Monterey Planning Commission Recommends 5-Year CIP Consistency on May 13, 2025
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Montery Planning Commission Meeting Summery – May 13, 2025
The Montey Planning Commission held a public hearing to consider whether the five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for fiscal years 2025-2026 is consistent with adopted city plans. The commission reviewed staff's analysis, discussed project funding and overlapping programs, and voted unanimously to recommend approval to the City Council. The meeting also included an update on a recently adopted zoning clearance permit ordinance.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public spoke during the public comment period or during the hearing on the CIP item.
Discussion Items
- CIP Consistency Finding: Senior Associate Planer Mathew Bugert presented the Cip list (Exibit A). Staff found all projets consistent with the General Plan, area plans, master plans, specific plans, Coastal Plan, Traffic Calming Plan, and Move Montey Multimodal Plan. The CEQA review classified 28 projects as not a project under CEQA, 57 as exempt (existing facities, replacement/reconstruction, information coltction), 11 requiring future additional review, and 3 wth already adopted Initil Studies/Mitigated Negative Declarations.
- Commissioner Questions on Program Overlap: A comissioner questioned the difference between the CIP and the Neighborhood/Neighborhood Commercial Improvement Program (NCIP/NIP), noting that some projects (e.g., the Herman-Madison-Larkin-Via Del Rey intersction) appear on multiple lists without apparent progress. City Engineer Andrew Estling clarified that overlapping projects may track different fundng sources (e.g., Measure PS vs. SB1) and that the intersction project has a grant-funded CIP account.
- Wharf Repairs: In reponse to a comissioner's query, staff confirmed that warf repairs are included in the CIP via two programmatic accounts for structur assessments and critcal maintenance.
- Fundng Concers: A commissioner expressed concern about the lack of identified revenue sources for major projects (e.g., rebuilding works, police and fire sttions, tunnel repairs). Staff acnowledged the challenge, noted that the CIP often funds preliminary studies that enable grant applitions, and stated that the Finance Director will present funding strateges to the City Council in the folowing weeks.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous Vote: The commission voted 5-0 to adopt a resolution recommending that the City Council find the five-year Capital Improvement Program (fiscal year 2025-2026) consistent with al adopted plans.
- Staff Update: Levi (staff) reported that on May 6, 2025, the City Council completed the second reading and adopted an ordinance amending Chapter 38 of the zoning code to require new businesses and existing businesses changing use or location to obtain a zoning clearance permit. The ordinance will take effect 30 days from May 6 (approximately June 5 or June 6).
- Future Meeting: The comission was informed that a tentative agenda for the May 27 meeting includes one item, which may change.
Meeting Transcript
Um anybody in chambers have a um question or comment on issues that are not on the agenda. Nope. Um, anybody online? There are still no hands raised. Okay, well we'll bring it back for public hearing items. So it looks like um recommend on the city council find the five-year capital improvement program CIP for fiscal years twenty twenty-five, twenty-six is consistent with the general plan, area plan, master plan, specific plan, coastal plan, traffic common plan, and move Monterey multimodal plan. Um Matthew, are you going to give us a presentation? I am. Thank you. I will share my screen. My name is Matthew Buggert. I'm a senior associate planner with the City of Monterey's planning division. And today we're here to talk about the five-year capital improvement program for fiscal year twenty twenty-five to twenty-six. Let the record show that Commissioner Latassa has entered the uh meeting, and we'll be able to participate in this item since we are just beginning the presentation. Uh, CIP list. And exhibit A includes the entire list of projects. There's also an attachment to exhibit A that includes specific streets associated with one of these CIP projects with the public works department. Uh, the parks and recreation master plan, move Monterey, coastal plans, and traffic calming plans. This is not necessarily a review of the projects themselves, as much as it is trying to find any that may be inconsistent with those plans. And staff found there to not be any inconsistencies with the adopted plans for improvement of public facilities. And the projects fell under one of four main brackets. 28 of the projects were found to not technically be a project as defined under CEQA. 57 of the projects were found to be exempt from CEQA, and those are primarily for existing facilities, replacement or reconstruction of facilities, and information collection. Some of the projects were just to go out and gather more information. And 11 of the projects were found to be needing additional review in the future. So prior to conducting the work, it either includes significant excavation or some other feature. And then three projects already have adopted finalized ISMNDs that the projects would continue to be consistent with. And to go into a little bit more detail of the CEQA exemptions, existing facilities, these are for any repairs, for instance, at the uh recreation center and replacement or reconstruction of features. There are certain areas where there may be a bathroom that needs to be reconstructed, and it's not necessarily a new project. Um other than just that reconstruction or information collection, for instance, uh traffic collision data or any of the other items that are considered information collection as part of that exhibit A. There were 11 that needed additional SQL review. Some of these were included on last year's fiscal year, and some of them are not. Um specific streets are called out and are included as attachment one to that exhibit A. Three of the projects have an adopted initial study that's been previously approved. Each of these were also included on last year's, and there is no update at this time to those projects. Uh staff found the projects all consistent, and the recommendation is that the planning commission adopt a resolution recommending to the city council that the five-year CIP program list for fiscal year 2025 to 26 is consistent with each of the adopted plans. That concludes staff's presentation. Great. Thank you, Matthew. Um, any questions for Matthew? Matthew, could you once again define the capital improvement program by comparison to the old neighborhood improvement program? And I isn't there a third category of capital expenses for the city that isn't CIP. Isn't there a hierarchy? Because some of these projects my point is that you see some of these projects get repeated and repeated and repeated. And you know, where is the money and what happens when there's no construction? Yeah, I think I can provide some input on that, and then I will probably kick it over to our city engineer who's on the line who will be able to provide some additional input. But I think generally, I think what you're referring to is probably used to also seeing a similar list come before this commission. That's for our NCIP, which replaced the NIP program. So that's our uh a separate um funding source. So that list uh those lit that list of projects is uh um established uh through a different vehicle, and that's a committee, whereas our uh public work public works department and ultimately our council will adopt our five-year CIP program.
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