You

Staff, we're ready when you are.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Welcome to the June 26, 2025 Planning and Design Commission.

The meeting is now called to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioners, please unmute.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lee?

Here.

Commissioner Tao?

Here.

Commissioner Llamas?

Here.

Commissioner Naibo?

Absent.

Commissioner Caden?

Here.

Commissioner Hernandez?

Here.

Commissioner Macias-Reid?

Absent.

Commissioner Ortiz?

Here.

Commissioner Blunt?

Here.

Vice Chair Chase?

Here.

Commissioner Reschke?

Absent.

Commissioner Thompson absent chair young here thank you chair we have a quorum

thank you I would like to remind members of the public in chambers that if you

would like to speak on an agenda item please turn in a speaker slip when the

item begins you will have three minutes to speak once you are called on after

the first speaker we will no longer accept speaker slips we will now proceed

with today's agenda please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of the

Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands to the original people of this

land the Nisenan people the southern Maidu Valley and Plains Miwok Patwin

Wintoon peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancheria Sacramento's only

federally recognized tribe may we acknowledge and honor the native people

who came before us and still walk beside us today on these and ancestral lands by

choosing to gather today in the active practice of acknowledgement and

appreciation of Sacramento's indigenous peoples history contributions and lives

please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the

flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one

nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

all right thank you first we will have the director's report from Stacia thank you

chair I just have one item for the director's report this evening but it is a

very special item tonight we are saying goodbye to one of our planners one of our

planning staff Garrett Norman who is the senior planner for the north area of the

city and he's sitting right here in the front row in case you want to lay eyes on

him Garrett's last day is today and so we are saying goodbye and thanking him for

and recognizing him for all of his time and his service here with the city of

Sacramento and before I we do have a couple of special speakers but before I

turn it over to them I want to say thank you from me Garrett because you are

really the consummate planner and I have really enjoyed working with you over the

last ten years and I think I have figured out your superpower and it is that you

treat everyone with kindness and respect which seems simple but it's not it's

probably the hardest thing you can do and you do it all the time and so thank you

so I would like to invite up our guests if you want to come one at a time we can certainly

go ahead and do that so first we have Eduardo are you going first okay I'll hand it over

to you yes good afternoon Commission my name is Eduardo Madri Moreno I'm the district director

for vice mayor Karina Talamante's office thank you chair Commissioner Lamas Stacia for

giving us the opportunity to recognize a fellow staff member with nearly a decade

of service to the city of Sacramento on behalf of vice mayor Karina Talamante's

councilmember Lisa Kaplan and councilmember Roger Dickinson we would like to

express our gratitude to Garrett Norman for his service to the city of Sacramento

Garrett has worked with community members developers council offices and and the

Planning Commission to best manage developments in our community here has

made an effort and showed willingness to work with our community to find

solutions for projects come into the district thank you Garrett for your

service to the city of Sacramento I will keep it short because I know we have a

long agenda and so I will yield the rest of my time to represent us from the other

council offices

good evening everyone my name is Matteo Ramirez Mercado I serve as district

director to councilmember Lisa Kaplan representing district 1 in the city of

Sacramento first and foremost to the chair and fellow commissioners thank you for the

opportunity to speak this evening and share a few words recognizing and

celebrating your Norman for his 10 years of service of the city district 1 as we

all know we have tons of development and Garrett's been essential to getting us up to

speed quickly with the development prior to us coming into office current

development and also future development as well and for me personally I know

through the monthly meetings and also just Garrett being a phone call or a text

message away you know he's been a tremendous help with getting the additional

information we needed on big projects such as Panhandle Greenbrier CNU but also the

dozens of others that we have in the pipeline as well and as Eduardo mentioned you know just our

station mentioned just the respect and kindness you have for your community it

doesn't go unnoticed and you will be tremendously missed you know I know he

worked in both the north and south sides of the city but having them having

him up in the north Haiti has been a tremendous help so on behalf of

councilmember Kaplan and the district 1 team we want to thank you congratulate you on his next journey in your life and your life and your time is a great

congratulate you on his next journey in your career in life and we wish you the best of luck thank you

I'm Brian DeBlanc chief of staff to councilmember Roger Dickinson and here to say the same thing to thank thank you actually board and commissioners thank you for all your work all of your service all the things you're doing for the city and to thank Garrett now I can't take a little offense we get here and we start saying we're going to do things

in in North Sac and district 2 and you're like well I think Chico looks good for me about now but but but no Gary you're you're an absolute pleasure to work with getting to know you getting to work with you we've got a lot done in six months and we've got a lot more to do and so again thank you all and I was handed this little certificate that we have to present I don't know Stacia if you wanted to say a few words or or if you want to come down

come up for a picture is that what we're doing

for a picture

I don't know

Garrett would you like

the mic to maybe share a few words yes thank you chair this is certainly a bittersweet moment for me I have been with the city for nearly a decade and it's been absolutely wonderful I have learned so much I started as an assistant planner in the south area and worked on other various policy items and then eventually was granted the opportunity to be the senior planner for the north area team and it's just been an absolutely amazing time and I really have enjoyed the

serving the residents of the city of Sacramento it's a great community and it will forever hold a place in my heart and I will never forget this opportunity that I've had and I will again miss everybody and my staff and everything that I've learned so I really appreciate this this is so nice thank you everybody thank you

thank you

thank you

thank you

all right thank you for indulging us this was great

this was great we're going to move on to our order of business next order of business today which is the approval of the consent calendar quite a transition there clerk are there many any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar

thank you chair I do not have any speaker slips on this item

any commissioners who want to speak on this item

shall we can I get a motion then oh I see it thank you sorry commissioner Hernandez

motion to approve have a motion commissioner blunt second all right will the clerk please call roll thank you that was a first by commissioner

a second by commissioner

Dr. Pl Matrix

Commissioners

commissioners put a of like we go

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Hey

15

Commissioner

please unmute

company

mehr

ло

le

Aye.

Commissioner Blunt?

Aye.

Vice Chair Chase?

Aye.

Commissioner Reschke absent.

Commissioner Thompson?

Aye.

Thank you.

And Chair Young?

Aye.

The motion passes.

Thank you.

All right.

The next item is item two, the Airport South Industrial Annexation P21-017.

Before we begin, are there any disclosures or recusals for this item?

Commissioner Caden?

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

I'm going to be recusing myself from this item again.

I don't have a conflict of interest on the financial side, but just want to avoid the perception of bias given my employment at SACOG and the link between SACOG's Long Range Plan and the LAFCO annexation process.

Great.

Thank you.

Commissioner Hernandez?

I received a number of emails from community members and did not have any phone calls this time.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Chase?

Nothing recent, but prior to the previous commission meeting, I had a meeting with the applicant and also had telephone discussions with the community.

Thank you.

Commissioner Thompson?

A number of emails and I had a meeting with the applicant, all consistent with the staff report.

Thank you.

Commissioner Ortiz?

I had a conversation with a proponent as well as an opponent on the project, and that was prior to the first time it was scheduled.

Commissioner Blunt?

I also had a series of emails from the public, consistent with the staff report.

Commissioner Lee?

Yeah, I attended one of the LAFCO meetings for this project.

I met with the applicant, ECOS, the Environmental Council of Sacramento, and a representative of IBEW Local 340, and also received emails from the public, consistent with the staff report.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lamas?

Since the first item first came up, I have had conversations both with the applicant and interested parties in opposition of the project.

And since we last heard it, I have received several emails from stakeholders, voicing a variety of concerns or support consistent with the staff report.

Thank you.

