So I'll call the meeting to order.

We'll now move on to the open common period.

This is a time in the agenda when members of the public have the opportunity to address the commission on items that are not on tonight's agenda as a public hearing.

Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak during the open comment period?

No.

Nobody online.

Seeing none, we'll now move on to the roll call.

Commissioner Andrist.

Present.

Commissioner Boyle.

Present.

Commissioner Klein.

Present.

Commissioner Aishan.

Here.

Commissioner Ross.

Here.

I'm Chairman Kroll and I'm here.

We are missing Commissioner Ahmed, Commissioner Yost, and Commissioner Gupta tonight.

I will now move on to the order of the agenda.

Are there any changes required for tonight's agenda?

Commissioners, staff.

No.

Seeing none, I'll ask for a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Aishen, seconded by Commissioner Andrus to approve the order of the agenda.

Any discussion?

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I also vote in favor.

Motion passes unanimously.

We'll now move on to the consent agenda.

Commission will now review the consent agenda items.

Item 4A is the minutes from the July 8th, 2026 Commission meeting.

Has everyone had the chance to review the meeting minutes?

Are there any questions, comments, or concerns?

Seeing none, the chair would entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

That in July 8th, 2026 meeting.

Motion to approve the minutes by Commissioner Aisha.

Seconded by Commissioner Boyum.

Any discussion.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I also vote in favor.

Motion passes unanimously.

That concludes our consent agenda items for tonight.

Moving on to reports and recommendations.

Tonight we have one report and recommendation on the agenda.

That's item 5A, which is a conditional use permit number CD 2026-011 C U P by UCI Tower for the construction of a wireless communications facility located or consisting of a 125 foot monopole tower and ancillary equipment in an LI zoning district.

Staff, may we have a report, please?

Absolutely.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kroll, members of the commission.

Good evening.

My name is Desmond McGill.

I'm going to uh introduce this item for you.

This is uh an application for UCI Tower.

Uh the subject site is located in the central portion of the city, uh, generally located just north and west of Highway 52 and Highway 14, uh, north of 7th Street.

Specifically, uh the address is 1811 7th Street Northwest.

And this is a request for a conditional use permit for construction of an unmanned wireless telecommunications facility consisting of a 125-foot monopole tower and ancillary equipment.

The approval body is the city council.

And uh staff is recommending approval of this application.

Uh, in terms of the process, uh uh it would include a neighborhood information meeting that was uh held a couple of weeks ago.

That is an administrative process uh tonight.

Uh we are here uh for the conditional use permit.

Um, should it and it would uh then be forwarded on to the city council for their review.

Um that is a quasi-judicial matter.

Uh after uh subject to approval, it would go forward to the civil plan review stage, which is administrative, and then on to building permit inspections.

Uh this is the P2S land use map.

Um site is highlighted there with the yellow box.

Uh it's a 25 by 35 uh leasing area, and the subject site is industrial, as is all the properties that surround the subject site.

Uh across the free uh across the freeway, uh there's an area, a medium density residential, an educational campus for uh the John Marshall High School.

Uh we have mixed use transit oriented centers down to the southeast, and a little bit further south of 7th Street.

We have industrial and parks and open space.

Up to the northwest, we have small employment development.

Uh, this is the zoning map again.

The site is highlighted in yellow.

Uh, and it is surrounded completely by light industrial zoning.

Uh, off to the east, we have R3 zoning, and uh the school is zoned R1.

An area of MXS is to the east.

Uh, the uh uh interchange area to the southeast is mixed use general.

And then further to the west, there's a large area of special industrial, which is one of the more that's the most intensive uh industrial zoning district in the city.

Uh surrounding land use.

Uh the it is uh actually on the John Hardy's property, uh this 25 by 35 uh leasing site, just north of the John Hardy's site.

We got uh QW furniture immediately to the south.

There is an auto repair business currently under construction and an office.

Uh Rochester Meets is located to the west uh across the freeway.

We got apartments in a mobile home court and south of 7th Street and auto sales and the RPU substation.

Uh this is just a site visual of the general location uh with the surrounding buildings uh and businesses uh outlined uh and uh identified.

And I just wanted to note that generally the facility would be located behind the John Hardy's restaurant here.

This would be looking from the area of Q, you know, on the access road in front of QW furniture.

Uh this is the proposed site plan.

Uh again, it's on John Hardy's property.

Uh currently at the present time, we have uh a parking lot that facilitates parking on the business to the south.

Um the spaces that this occupies uh are not needed for their uh parking requirements for that building.

Uh it's 25 by 35 in size.

This the monopole structure is 125 feet.

Uh it will provide um an array uh for uh three service providers uh on that facility.

The access will come from 7th Avenue Northwest via cross-access easement on the property to the south, which is also owned by the same owner as the John Hardy's property.

Uh again, the the site is a little closer view.

