is losing the image trees are dying trees are taken down uh not replaced but I don't see the Urban Design sense of place attitude driving things and I think it should so I'm wide open for um this is not meant to be a discussion as much as my sense is just being part of the the three advisory committee and seeing other committees what they're doing and realize there is no coordination unless everybody goes to everybody's meetings which gets to be kind of very difficult so that's my concern thank you commissioner Carolyn those are valid concerns um okay well then we'll move on to the planning managers report by Mr triple great thank you chair Bauer I hope that you enjoyed the general plan presentation this evening we uh we were excited to be able to bring that to you and have that conversation where to sort of a pivotal point with that planning process and so I think it was great to reconnect with it and and learn more about how we move forward with it um just a couple of brief notes I wanted to uh mention I hope you enjoyed uh the meeting minutes or at least found that it was an improvement over the prior minutes that we've brought forward to you we are working to try to find that balance
of of providing information but at the same time um respecting the direction that we're given by the city clerk to have that action or decision-making minutes for the board for the commission rather one thing that we have started doing if you notice at the end of the minutes we're including the link to the video uh because it's that's where you can you know experience the meeting in its entirety and will continue to do that so please just give us some feedback if if we're still not hitting quite on point with those minutes but um I think Evelyn enjoyed having with the new system that we've gone to Prime gov we can now generate that transcript and that actually helps us a lot to be able to pull some content out of it and drop into the minutes so I wanted to uh mention that the next is we have made some updates to the planning projects webpage as well as sort of recreated the public comment public participation web page um those those upgrades were driven in part by trying to gain consistency with the remain with the entirety of the city's website so there are sort of design standards and and uh web page standards that we needed to comply with we may have gotten carried away a little bit but we were trying to bring that back in but then also we wanted to as we've started generating the new postcard Public Notices and we're using QR codes and directing people to those pages more specifically we wanted to make sure that we weren't sending people down a click hole if you will and
and frustrating them so we wanted to lift up some of that content and make it more apparent I know that there was a comment about a public comment that was received about not listing administrative review projects on our public projects page we have been listing them since last fall as a project is noticed for a decision by the direct doctor we do add it to that page so the public comment was correct we're not showing projects prior to I think November of last year but that was when we actually started uh increasing the transparency of those administrative actions so I did want to point that out in response to that public comment um the other is we've been working on the 2023 Planning Commission work or planning division work plan uh coordinating with the city manager and Community Development director uh I do have the draft plan um that I want to talk through this evening and then I'll be able to share that with you as we make some some final modifications to it uh in terms I know that that uh the the activity of the commission has been a bit slow this spring we we realize that we are driven by uh the number of projects that we bring before you as well as the status of those projects and we have some very very uh large you know complicated projects that are working through the planning review process but I can tell you that we do anticipate having meetings through the end of July um so each of those meet each of the uh regularly scheduled meetings would have at least one uh
project review um at it and uh the next ones I believe we're looking at May 9th would be Oyster Cove mixed juice neighborhood project and then on May 23rd we have tentatively agendized the floodway market conditional use permit appeal so those will be coming forward in May and then June and July we'll have a mix of study sessions as well as public hearings but I would I would expect that look forward to the objective design standards coming forward as a workshop as well we have that targeted currently for July 25th but I'm I'm thinking that that may slip into August and then we're going to bring be bringing forward a group of ordinance updates and amendments I'd mentioned them early earlier the child day care amendment to our land use allowable land uses a visitability ordinance Amendment which is responding to some design related issues with compliance with the visitability ordinance as it's currently written the Adu ordinance amendments which are updates that are driven by state regulations that have been adopted over the past year the state density bonus ordinance Amendment again driven by state regulations and then finally the sb9 implementation ordinance currently we have all of those scheduled to come before you at the end of June but I'm anticipating that given the amount of of time that we need to work on them that will probably push that back about a month as well so you know as a bit of the I guess stepping behind the scenes when we start working on even an update
to an ordinance we can be looking at depending on the extent of the update and what's driving it anywhere from 20 to 40 hours just to do the drafting of the ordinance then we've got about almost another 40 hours to put together the meeting item packet that you receive and do the noticing that we need to do and such and then we start the process of actually bringing it forward to you so we are when we look across those even just those five Amendment packages it's a significant amount of staff time that goes into bringing that forward to you so just know that those are on the way as as well as then we're looking at September and October it does look like we'll have a couple of other ordinances that are being worked on that are part of the council's priority goals that we anticipate bringing board so I think you'll experience a busy year of through the remainder of the year as we work at a variety of levels when will you have those more published with this well I'll be out of the office the rest of this week but as soon as I get back next week I hope to uh make the updates to them and and have it available yeah um the next thing and and uh you know as as the Planning Commission as as one of the committee's commissions and Boards the um we administer them uh Evelyn is clerk uh myself as staff liaison on behalf of planning division we administer the Planning Commission of hcpc and the public art committee and so one of the things that we've been looking at for Planning Commission