And I, too, have also met with members of the ECOS group applicant in the first go-round and has received emails from the public as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, Chair Young and members of the Planning and Design Commission.

My name is Garrett Norman, Senior Planner, and I will be providing the staff presentation for the Airport South Industrial Annexation Project.

So the project consists of annexing approximately 447 acres from Sacramento County into the City of Sacramento.

The proposed development includes up to 5.2 million square feet of light industrial uses comprised of warehouse distribution and research and development on approximately 237 acres,

and up to 98,000 square feet of highway commercial uses on 15.7 acres that is anticipated to include a gas station, drive-through restaurants, and a hotel.

There are four non-participating parcels included within the annexation area that are not included within the development application.

These properties total roughly 83 acres and have the potential to be developed with 1.4 million square feet of light industrial uses.

Remaining acreage is devoted for stormwater detention, utility pump stations, and a SMUD substation.

Lastly, there is a Caltrans remnant parcel just south of I-5.

All right.

All right.

So here is the distribution of the project area.

In purple are the designated light industrial areas.

In that lightish red or pink color is the highway commercial parcels.

In this lightish gray color, this bluish gray is the non-participating properties that are included within the annexation but are not part of the development application.

The green shows the stormwater detention areas.

The yellow are the utility SMUD substation and the pump station.

And then lastly, that darker gray color is the Caltrans remnant parcel.

The annexation area is in unincorporated Sacramento County and is located southeast of Powerline Road and I-5.

The property abuts the city limit boundary on the east and a portion to the north.

Currently, the property is designated agriculture agricultural cropland with AG-80 zoning within the county.

The project is adjacent to the Metro Air Park industrial complex and the Sacramento International Airport to the north, the Westlake neighborhood to the east, and Paso Verde K-8 school to the south.

Also, the county approved the Watt EV truck terminal project directly to the west, which includes development of approximately 100 acres for an electric truck charging and service station and is expected to begin construction this fall.

This application has been in process for four years.

The application was first submitted to the city in May of 2021.

There has been a tremendous amount of work that has led up to this evening, which includes significant outreach efforts, an EIR scoping meeting, a review and comment at the Planning and Design Commission in April of last year, releasing the draft EIR, preparation of the final EIR, a recommendation by the Active Transportation Commission in March of this year, and two Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission hearings on the sphere of influence amendment.

At their May 7th hearing, the Sacramento LAFCO approved the sphere of influence amendment.

The proposed project includes several entitlements.

These entitlements include annexation into the city limits, general plan amendments, pre-zoning to establish zoning designations, two development agreements, one for each participating property owner, establishing a planned unit development guidelines and schematic,

the master parcel map, public facilities finance plan, and the public facilities finance plan that establishes the funding framework for required infrastructure, amendment to the city's bicycle master plan for the proposed bicycle infrastructure, water supply assessment to ensure adequate water supply to serve the development, and lastly, a tax exchange agreement is required prior to annexation between the city and county, which will be brought to the city council separately.

The city has prepared a final EIR and mitigation monitoring and reporting program, which included analysis of the proposed project, as well as land use assumptions for the non participating properties.

LAFCO is the final decision maker on the annexation and will consider the annexation after the city acts on the land use entitlements.

The project proposes to amend the 2040 general plan by establishing land use designations, floor area ratio standards, the circulation element to identify new roadway classifications, and include the area within the North Natomas community plan.

The designation includes roughly 420 acres of employment, mixed use for light industrial and commercial uses, and roughly 6.7 acres of open space to serve as a 125 foot buffer along a portion of the eastern and southern boundaries adjacent to Westlake and Paso Verde school.

The proposed pre-zoning includes rezoning from the county's agricultural 80 zone to roughly 336 acres of light industrial or M1 PUD, roughly 15.7 acres of highway commercial or 8 C PUD, roughly 70 acres of light industrial or M1 for the non participating properties, and roughly 6.7 acres of agriculture open space to serve as a

the north and west to serve as a full space for the 125 foot buffer along a portion of the eastern and southern boundaries adjacent to Westlake and Paso Verde school.

The project includes the creation of a new planned unit development guidelines and schematic plan that would only apply to the participating properties.

The PUD establishes the regulatory development framework within prescriptive development standards for building design and site layout and the building design and site layout.

As well as a schematic plan that identifies land uses.

The guidelines specifically address building orientation, height and setbacks, landscaping and screening requirements, parking and circulation standards, architectural design elements, and monument signage.

The PUD provides additional restrictions on the eastern edge closest to Westlake that includes maximum building height, maximum building size, orienting all truck bays away from the eastern property line, and requiring an additional 125 foot building setback to serve as an additional buffer to the city owned buffer property.

Because the non participating properties are not within the PUD staff is proposing to split zone the parcel closest to Westlake and Paso Verde school with a 125 foot open space buffer as previously described in the pre-zone and general plan exhibits.

This split zone parcel is often referred to as parcel eight or the Scalora property.

This split designation provides assurances that the land cannot be developed with light industrial uses and therefore creates an additional open space buffer to match the building setback buffer provided in the PUD.

Similar to the city owned buffer property, there is an additional 200 foot buffer between Paso Verde school and the non participating property or parcel eight.

This buffer area is within the county of Sacramento and has limited development potential because of its zoning and unique configuration.

It's important to add that it is not unusual to see light industrial uses that accommodate heavy truck bays that are adjacent to residential uses.

Both examples shown on the screen above are in North Natomas.

On the left side is a research and development spec building that was improved in the employment center zone which is directly across from residential along Duckhorn Drive.

On the right side is the Panhandle subdivision that was approved north of the Pan area along Del Paso Road.

The applicant proposes to subdivide the participating properties into 25 master parcels.

This includes 11 parcels totaling 237 acres, 6 highway commercial parcels totaling 15.7 acres,

and 8 utility parcels for detention basins, pump stations, and a SMUD substation.

The map also creates the proposed roadways including Airport South Industrial Drive connecting Power Line Road to the eastern boundary,

Metro Air Parkway extension from the I-5 interchange southward, and internal circulations that are currently named as A Drive and B Drive.

A roundabout at A Drive and Bayou Way is provided to discourage truck traffic from heading east towards West Lake,

and the abandonment and realignment of a portion of the existing Bayou Way is also proposed.

The map includes comprehensive conditions of approval for infrastructure requirements,

public facilities and financing, utility connections and easements, flood protection, and future maintenance obligations.

An environmental impact report has been prepared in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act,

with the city being co-lead agency with LAFCO.

This process began in March of 2022 with the notice of preparation and a public scoping meeting.

The draft EIR was released for public review in May of 2024,

and LAFCO held a public hearing on the draft EIR in June 2024.

The final EIR is complete, and LAFCO certified the final EIR with their sphere of influence amendment that was approved in May.

The city council will also be required to certify the final EIR with the city entitlements.

Mitigation measures are incorporated to reduce most impacts to a less than significant level.

However, even with mitigation, some impacts were found to be significant and unavoidable,

and were related to visual character, farmland and agriculture policies, and air quality.

If there are significant and unavoidable impacts, the lead agency must adopt a statement of overriding considerations,

and can consider economic, legal, social, technological, and other benefits to certify the EIR.

The benefits of this project include revitalizing underutilized lands, providing additional retail near residential,

creating permanent employment opportunities near places of residence,

generate property tax and sales tax for the city,

and provides funding for the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

The project is located within the Natomas Basin, which is home to several animals and plant species protected under state and federal law as endangered or threatened.

The city obtained authorization in 2003 to allow development while protecting endangered species in North and South Natomas.

This is referred to as the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan and covers roughly a 53,000-acre land area in the basin.

