The City of Davis Planning Commission met on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in Community Chambers, 23 Russell Boulevard, Davis, CA. Chair Greg Rowe presided; Vice Chair Michelle Weiss and Commissioners Linda Deos, Vince McLaughlin, Johannes Troost, Georgina Valencia, and alternate Alan Bennett were present. Commissioner Darryl Rutherford was excused, and Bennett voted in his place. The Commission approved the agenda and minutes, held a public hearing on the University Retirement Community (URC) Covell expansion, and unanimously approved the project with an added design-review condition related to intersection safety. The meeting adjourned at approximately 9:06 p.m.
Chair Rowe modified the consent calendar so each set of minutes was voted separately because commissioners who were absent for a given meeting recused themselves. All were approved unanimously:
No members of the public spoke during the general non-agenda public comment period, and no recorded comments were received.
For the URC public hearing, the Commission heard from ten speakers. Positions included:
Staff and applicant presentation:
Commission deliberation focused on the Covell/Shasta/Riesling intersection. Several commissioners supported the project as much-needed senior housing but wanted stronger assurance that the intersection would be safe for residents to cross. Commissioner McLaughlin proposed expanding Condition of Approval 30 to require a survey assessing the overall safety of that intersection. Staff responded that subdivision improvements already meet city standards, the city traffic engineer can adjust signal timing, and the master developer (De Nova) is responsible for the improvements. Commissioner Troost cited past city cost issues such as the Cannery underpass and Mace Boulevard and urged clarifying responsibility. Chair Rowe also suggested measuring crosswalk timing on a summer Thursday when residents use shopping carts to reach the farmers market.
Good morning, everyone. It is 7 p.m. as the vice chair has informed me. So I will call to order this Wednesday, March 27, 2024 meeting of the City of Davis Planning Commission. In terms of roll call, Commissioner Rutherford has an excused absence tonight. So alternate Commissioner Bennett will be voting tonight. So let the record show that everybody else is here. In terms of the agenda, we have a little bit of an issue that I've discussed with uh the vice chair and with our city clerk's office on the consent calendar number 5A. We're approving a whole lot of minutes from previous meetings. The problem is, with the exception of September 27th, somebody's gonna have to recuse themselves on it virtually every other month because there were people absent every month. So rather than approving this on consent, when we get to that point, we'll take each meeting for a separate vote. And those people who and I'll indicate who wasn't at each meeting because I've got those notes, and then those people who weren't at a particular meeting can recuse themselves from voting on that. So with that, any other changes to the agenda that anyone would like to propose. So I think we can say by consent we are approved the agenda. Let's move to number three brief announcements from staff, commissioners and council liaisons. I will pick on our recently arrived council liaison first. Oh, you don't even have a microphone. You get a pass. And I don't have any updates either, but thank you. Thank you. Uh staff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, Dare Dunworth, Principal Planner. Um I'd just like to share a little bit of good news. We've had a soft launch for our pre-designed accessory dwelling unit plans. Um they are they are out there, they are live, they are available. We've had a few inquiries. Um we have some folks who appear to be moving forward. They've started the paperwork and have requested plans. So you can help spread the word. We'll be doing uh more of a marketing uh launch once we get a few through the process and kind of beta test our process and make sure what we think will work will work, and we can be fast and efficient like we want to be. So that's coming right along. And other than that, um I have scheduling notes, but we can do that at the end. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Any announcements from Commissioners? I just have one. Um Commissioner Trust and I attended the Palomino Ranch uh EIR scoping meeting on Monday, March 11th. Somebody else may have arrived after we both left for about seven, but uh it was very informative. I think there's probably what, 20, 25 people there, perhaps. Uh what I think was most interesting was virtually none of the people that were asking questions of staff or of the project proponent were asking things that were of environmental nature, even though it was an EIR scoping meeting. The big question was how much are the houses gonna cost? And and that was the topic of interest to everybody, and and one of the most pertinent questions too was is any is the developer thinking about offering a uh plan similar to what the developer did of um Grand Village where there was certain designated homes set aside for like teachers and other local employees and that type of thing. And I think the the answer to that is like once it's approved, nothing's gonna start construction for a couple years, so it's too early to tell what the prices are gonna be, and that's about all we know. Did you want to add anything? No. Okay. So with that, we'll open uh we'll go to item number four. This is uh the point on the agenda where any member of the public may address the commission on matters that are not listed on our agenda or are listed on the consent agenda, and speakers are limited to three minutes.