Um it's highlighted in yellow there with the monopoles uh centrally located.

Uh to the north would be the Verizon equipment.

Uh there are two sites for future carriers uh for their equipment to uh be sited within uh the the yard, and we got a trans farmer just on the outside.

Uh there is a 12-foot wide access easement running from 7th Street up to the site, and a 10-foot wide utility easement that will bring utilities to the site.

Uh facility screening, this is uh uh photo simulation that the applicant provided uh as if you were looking at the site from generally the uh uh autos.

I think it's uh an auto dealership uh just immediately to the north of 14th Street um Star Auto, and you can see that uh this is the the uh intended or the expected visual representation of the 125-foot monopole from that location.

Uh as you can see, QW is uh down here, uh covering probably the bottom uh 30% of that pole.

Uh this is the tower elevation.

Uh it is 125 feet.

There will be chain link with slats at the bottom encompassing the yard.

Uh and again, just for a reference, uh, so you have some sort of sense of scale.

Uh QW furniture is up up on the left there, and I have drawn it in uh behind the um behind the monopole there to give you a sense of uh how tall the structure is.

And so the CUP request for additional height is subject in this particular circumstance to uh uh subsection three A and B.

C is not applicable.

Um basically this um subject to council approval, an additional 50 feet can be permitted if the applicant can demonstrate the following.

A, the functional coverage cannot be provided through co-location, and B, the functional coverage cannot be provided at a lower height.

Um, and uh just to note there are no uh viable structures in this area as attested by the uh engineer that um put uh that assisted in this application.

Uh as far as functional coverage, um, the the applicant does have a current facility located at John Marshall High School.

Um, it is a tower of 180 feet in height, but it is also seven feet higher in grade.

Uh so um, and that is located on the just uh on the east side of the freeway there.

Um this is the uh proposed coverage.

Um this is the John Hardy site.

Uh this is a hundred and with a hundred and twenty-five foot tower height.

And I'll flip back here again.

As you can see, generally um the two areas are almost identical um as far as the the capability of this of the of the facility um with a large area in the central part of this of the city being uh uh providing a good signal uh and then graduating graduating out uh to um um lesser um um reliable service as you extend out from there, but they're generally about the same uh as their existing facility.

Um so for the criteria, uh just wanted to note that uh there are no public facilities that will be burdened by the wireless communication facility.

Uh the facility provides no negative environment environmental byproduct.

Uh approval of the conditional use permit does not conflict with any prior approvals for this site.

And uh the proposed and the proposal satisfies all other current applicable UDC standards.

Um request for a 50-foot increase of height uh is supported by the planning division uh to allow uh the service provider to provide uh to nearly maintain the same service area as provided by their existing facility at John Marshall.

Uh this is our recommended motion, and we are recommending approval of the construction of a hundred and twenty-five-foot commercial wireless telecom telecommunications service tower with ancillary equipment in a light industrial zoning district as supported by uh the staff report dated July 22, 2026, subject to two conditions of approval.

And uh that concludes my presentation.

I'd be happy to answer any questions now or uh after the applicant speaks on this item.

Any questions from commissioners?

Yeah, but Mr.

Boyle.

Thank you.

Uh so uh Desmond, as I was going through this application this week, I think one of the things that I was questioning was it it says that uh city council has the ability to provision an extra 50 feet uh of height.

What I'm struggling to understand is uh is the 125 feet including that additional 50 feet, or are we talking today about conceivably approving 175 foot?

Um thank you for the question.

Um it the total height of this structure is 125 feet.

The maximum uh allowed height for a monopole in the light industrial zoning district is 75 feet.

Got it.

So this would be plus 50.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Any further questions from commissioners?

I'd like to invite the applicant up.

Uh you have 10 minutes to discuss your proposal.

Please introduce yourself when you get to the mic.

Point of privilege.

His mic's not on, so that people can't hear us online.

If you click on right at the bottom of it there, yeah.

Don't redden just click it.

There we go.

There we go.

Uh Matt Coonert with representing UCI Tower.

Um Desmond has done a thorough job of introducing the project.

It is a replacement of the multi-carrier tower.

Um if I'd be happy to answer any any questions you might have.

Uh thank you.

Usually you don't usually the presentations are so thorough, but yeah, it's very thorough here.

Any questions from commissioners?

Commissioner Ross.

I just have a quick question.

Excuse me.

Is this going to help with the handoff on 14 as they're traveling here as you're traveling north and southbound?

There's a lot of um disconnect there.

Well, can help at all like overlap the coverage of that.

This is a replacement.

This is a replacement for the existing multi-carrier tower.

Got it.

That's out there.

Um it's gonna hold a little bit more.

Usually what happens is when carriers are relocating the equipment at the new location, is the latest.

They don't they don't repurpose uh older equipment.

So perfect.