It also identifies 22 sensitive species potentially affected by development.

If the project is developed, the required HCP mitigation includes approximately $13.7 million in HCP fees, including land dedication of over 200 acres of protected open space,

requires pre-construction surveys for covered species and avoidance and minimization measures.

The project would contribute to the successful completion of HCP conservation strategy and supports acquisition of the remaining 325.7 acres needed for North and South Natomas build out.

The project would not affect the efficacy of the one half acre to one acre mitigation ratio.

It would not adversely affect the site-specific management plans for the Natomas Basin Conservancy.

It would not significant impact habitat connectivity for covered species.

And it would not prevent the conservancy from establishing required reserve lands.

It's important to note that if approved, the project would complete a nearly 400-acre block of HCP mitigation land south of the project site.

These parcels are owned by the developer and are ready to be dedicated to the conservancy if approved.

Now I'll turn it over to Cheryl Hodge, principal planner, for an additional comment on the HCP.

Cheryl Hodge, principal planner, for the new growth section.

And I also serve as the city manager's designee as the liaison for the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

This designation makes me responsible for successfully implementing the habitat conservation plan

and ensuring the city fulfills its obligations to mitigate for its 8,050 acres of authorized development as outlined in the plan.

Since 2017, I have overseen the daily implementation of this plan.

This includes preparation of the city's HCP annual reports, reviewing pre-construction biological surveys, collecting HCP fees, and making annual adjustments to these fees,

conducting field visits, and attending the Natomas Basin Conservancy Board meetings as the city's representative.

I work closely with our HCP partners, which include the Conservancy, Sutter County, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Through this work, I have helped collect what now amounts to over $54 million in HCP fees and over 5,300 acres of potential habitat lands, or I'm sorry, of protected habitat lands in Natomas Basin.

I have been a dedicated steward of this plan, working with it daily, and both professionally and personally, I am invested in the success of this plan, seeing it through to completion.

Tonight, you are going to hear comments that the Airport South Industrial Annexation jeopardizes the successful implementation of the HCP.

I am here to tell you that this is false.

In fact, without the contributions toward the HCP from this project, in both land dedication and fees, the city may fail to complete its HCP obligations.

With ongoing county projects in the basin that do not contribute toward the HCP, there may come a point where there is not enough acquirable land that meets HCP criteria for the city and other HCP parties to successfully mitigate within the basin.

The HCP is a benefit to the HCP.

The HCP is a benefit to the HCP.

The HCP is a benefit to the HCP and will further advance the conservation strategy by providing over $13 million in future payment of HCP fees and over 200 acres of HCP protected land dedication.

The Airport South Industrial Project does not result in the city exceeding its cap of 8,050 acres of authorized development.

Simply put, a no vote for this project is a no vote for the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

And I just wanted to convey that because I work with it every day.

It's the city that's responsible for compliance of the HCP and ensuring its success.

And we have done that for over 25 years and nothing's going to change that.

We're going to keep doing that.

Thank you.

All right.

Staff recommends the commission forward a recommendation of approval to the city of the HCP.

The city council because the project is a logical and contiguous expansion of the city limits and it's within the city's sphere of influence.

It's consistent with ensuring logical city boundaries that facilitate the ability to efficiently provide city services, address economic development needs, and optimize municipal costs and revenues.

It's consistent with the general plan goals for industrial areas which aim to provide industrial opportunities in suitable locations to promote economic growth and encourage well designed industrial properties, particularly where interfacing with other uses.

Creates an industrial and commercial development that supports the North Natomas community plans broader goals for creating a complete community.

With diverse land uses providing employment opportunities that complement the areas existing development.

And lastly provides an opportunity to benefit the Natomas habitat conservation plan by supporting the long-term objectives of the conservation strategy.

This concludes staff's presentation.

This is a presentation.

I will, the applicant has a presentation as well.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Nick Abdus with the law offices of Abdus and Coochie.

Thanks again for allowing us this opportunity to run through this presentation again.

I know last one where we're burning the midnight oil.

So I'll try to talk a little slower this time.

Before we begin, I want to thank Garrett Norman.

You know, I live in the city.

I live in D1, lived there my entire life and I've seen it grow and thrive into the bustling suburb that it is.

And it's really no small piece of that puzzle that Garrett, your contributions to the North area and frankly the entire city can't really be adequately described.

And you know, my experience with you, you're just a good human.

And so I know you'll do well.

Well, not much going on in the city of Chico though, but in any event.

And also planning commissioner Tao welcome.

Good first meeting for you, I suppose.

You know, first off, I want to also appreciate the overall collaborative effort.

Obviously it's brought us to this, this moment while complex projects do generate often debate.

That's important to recognize the professional dedication and countless hours invested by everyone.

Obviously Garrett, we talked about Cheryl, Scott, Greg, Matthew, and many others whose expertise and guidance has been invaluable throughout this process.

And as I mentioned, been practicing land use quite a long time.

And you really do have a solid team here in the city of Sacramento and you should be commended for that.

I'd also like to introduce our project team whose commitment and attention to detail have been instrumental in developing this proposal.

These professionals and their support staff, many of whom are here this evening to assist with responding to any questions, bring many decades of combined experience to this effort.

At this point, I am pleased to introduce Jeff Griffin with North Point Development, AKT's development partner, to take on the next segment of the presentation.

And I will join you a little later.

Good evening, commissioners.

Good to see you again.

And Commissioner Tao again, nice to meet you officially.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to introduce our firm and discuss our proposed project.

As Nick said, I'm Jeff Griffin, the West Region partner for North Point Development.

I opened our local office here in 2018.

North Point's headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, but I'm a Sacramento native born in Woodland.

North Point Development is a privately held real estate operating company founded in 2012 by Nathaniel Hagedorn, our current CEO.

Our firm specializes in industrial, data center, and multifamily developments.

And our current national portfolio consists of roughly 150 million square feet of class A industrial space and 6,500 multifamily units.

We have nine offices across the country employing roughly 400 development staff.

Our developments span 27 states and have helped create a home for over 100,000 jobs nationwide.

That's the single biggest fact on this slide that I'm most proud of.

This slide also shows a representation of some of the logistics clients, several of which are Fortune 50 companies that we work with.

Additionally, we show many of the charitable organizations that we help support here locally and beyond.

In the Sacramento community, again, starting in 2018, we've helped to develop over 5 million square feet of class A industrial space,

of which approximately 4 million square feet is in the Natomas community at Metro Air Park.

In 2018, we started in West Sacramento in the Southport Business Park.

We developed three assets across 60 acres.

And in 2019, we commenced our first Metro Air Park project and have gone on to develop seven assets within the park over the last five years across 245 acres.

In 2021, we purchased roughly 100 acres from Aerojet in the Rancho Cordova community and have redeveloped that property into two assets with an additional 20 acres yet to develop.

Locally, our projects represent an approximate $700 million investment in the community while helping create approximately 4,000 long-term jobs.

Not to mention the thousands of construction jobs that support the development of our projects.

The job creation is accomplished through teamwork, working closely with municipalities, capital partners, the contracting industry, in addition to, and most importantly, the ultimate user.

North Point is different than most other national development firms because our business model is to own our projects long-term.

In contrast to many other firms that stabilize their assets and typically dispose of them to institutional investment firms that mostly have no community presence.

We've been a part of the Sacramento community since 2018 and plan to be here a very long time.

The Sacramento community has been a terrific market for us to develop in, and we will continue to live into our core values and do our very best to help deliver high-quality projects which provide substantial community benefits.

Now, I wanted to take a few minutes here and kind of walk everybody through the history of this area.

This just provides a brief overview of the airport south area, and it's built out over the last 10 years.