to respond to the uh specifically a public hearing I think several months ago now where we went late into the night is looking at strategies that we can take to be able to have those those meetings that don't run so late one of them I think you'll see is is we're being working with the chair to be very conscious of of the tentative agenda items and doing a better job of predicting the amount of time it would take to to hold a public hearing but we have checked in with the city clerk and learned that the commission's enabling legislation would allow the commission to set its start time and we wanted to offer the opportunity to you to inform staff if you might be interested in adjusting your start time to 6 PM if you if you feel that you would want to go earlier than 6 PM we'll uh we'll work on that as well but 6 p.m I think is feels like it might be a reasonable time for for those of you who work and have other commitments so uh if you would if you would like to take that up yeah thank you Andrew and yeah I think that would I personally would really um appreciate it being earlier and I looked I did a little research into this on when uh the other planning commissions meet in the county and I think and other actually nearby counties too and I researched I think nine other planning Commissioners commission meetings and all but one of them start at six or earlier even so we are we are the one of the only ones that start at seven there was one other one that started at seven but
um I think starting earlier we'll um I'd appreciate it because um I uh I get tired and um uh get up early and yeah and I think earlier I would be better for members of our community too um for the most part because you know a lot of us get tired early um and our brains don't work after a long day of working and so um I would like to invite the other Commissioners to speak and let us know what they think of these things yes well as I was looking at the agenda today I was wondering why aren't we starting at six it just doesn't seem to make sense to start at seven and so I certainly would support that thank you yes yes um commissioner rockason can I move that item Now update it to six would have us use the power of our enabling legislation to move that meeting to six nice okay commissioner Westman yeah I'm supportive awesome thank you I'm supportive all right commissioner Potter I'm supportive I also think it's um adds an efficiency for our consultants and our staff who usually finish their work at five o'clock agreed agreed good job okay thank you um it looks like we are unanimously in favor of that well I will I will work forward on it and and hopefully at the uh at the next meeting have an update for you if not the opportunity to um to shape your future thank you you're the only thought I just had is that if we should change the start time of the meeting I think it would be good to have a really bold notice early for sure so that folks can get accustomed to this because a
little bit of marketing involved yep do you like your pizza what's that did I hear Pizza mentioned that would be you would have to talk to your Council liaison about budget for uh food yes uh Council I just want um it seems like the Planning Commission the city council both um should have zoom and I would hope that that would happen in the near future you know you're having some big projects coming up and you know a lot of people can't participate can't get into City Hall and it just seems at least for Planning Commission and city council it would be reasonable thank you good good point sure I will I will definitely take that forward as well I do think that um when when we went to uh the hybrid meeting format for Council we knew that we needed we wanted to ensure that the technology was working appropriately and I think the the last several Council meetings have been successful so good that's great to hear so I think that um now that we've we've uh crossed that that hurdle we'll be able to start focusing on other other ccds as well well the other thing is it's different people so it's not always the same person so you have a lot of people at City Hall that can actually do that position with ease so it's been great great thank you for that input and I think chair without that concludes the planning managers thank you very much thank you very much Mr triple is a really good and thorough planning managers report we'll now invite other planning Commissioners to provide any other
comments they may have commissioner I mean commissioner Robinson uh just a quick comment and uh Dylan you could stop me if I'm going of course here uh you may recall we reviewed a labcon project on February 14th of this year and um in work at that meeting it was a great project there were some folks who showed up with concern about impact a citizen group that worked in the area and at the time I I had just kind of asked the the applicant you know would you be willing to work with this citizen group kind of outside of this so we can get the project moving and then address public concerns kind of as good neighbors and I'll say that they were very receptive to that I think in my classic fashion I kind of ran from the start line without kind of crossing my T's and dotting my eyes so this may end up being more of a handoff to the city and this is the Casa Grande Anglers Association and maybe other citizen stakeholder groups but I thought you know once we kind of figure this out it could be a good model as planning looks at Great projects where they're still kind of maybe not even needing overriding consideration but concerns environmental impacts that need to be addressed it could be great to have this ability to informally involve citizen groups and kind of put them to work right away working with the applicant if they're open to it to kind of address those concerns moving forward so we don't stop good projects sometimes for things that can be that can be worked out I also wanted
to add to the tree committee report that there is an Arbor Day planting this coming Saturday at Big near Park from 10 to 12. right so folks want to come out and plant some trees of tree committee thank you we'd love to have everyone there thank you any more commissioner comments no well with that we'll go ahead and adjourn tonight's meeting at 8 51 pm thank you very much everybody good meeting thank you everyone