While I don't have well, I can't definitively say I had like it in writing phase.

And what I can say too is like the um the coverage map that was included in there.

It that is just to give kind of a broad idea of coverages.

It's uh I mean it's it's represented in three colors.

Actual performance is really really detailed.

It's gonna be a lot more capacity available on this tower than the previous one.

This capacity should be about the same.

This is this is a short because we have to operate inside what the city code is, but uh it's still good according to the engineers report.

The coverage is still good.

Okay.

Okay, so thank you.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Boyle.

Uh so I was looking at the RF distributions.

Did you guys have to change the gain on the antennas to get that coverage?

Oh man, that's a very technical question.

And I uh it would be that's an engineering thing.

So I I can't the reason why I ask is because when you in engineering they call it squishing the donut, right?

So when you do this, it changes how far it throws, but it also changes the coverage pretty dramatically.

So you actually get decreased, like the if you go up or down hills, it changes the coverage pattern pretty dramatically.

So that's why I'm asking if there's if there's hardship here or if there's potential impact to the quality of coverage because of the height restrictions from the city.

Um well, according to what the engineer has said, is it's obviously you're coming down in height.

So there is there is an impact on that.

Uh, but what how what is what is the overall impact of that?

And I mean, you can you I mean, the generic way you could look at it is very good and good.

Okay.

And so he's saying this is this is still the a good location.

And based on what we're working with, yeah in the city.

This is the this is far and away the best option.

Um you go you go further north, you're uh you're starting to change the uh pattern like you were talking about.

Uh you're also starting to crowd into residential neighborhoods.

Right.

Um, there's no place to go on the uh east side of the highway.

Um John Marshall High School takes up most of that area.

Property is you're moving down further, you're losing elevation down because it's you know the whole entire area slopes down.

You actually move into floodplain too, which causes its own um issues.

Okay.

So and I mean I won't get too nitpicky about it, but I think like when they do these distributions, sometimes they're doing it from the top wrong, and then there's additional arrays that'll be 20 or 30 feet down, right?

Which also means that the distributions look different.

So what I guess I'm trying to get from you is that you guys don't have any concerns about the performance of this tower based on the height restrictions from the no, based on based on the information we have today.

Okay, it's we should be okay.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Alvin.

Thank you for being here.

So I just got a question on the co-location affidavit and clarify for me either staff or uh the applicant.

The affidavit concludes no structures within a half a mile, right?

Uh the John Marshall no coal lake, no cloud.

Yep.

Yes.

Co-location.

But that tower sits about a thousand feet east of it inside at the half mile radius.

So uh in terms of that, if co-location on it actually was pursued or refused.

Um I want to make sure essentially did you pursue co-location?

Well, there's there's a few things.

One is it it it is under a thousand feet away, but that's the tower that this is proposing.

So that tower will be going away.

Got it.

So it is being decommissioned and the clarification on it is on the right.

At some point, it's yeah, it's I mean, it's uh already been terminated.

That's already occurred.

Okay, kind of in uh gray area of people not pushing too much on stuff, trying to come up with a solution so there's not a sudden hole in the in the city.

All right.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yep.

Any further questions?

Thank you.

I'll now open the floor for discussion or entertain a motion from the commission.

I'll make a motion.

Motion by Commissioner Boyum.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Ross.

Uh and just for the minutes here, uh, just want to note that Commissioner Ahmed is now present.

Uh, any further discussion by the commission.

Seeing none, uh on the motion, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passed.

Would you like me to read the motion for the recording?

Yeah.

We need the motion repeated.

Probably a good idea.

Um, probably be a good idea for the yes.

Yeah, do you want to repeat it?

Okay.

So on the motion we just approved.

Uh, the exact phrasing is uh motion to forward a recommendation of approval for the construction of a 125-foot commercial wireless telecommunication service tower with ancillary equipment in a light industrial zoning district as supported by the associated community development memo dated July 22nd, 2026, subject to two conditions of approval.

And I second that, of course.

And the motion did pass unanimously.

Uh that concludes our agenda items for tonight.

Moving on to other business, any other business commission staff.

I'll go first.

I wanted to introduce Anthony Chiki.

He's been here before and announced that he's been promoted as our planning supervisor.

So this is our transition, and you'll see him going forward.

So welcome to make that in introduction and congrats to Anthony.

Welcome.

Congrats.

Congrats and welcome, Anthony.

Any other business from the commission?

Seeing none, and our agenda is completed, I adjourn the meeting.

Second and third.

I like that he's I like when he sits there.

I like a motion.

Boy, I'm you'll you'll need to.

I think we need a motion to adjourn.

Yeah.

We don't need to if the agenda's completed according to Robert's fields.

That's true.

What do you think, Teresa?

Attorney.

I mean, we we kind of I'll second the motion.

All right.

Motion by myself, seconded by Commissioner Andrus.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you.