This slide is an aerial from 2015.

Note, there is limited development around the airport, and there's no interchange at Metro Air Parkway and I-5.

In addition, there's zero assets on the ground at Metro Air Park.

Moving to the next slide, fast forward 10 years, we're now looking at a 2025 aerial, and you can see all the development in this northwest corner of Sacramento.

There's now a new interchange at Metro Air Parkway and I-5, a $30 million piece of infrastructure which opened in 2021 to serve the logistics capacity at Metro Air Park.

We also now see the North Lake subdivision mostly complete, and Metro Air Park now has 29 assets totaling almost 10 million square feet of Class A industrial space.

This park has become a premier logistics location due to its proximity to I-5 and I-80 intersections, so goods can be moved north, south, east, and west across the country.

On this slide, we wanted to highlight the International Airport's planned development boundary, which is shown here in red.

In addition, we wanted to show the Metro Air Park bounded in blue, and then the proposed Airport South annexation area in orange.

Note the $30 million piece of infrastructure that of the interchange dumps directly into the property.

The North Lake subdivision, again, mostly built out.

And the county's approved WAD-EV project location, which Garrett mentioned, which will assist in providing needed infrastructure to a future of CARB compliant electric truck fleets.

For these reasons, we believe our proposed project in this appropriate is appropriate use of this land, in addition to its proximity to housing for jobs to reduce vehicle miles traveled, as well as being situated under the FAA's flight path for the airport.

This slide represents the initial conceptual site plan that we began with in 2021, which became the basis for environmental impact analysis.

Note roughly 4.4 million square feet of industrial space, as well as a highway commercial component at the interchange.

Over the course of the past four years, while soliciting District 1 community feedback, by hosting multiple community outreach events, we have redesigned the easternmost portion of the project.

Zooming into that project, you'll see that we reduced the scale of the buildings in closest proximity to the West Lake community, designing much smaller buildings.

These type of assets could house community amenities such as bounce house or kids play zones, residential service providers, which was all requested by the community.

In addition, these types could be utilized for research and development facilities similar to those such as the local Nivigen, which Garrett also mentioned, which is located on Duckhorn Drive.

Next, we relocated the roadway, the north-south connector further away from the residential community as requested.

And we maintained a roundabout to direct truck trips towards the I-5 interchange, while additionally slowing down vehicular traffic moving eastbound into the residential community, which we heard has been an ongoing concern.

We have also provided for, in the PUD, a required 125-foot setback on the easternmost portion of the project, which will place any vertical assets some 350 feet from the Lanfinko properties in the West Lake community.

Now I'm going to pass it back to Nick.

All right, separate and apart from the project in front of you, and in response to community outreach and concerns raised, and as a gesture of goodwill to the immediate neighborhood to the west, excuse me, to the east of West Lake, North Point assisted the City of Sacramento Parks Department staff in conceptualizing an extension of the Egret Park Plan area.

By improving, by improving the city buffer property, which lies between the proposed ASI project and the West Lake community.

As you can see through this concept, it would improve, provide an improved trail connecting the north section of Egret Park to the Egret Park trail with substantial landscape features.

We have also provided an easement on our current tentative parcel map for future bike trail connection, future bike and pedestrian trail connections into the ASI project area.

And should the city proceed with improving this particular area.

Now we have a simulation video of what the view would look like from Lanfinko.

And we'll go ahead and do that now.

So as you can see, we're starting on the south end of Lanfinko.

Conceptually, you'll see the mature landscape features driving northbound on Lanfinko.

This provides a good visual of the obscure nature of the buildings that will be developed in the future.

Next, we wanted to also provide these pictures to show, excuse me, to provide the visual of the architecture for the proposed project.

We wanted to include these renderings.

In working with planning staff, we landed on these concept renderings for our logistics facilities,

some of which are contained within the PUD design guidelines.

Note, the top two have requested roof line and wall plane articulation with multiple paint schemes to break the massing in the buildings.

The bottom left represents the smaller buildings in the easternmost portion of the project area,

with more glazing along with articulation features to represent more of an office type look.

And on the bottom right, we show a basic concept of a four-story hotel,

which would be allowed within the highway commercial area at the interchange.

Now, we'd also like to show you a two-minute video how the proposed project could be developed as planned.

Now dropping down on the Metro Air Parkway interchange at I-5,

looking southbound and heading southbound, panning west.

Now panning east to show the conceptual highway commercial component.

As we head further south, we'll come to the Airport South Drive and Metro Air Parkway intersection.

Now get a representation of the larger logistics facilities,

as well as some of the articulation features that we discussed earlier.

Now we're heading eastbound.

Please note the substantial landscape buffer between the parkway and the buildings.

This view represents the native detention basin area.

We're now continuing eastbound, and we're heading into the easternmost portion of the project, which we redesigned.

These are smaller multi-tenant buildings.

Similar features to the larger logistics facilities until you get to the easternmost portion of the project.

These are the smaller buildings with more architecture to them, more glazing.

Again, trying to provide a visual character of more of an office building.

And this area will give you a view of that city buffer area with the improved landscape.

Next, we wanted to provide these pictures to show actual North Point development assets across the country.

Some similar to our Airport South concept, while others designed specifically for certain clients' needs.

Also, we wanted to provide a brief representation of what the interior warehouse components of these logistic buildings look like.

Note, these are no longer industrial warehouses, but high-tech logistics facilities that are clean, safe, and professional,

with advanced material handling equipment, and often with some level of robotics.

To compete in today's logistics industry, it comes down to optimizing automation for quicker and more efficient processing and delivery of goods.

Last is the office component of these assets.

It's similar, often in nature, to Class A office space for the employment retention factor.

These photos are actual North Point development clients' facilities, some of which also house cafeterias and exercise areas for the employee enjoyment.

Now, I'm going to pass it back to Nick to bring us home here.

Okay.

Just got a couple more slides, so appreciate your indulgence here.

So, we've touched on the nature and the setting of the project, and I'd like to also touch at this point on the economic benefits,

because they are not to be understated.

For this, we sought out, obviously, a respected economics firm to provide an impact, economic impact analysis.

EPS, which we all know is a known commodity in our industry and into this region, provided an independent economic impact analysis regarding ASI,

derived, and derived the following information.

There's over half a billion dollars invested, providing for substantial public sector revenues based upon significantly increased property values.

There's also an incredible school fees component, and this is notable because this project is not generating one student.

There's also a significant amount of investment in the community, and this is a significant amount of investment in the community,

while also providing the potential for meaningful sales tax dollars, should an e-commerce user be housed in this project area.

On to the next slide.

As represented in the prior slide, this project represents a massive investment in the community,

while estimated to pay over $120 million in fees over the course of its development, represented in the finance plan.

And this is just intended not to be specific, but to give you a sense of the fees generated, obviously, by the development of this project.

Also derived from the economic impact analysis for this project, it represents the potential to create a home for over 5,400 long-term operational jobs,

while creating over 3,700 construction job years.

This project could become an employment hub for the community, all immediately adjacent to diverse housing opportunities already being provided for in Northland Thomas.

Very important here, and something we're really proud of, is the fact that we have a career workforce training agreement with the building trades on our project,

which assures delivery of additional significant economic impact to our local labor workforce through our agreement with the applicable groups.

This agreement ensures that a large pool of skilled workers here locally will be employed in the building of the project,

providing sustained employment opportunities and protecting established living wage levels and working conditions that support middle-class families,

and our community in addition to enhancing career opportunities.

At this time, I just want to take a brief moment.

I know most will probably speak, but I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the men and women here who are here in support of the project.

I would ask you to stand up, if you would, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, in closing, I want to hit on some of the key concerns that you have heard or are about to hear about this project.

First and foremost, the HCP.

I don't think I could say it any better than your own staff.

This project will benefit the HCP full stop.

On agricultural conversion, I can tell you as a third generation Natomas farmer myself,

this land has limited agricultural viability due to its geographic constraints that restrict certain ag activities,

including crop dusting, pesticide use, and the creation of ongoing conflicts with adjacent residents regarding dust, noise, and pest issues.

And that's just to name a few.

Meanwhile, this proposed project will permanently preserve higher value ag land at a one to one ratio, protecting that farmland into perpetuity.

And this farmland currently has zero protection.

Regarding traffic and community impacts, we've taken these concerns very seriously by reducing development attention intensity,

as you've seen adjacent to the West Lake community, relocating roadways and truck bays further from existing buildings,

further from existing neighborhoods.

The EIR confirms that these traffic impacts will be less than significant with the mitigation incorporated in the project.

Regarding air quality and airport safety, our health risk assessment analysis shows impacts below established thresholds for nearby neighborhoods and schools.

Regarding the detention basins, which are very large and near the airport,

the EIR determined that the bird strike hazard risks would be less than significant with the implementation of a wildlife hazard management plan,

similar to what other projects in North Natomas have done.

And those, and the plan will be developed in coordination with county airports personnel.

Finally, you may hear about the county's urban services boundary.

This is a planning tool for unincorporated areas that has never applied to any city in this county, including the city of Sacramento.

Let me tell you what the reality is.

This is the last significant vacant parcel of land between the current city boundary and the airport.

It's surrounded by three on three sides by existing or planned development.

We already heard about the WAD EV project, which I understand is breaking ground this summer.

The question is not whether this land will develop.

It's a question of when.

It's next to the airport, next to a heavy truck charging facility, and next to a $30 million interchange.

The question is really going to be whether we do it thoughtfully with workforce protections, environmental stewardship,

or if we wait for a less desirable project.

With that, we're excited about this project's potential to strengthen our community, our city, and we hope that you share that vision,

and I hope you will support approval of this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any speaker slips for this item?

Yes, Chair.

I have 28 speaker slips for this item.

Thank you.

So, I think what we'd like to do, just given the fact that we've got a big number of speakers,

we're going to call people five at a time and have them come up to the front and sit down at the chair, at the reserve seats.

Is that okay?

Sure.

Why don't we do it at four?

Four?

Four is more manageable for me.

Okay.

Thank you.

That works.

So, we'll call four at a time and then just kind of be at the front.

And then, I guess I would like to just encourage the groups.

I know there are different groups here who want to kind of make whatever case there is.

I would just encourage your groups, like, if you could maybe avoid any duplication of comments.

That might save us some time, but we do want to hear them.

So, that would just be my encouragement, but speak away.

Okay.

Go ahead.

All right.

Thank you, Chair.

So, first speaker on this item, I'm going to list four people.

Ivan Parker, followed by Will McKee, followed by Rita Donahue, and Troy Takara.

If you could please make your way to the microphone, starting with Ivan.

You'll have three minutes to speak.

First of all, thank you.

This is my first time being in this building.

So, I just want to say thank you.

I'm an IBW electrical worker, and I fully believe that the development of this.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

The development of this building will generate hundreds of quality jobs for union workers, like myself and my fellow brothers and sisters.

Benefiting not just us, but the electrical industry and the entirety of the Sacramento community.

As a Sacramento native, or excuse me, as Sacramento grows, it is critical that this growth includes good paying skilled labor jobs.

It is important that it is.

Sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Next.

Thank you.

Next, Will McKee.

Hi.

My name is Will McKee.

First off, I'd like to thank my brother that just came up.

We bring people that are working in the field.

You know, they speak to their passion.

So, good afternoon.

I'm Will McKee, and I have been a member of IBW Local 340 for 10 years.

I currently teach at our local training center for apprentices.

Today, I ask you to support the Airport South Industrial Project.

During my time as a union member, I've had the opportunity to work on the Defense Microelectronics Agency clean rooms, Department of General Services, and the Convention Center downtown.

The career that I've got in the union working on these projects has meant a huge deal to myself and my family, the ability to engage in this workforce that I never thought was possible.

No one came to my high school to talk about this.

So, the fact that I get to do this and provide for my family means a lot to me.

During my time as a training center instructor, I can tell you these major projects are not only economic drivers for the future sustainability of our city.

They're learning environments where our apprentices get their opportunity to learn on state-of-the-art projects that will help define their careers as electricians.

They offer the kind of scale and complexity that prepare our apprentices for a lifetime in the trade.

When there's not enough local work, our apprentices sometimes must travel long distances just to get their hours.

This project keeps that talent and that income right here in Sacramento.

So, please support the Airport South project so we can move the process forward so we can continue to invest in Sacramento.

Thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Rita Donahue.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.

I was actually a Sacramento City Planning Commissioner at the time of the development of the North Natomas Community Plan.

And I also am a retired teacher.

I oppose this project.

It is next to the Paso Verde K-8 School and the residential neighborhoods of Westlake and Northlake.

This project has potential negative impacts on air quality and health from the emissions of diesel trucks on the residents in the nearby community and on children and staff attending the school.

In a typical school day, K-6 students are scheduled for a morning recess of approximately 20 minutes, a lunch recess, and an afternoon recess of 10 to 15 minutes all outdoors.

In addition, the California Ed Code requires elementary students in K-6 to have 200 minutes per 10 days of physical education, which is usually two 50-minute classes per week.

And for students in the seventh and eighth grade at the school, they are required to have 400 minutes per 10 days of physical education.

This means that middle school students will have a daily class period in physical education of 50 minutes.

These students will be in PE classes that at times will be strenuous activities while they're being exposed to the poor air quality outside, as most PE classes are outside except for the rainy days.

The project designated M-1 industrial use next to the K-8 school and residential neighborhoods, and this is not a compatible land use.

K-12 schools and residential uses are prohibited in an M-1 zone, so it does not make sense for this project to be located near a K-8 school and residential homes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, Troy Takara.

Good evening, City Council members.

My name is Troy Takara, and I've been a member of the IBW Local 340 for six years.

Today, I ask you to support the Airport South Industrial Project.

During my time as a union member, I have had the opportunity to work at multiple hospital projects in our region.

Growth and expansion in our region is inevitable, and this project is more than just a one-time construction job for our industry.

It is a magnet for economic development.

It will attract logistics centers, manufacturing facilities, and high-tech industries which bring long-term investment, tax revenue, and jobs to our region.

Industrial development demands skilled and trained labor to meet rigorous safety and performance standards.

The IBW members are trained to deliver high-quality, code-compliant work for quality work product and project timelines.

Please support the Airport South Industrial Project.

Let's move the process forward so we can continue to invest in Sacramento.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

The next four speakers are in this order.

Joseph Blas, Jamie Rogers, John Reardon, and Richard Kunha.

Are you Joseph?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

You have three minutes to speak.

Thank you.

First off, thank you for taking time away from your families and being here and talking about this South Airport Industrial Annexation.

Not only does the Annex bring high-quality, good-paying jobs to the Sacramento area, it's also helping our local unions and labor boards, getting these kids that are in these schools, they're getting a chance to see these construction projects being built right across the field from them.

When I went to school, our teachers didn't talk about going into trades.

They said they pushed college, college, college, college.

I tried going to college for two years, couldn't do it.

Found the trades, and thank God I did because I finally just journeyed out two years ago.

So I started building the Oracle Stadium, and that was because of you guys.

I was just bringing that stadium to Sacramento so we could build it.

So thank you for your time, and please support the self-annexation.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, Jamie Rogers.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners.

My name is Jamie Rogers.

I'm a second year apprentice with IBEW Local 340.

I am here this evening to ask you to vote yes on the Airport South industrial annexation.

Industrial development demands skilled and trained labor to meet rigorous safety and performance standards.

The Airport South projects close proximity to our training center will allow more opportunities for our apprentices.

This means less travel time, more flexibility, and the ability to apply classroom learning directly to nearby job sites for those often juggling the demands of work, school, and family obligations.

Thank you for your time and support.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, John Reardon.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

My name is John Reardon.

I'm a business rep with IBEW Local 340.

I'm here tonight on behalf of our 2,400 members to express our strong support of the Airport South industrial project.

This project, if approved, represents a critical investment in our region and our future.

It proposes over 400 acres of modern industrial logistics space, a development that is not merely about construction, but strategically positioning our community for the evolving economic landscape.

For IBEW Local 340, the benefits are tangible and immediate.

This project guarantees significant work for our skilled electricians and technicians, translating approximately 120 high-quality family-sustaining jobs over the next four years.

These are not just numbers.

They are local residents, taxpayers, and community members who will directly contribute their wages back into our local economy.

This project is precisely the type of forward-thinking industrial space that we need as a consumer habits shift increasingly towards delivery-based systems.

A logistics center at this location is not a luxury, but a necessity.

The location is just outside the urban core, the airport, and a major interstate with a planned charging station for the electronic truck industry.

This project will enable our region to adapt and thrive.

It demonstrates a commitment to creating well-paying jobs, fostering economic resilience, and embracing new logistical demands of our region.

We urge the Commission to support this project, not only for the benefit of our union members, but also for the broader economic development of the entire region.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Richard Kunha.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I am here on behalf of the Cayoca and Scalora families who are owners of Parcel 8, which is then the proposed area.

We strongly endorse the city's staff's recommendation and request you adopt and follow it.

Our property was purchased and has been owned by us since 1960.

It was farmed for over 50 years and then came homes to our east and a school to our south.

It became virtually impossible to continue farming and so our land sits idle except for trespassers, homeless, and illegal trash dumping.

We are losing our land little by little by surrounding it with other issues and then being told that we can't develop the land because of the other users.

As for the North Point request before you, we need to differentiate between participating and non-participating parcels.

Non-participating, which is us, just means that our parcel has not been committed as a financial project applicant participate to the North Point development project.

However, the environmental evaluation recommendation for mitigation for future development in the annexation area includes calculations for certain amount of traffic, pollution, and other items pointed at our property.

However, those are just calculation numbers for the report.

There's nothing specific from our property.

In fact, our property is concerned with three issues, habitat, traffic, and pollution.

As for habitat concerns, our property is already covered by the Natomas HCP and there's no evidence to show that it will be violated or disregarded.

Any future development of our property will comply with the Natomas HCP, which greatly benefits and supports the ultimate completion of the HCP conservation plan.

We have not proposed any roadways or anything that creates or emits pollution on or from our property.

Further, there's only one road proposed by North Point near our property and that's at the north end of our acreage.

And the distance from that road to the school is about the same distance as Del Paso road is to the school.

There are no road, no roads proposed on our east side, Westlake or our south side, the school.

Regarding barriers, there's already a barrier between us and Westlake of approximately 200 feet.

In addition, we've been cooperating with city staff and have been agreeable to provide an additional buffer on our property that results in a greater open space buffer separator.

We should be given the same fair opportunity for future development of our property as was granted by the city to the development that became our residential and school neighbors.

Given our history with the land and the diminution and the means to utilize it, we believe it's only fair and reasonable that you go forward and follow the city's recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your time is complete.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next four speakers, Neildon, Jane Charles, Kyle Suarez, Zach Noonan, and Jaime Torres.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Evening, Planning Commissioners, name is Neildon, John Charles, Senior Field Representative for the NoCal Cabinet Union, representing 36,000 members.

Lost my line.

Lost my notes here.

All right.

So I'm going to focus on the environmental impact report.

So if you do approve this project, you will be in violation of the CEQA for the following reason.

The draft EIR failed to analyze the project's consistency within the Thomas Basin Habitat Conversation Plan.

The project relies on deferred mitigation in numerous areas, including the water, noise, biological resources, and compliance with Federal Aviation Authority guidance.

The city should require additional transportation mitigation be performed for each of the proposed facilities, as the current mitigation do not adequately reduce the project's significant impacts.

The city, the city IEF includes impermissible additional changes to the FEIR that was previously certified by the LAFCO.

The EIR fails to properly mitigate the site's potential hazards as it relates to construction workers.

Therefore, the city and LAFCO must revise this recirculation, the EIR, to address the areas of concern, including the unmitigated transportation impacts, improperly divert hazard mitigation, and the improper mitigation of the impacts associated with the project's detention basin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Kyle.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Kyle Swarns.

I've been a carpenter for...

So at first I should mention, I wear two hats tonight.

I'm a father of a four-year-old.

I have a stepdaughter that actually goes to West Charter School there in the Thomas.

I've been a resident of the Thomas since about 2010.

I live right off of Berkway is where I originally moved to.

I'm also a union carpenter myself.

I've been working into trades for about 22 years.

I've done many projects in the Thomas from a water pump station at Metro Air Park to the six-story parking garage at the SAC Airport, even a fire station in the Thomas.

So I got a long history in the Thomas.

And tonight, I'm letting you know I'm against this development.

So the city should require the project to be built with contractors that will require locally pay prevailing wages and utilize apprentices from state-certified apprenticeship training programs.

Workforce requirements reduce construction-related environment impacts while benefiting the local economy and workforce development.

In a recent 2020 report titled Putting California on a High Road, a Job and Climate Action Plan for 2030, the California Workforce Development Board concluded that investments in growing diversity and upscaling California workforce can positively affect returns on climate mitigation efforts.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District recently found that local hire requirements can result in air pollution reduction.

Recent, the state of California repeated its commitment towards encouraging workforce development and housing affordability through the Affordable Housing and High Roads Job Acts of 2022, which requires projects pay workers a preventive wage and hire from state-certified apprenticeship programs for projects, meaning certain sightings.

And I want to let you know that the state of California is a preventive work that are in the state of California, which is a preventive work that is in the state of California, which is a preventive work that is in the state of California, which is a preventive work that is in the state of California.

And I want to let you know, besides the smoke screens that are presented to you tonight, carpenters are about 70% of the workforce on these projects.

I've mentioned several of them.

We do the work when it goes up.

70% of the work.

So 70% of the workers are not being represented tonight despite what you're hearing tonight.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Zach Noonan.

Good evening, Planning and Design Commission.

Good evening, Planning and Design Commission.

My name is Zach Noonan, a 35-year member of UA Local 447 Plumbers and Pipe Fitters.

I'm here to speak in favor of the staff recommendations for the Airport South project.

Sacramento is fortunate that a development team is willing to make a significant private investment in the city of Sacramento.

Local 447 and its members are looking forward to building this project as it will create hundreds of construction jobs and permanent jobs once completed.

We're also happy that this development meets all the environmental standards of the city and Local 447 urges your support of staff's recommendations to support this project.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, Jaime Torres.

Chair and Commissioners, thank you for taking the time to give us the opportunity to speak on behalf of this item today and to add it to your busy workloads.

Thank you for the last time you had this on the table.

It was a lot to augment your workload so that is greatly appreciated.

I'm here in support today in this item in lieu of 3600 members that I proudly represent that are working at the colony here in the Sacramento area.

I'm a business representative with Local 185 Labors.

We collectively jump in with Sacramento Sierra Building trades.

We work collectively with the trades to actually produce these jobs, create opportunities for our youth.

Sometimes some of the most financially impacted neighborhoods that we live in that cover the Sacramento area.

These are opportunities of kids that don't want to go into a college education because one, their family may not be able to finance this.

It puts a burden on their family.

They do not want to have the debt and they do not want to go into a job where at the same time they would be making less money than actually joining one of our apprenticeships.

These apprenticeships are highly educational.

We do not want to have the same time.

We do not want to have the same time.

We do not want to have the same time.

I still live in the same neighborhood I grew up in.

In this neighborhood, I run into some of my colleagues, some of my fellow members, even members from other unions.

I get to enjoy the fact that I get these people at the grocery stores and activities at the parks whenever I take my children to actually have a, they want an opportunity to join up with us.

They want something where they could be in a workforce that actually injects them into the middle class day in day out.

It is a pleasure to have here with us today.

We have state contractor number eight, eight, eight, I'm sorry, state contractor license number eight in the state of California today.

We have them here present because they're actually, they actually bring something to the table.

They bring apprenticeships to four different trades that they're signatory to they've supported.

This is a deal where these projects are strongly supported into a solid apprenticeship that provides, you know, employment to our members.

So thank you very much and have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

Next four speakers, Lionel Berrigan, followed by Heather Fargo, followed by Ara Shayk, followed by Susan Harry.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Lionel Berrigan.

I have been a longtime resident of North Newt Thomas.

I'm in strong support of this project because it will keep local jobs within our community, allowing us to work closer to home.

The proposed location is ideal with convenient, with a convenient access to Wi-Fi and the airport.

I encourage you to approve this project for the benefit of our local workforce and economy.

Let's build locally so we can work locally instead of having us going to, well, not only us, but other trades going to the Bay Area, taking time away from our family versus drive time going to the Bay Area.

You know, spending three, four hours coming back when we can take advantage of looking locally and taking advantage of those four hours, taking our kids to any practice.

You know, both of my kids, my sons do go.

They belong to the Natomas Unified School District.

So it's always nice when I can be home and take them to their practice instead of spending drive time to the Bay Area.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Heather Fargo.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners, and welcome.

Commissioner Chau.

Nice to have you here.

I know you're going to do a good job representing your district and the rest of the city.

I handed out a map because unlike developers and staff, the public is not allowed to use the overhead.

I'm not allowed to show you the PowerPoint that I would like to show you.

So we have produced a map that you can all look at and I'd like to walk you through that, through this.

I do think it's, and just so you know, I have written to both the mayor and the city clerk to ask for a change in your unfair policy of not allowing the public to utilize the same resources as the development community.

So in this map, this is a map, and I'm sorry the public can't see it, but since I can't use the overhead, you don't get to share.

The Natomas Basin is what this is.

Is this working?

Okay.

The Natomas Basin is both in the city of Sacramento, Sacramento County, and Sutter County.

And so the basin is outlined in the black line, one of the black lines.

We also have the Urban Services Boundary Line in blue.

And what I mostly wanted you to see were the green areas, which is the open space and habitat that's been preserved by the Natomas Basin Conservancy.

I don't know if you can stop that.

And I wanted you to see the number of projects being proposed to be built within the unpermitted acres of the Natomas Basin,

the airport south project before you tonight, but three other projects together total over 8,000 acres of land that could be lost from farming and habitat to future development.

So we were very concerned about that.

My name again is Heather Fargo.

I am the current president of the environmental council of Sacramento and the mayor of Sacramento when the Natomas habitat conservation plan was established.

We are here tonight to oppose this project and we ask that you recommend denial of this project to the city council.

Obviously in the short time that I have I can't describe all the reasons why we oppose this but other speakers will cover some of that.

This project violates every plan that has been approved by the city, county, and region for the last 25 years.

And as planners and commissioners we hope you will give some thought to what it means to discard all of those plans in favor of the one before you tonight.

This land is identified as agriculture and open space in all of them.

Let's see what else do I have time for?

I think the main issue that we want you to be aware of is the issue of air quality which Rita Donahue spoke to earlier mainly because of the children nearby as well as the housing.

We want you to ask yourself what is in the best interest of the residents of Natomas, both the people and the wildlife.

Please ask for a new EIR that includes analysis of parcel 8, the loss of farmland and habitat on the Natomas space and habitat conservation plan and the impacts of disregarding the UNSB.

I'm going to give you another minute because of the mic problems.

Okay, well my final thing will be to thank you for the time and ask that you one of the just one thing struck me about the birds because of the detention basins.

The mitigation measure to deal with the birds not being impacting the airplanes is to have dogs and noise.

And as someone who might be a student in that classroom or a resident nearby the thought of loose dogs running around in the yard next door hopefully not getting out.

And also the idea of noise being used next to a neighborhood I find pretty unacceptable.

So that's just one example of the problems that we see within this EIR.

We also have major concerns about the process that has been used but we don't have time to get into all that tonight.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you for those of you who were able to meet with me in doing so and I hope you got a chance to look at the Natomas space and Conservancy's annual report since I can't show you visuals.

The visuals are in that report and it shows you what we're trying to save.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is a raw shake.

All right. Hi, I'm Ira shake. I'm policy staff here with Ecos and I'm here to also urge you guys to reject airport south industrial project and its annexation into the city.

Approving this project would mean amending the general plan expanding city infrastructure and violating the intent of the NBH CP to allow where an alt is to allow your houses developing.

We simply do not need this in this location.

We have many more areas cited and the handout that we just gave you the two pager the second page on there has a map that identifies those sites all of which total to about 1113 acres of vacant and underutilized industrial zoned land already within five miles of the airport which are available for use.

Additionally 65% of that land is within just two miles of the airport.

These parcels are closer to existing services.

Don't put pressure on wildlife preserves and don't place diesel truck quarters near the two neighboring elementary schools and neighborhoods all of which are within a one minute walking distance of the planning site.

I would also like to point out that the 100 foot buffer that is mentioned in the plan is roughly the length from that wall to that wall.

That is not enough for just a buffer.

And the argument that if this site although there are available warehousing it still addresses the need for commercial sites and hotels is not useful.

That is because Metro Air Park still has 472 acres available for build out for the same reasons.

And to bring that into perspective even if half of these were allocated to hotels which had 200 to 300 rooms we could have 23 hotels and still half of that would be available for commercial use.

This project is not meeting a gap.

It is replacing smarter options with more harmful ones.

State planning guidance under the SB 375 and the memorandum use between the city and county for Natomas require you to avoid inducing sprawl when feasible alternatives exist.

And in this case they do.

This project does not pass environmental and planning tests when better options are on the table.

This is not a valid basis for the general plan amendments, annexation and rezoning.

Today you set the president for how Sacramento handles future development.

A yes vote tonight tells the public that speculative warehouse sprawl is more important than the health of our neighborhoods, our children, or farmland and our wildlife.

It says that a developer can submit an environmental impact report that ignores critical legal and environmental obligation and still get their way.

Please stand with the public and vote no.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Susan Harry.

Good evening, commissioners.

I'm Susan Harry also with ECOS immediate past president of ECOS and an architect and urban planner.

Warehousing is fine, but this is the wrong location because this location violates longstanding planning actions.

The urban services boundary and the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

Many people have said, well, two people have said this already, maybe three, but, and as planning commissioners, you appreciate these planning actions for our region's sustainability.

So I'd like to go to another topic and share some of what I've learned about why this project is being proposed at all.

Metro Air Park is, of course, just across I-5.

It started out in 1973 at 1,900 acres.

That's over four times the acreage of Airport South.

This huge piece of land was planned for 20 million square feet of industrial with direct links to the airport and four lane arterials to serve it.

Over the decades, this project changed.

It's gone from 20 million square feet of industrial to a multi-use center with retail, hotel, and office, and an 18-hole golf course.

With no direct connection to the airport required anymore.

No four lane arterials to serve it anymore.

It dropped 4 million square feet in industrial.

That's almost the size of Airport South.

So why, why, why does this happen?

Why has Metro Air Park been frittered away?

And now it's considered insufficient for these warehouses proposed for Airport South.

And you are asked to recommend warehouses to your city council on a whole new parcel on ag land next to a school and homes.

So what kind of planning are we doing in this region?

Planning commissioners, you must insist that we do better of yourselves and of the county.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

The next four speakers are Luce Lim, followed by Edith Thatcher, followed by Brian Highland, and then Tim Lessard.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Luce Lim and I am the policy analyst for the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

First, I'd like to thank you for continuing the last hearing when you recommend, when you recognize that so many members of the public had left.

As you've heard from some of my colleagues, we have been very disheartened with the implementation of the process, both for this project and for others that are concurrently proposed to convert thousands of acres of open space and agricultural land in the Natomas area.

As an environmental coalition, ECOS aims to inform and engage the public in planning and policy processes.

And I've been lucky enough to work with people from a variety of ages and backgrounds.

I have to say though, that it has been very difficult to encourage the young bright eyed students I've interacted with to buy into the local process, especially when they feel that the system is against them and that their voices won't make a difference.

That's exactly how they felt when they realized that LAFCO, the commission that was created and elected to protect the natural resources that allowed them to play freely, connect to nature and grow healthy, actually voted to set in motion the destruction of these very resources for the sake of more warehouses.

And now, the responsibility of this decision falls on you.

I want you to know that your continuation of the last hearing was a beacon of hope because you showed that you do care to make careful decisions that honor the passionate constituents who show up to meeting after meeting to show you that they care.

They care about the fate of their home. And so tonight I ask you to please continue to take a stand, continue to take a stand and make difficult decisions to honor the public process and ensure sound planning planning recommendations.

Tonight you are being asked to vote to recommend whether the final EIR for the Airport South Industrial Project presents significant overriding considerations to amend decades long planning policies like the urban services boundary.

You are being asked to recommend whether the annexation and inevitable destruction of farmland and open space next to schools and neighborhoods are appropriate and aligned with city planning policies.

Please consider the land that is available for warehousing already.

Please consider the impact of uprooting policies like the USB and the sprawling impact and precedent that decision will set.

You may be inclined to disregard the USB because it is a county policy, but you must acknowledge the impact that it is.

You may be inclined to acknowledge the impact that your vote will have on regional planning.

Your votes tonight provide insight into the city's planning priorities.

Please honor the over 1,300 residents who have signed a petition available to you on the ECOS website to express that this is not what the residents want for their community.

Be bold and thank you for representing us.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, Edith Thatcher.

Good evening.

I'm Edith Thatcher and I live quite close to the proposed Airport South project.

I want to say that I was very appreciative of the presentation by the developers tonight.

And I noticed a couple of things about the videos and I just wanted to share those with you.

That they are proposing warehouse space.

And in their video and their images, there were no trucks.

There were only cars.

I thought that was quite wonderful.

And the other thing is that if you go over to Metro Air Park right across the freeway also owned by North Point, you will see a number of signs that say things like for lease, built a suit and available.

There's a lot of land over there that is not yet built out and buildings that are built but apparently not being used, at least by looking at the signage.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about mostly tonight was one of the significant and unavoidable impacts, which is air quality.

And how is it possible that an industrial site dependent on hundreds of semi trucks every day can be proposed next to an elementary school?

Trucks are the most dangerous source of air pollutant emissions that harm our health.

Trucks are the most dangerous source of air.

Some of the harms, of course, are asthma, cardiovascular disease, low birth weight babies, and incomplete lung formation as children grow up.

The final EIR calculates a risk of nine and a half excess cancer cases per million caused by the project based on emissions of fine particles from diesel trucks.

This is just under the threshold for mitigation, which is 10 million.

But we've heard a lot of discussion tonight about parcel eight and what is going to happen with parcel eight.

Parcel eight is not included in those numbers.

It assumes, the EIR assumes no development on parcel eight, which is the land closest to the elementary school.

If it is developed with over 100 trucks per day, the health risk obviously skyrockets.

And the EIR does say that there would be an assessment for cancer.

But, of course, by that time, the project is well underway.

So, this, the final EIR states the project is unable to mitigate significant air quality impacts, thereby putting our health as a close resident, the health of our children, and our grandchildren at risk.

This project should be somewhere, but not next to an elementary school.

Thank you very much for your time.

Please vote against the project.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Brian Highland.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Brian Highland.

I am a registered civil engineer and work for the state on large public projects.

I've been a resident of Natomas since 2012 and live less than 500 feet from the proposed project.

I don't oppose the project.

I'm just asking for a bigger buffer.

Given the increase in amount of traffic and vehicles in this project, if approved, and the construction near a neighborhood filled with families, small children, and adjacent to a school with 1,000 children, I don't understand how this could be allowed without significant mitigation by this committee to address the noise and air quality impacts that would be imposed upon the local community.

Both a failure to meet the required noise and air quality key components in the EIR must be mitigated versus lining this project up against an area with sensitive needs.

I'm a father of two kids that go to the Passivarity and they walk to school every day.

I've also been involved with several EIRs to build large projects and there needs to be a commitment to offset and mitigate the impacts to the community.

You're in a position with a voice and I implore you to follow the regulations and requirements to mitigate the documented impacts of this project as outlined in the EIR.

Having industrial buildings next to the residences doesn't mix.

There has to be a gap in transition.

As a protected area, I don't understand how there isn't mitigation land for the Swainson Hawk.

This is a protected species in the area and nothing is being done to mitigate the known nests that are present.

Please mandate at least a 1,500 foot buffer between the city limits and any construction of any roads and buildings as part of this project.

At a minimum, there needs to be a significant buffer between this project to make sure that we offset the degradation of air quality and noise.

This buffer would also protect many other sensitive and protected species listed in the Thomas Basin Conservancy.

And without this buffer, the city could be liable for future litigation to address the negative impacts stated in the EIR.

The city has a current budget deficit and I ask, do they really want to waste the money defending itself against the neighborhood lawsuit?

Or is it better just to address and mitigate the legally required concerns brought up by the community?

So, in my solution, I would ask that we adopt a minimum of a 1,500 foot buffer between the current city boundaries of the development,

not approve an industrial two buildings closest to the community, and only allow commercial.

Make sure the road is improved along the power line and measures are put in to prevent trucks from driving south to access Garden Highway and Del Paso,

and requiring trees and additional noise slash air quality buffer mitigation that support the habitat of the Hawks in the area.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Tim Lessard.

Okay.

We'll move on to the next four.

We have Ralph Proper, followed by Lynn Lindsey, followed by Jim Packle, followed by Judith Lamar.

Is Ralph Proper here?

He's at a meeting with Bree.

Okay.

I'll move his slip over.

We'll start with Lynn Lindsey, please.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Lynn Lindsey.

I am a 24-year resident of North Natomas, Westlake community.

I am here tonight to voice my strong opposition to the Airport South Industrial Project.

As a former city planning commissioner for District 1, I was alarmed to see a proposal that is so incompatible with housing, schools, and other mixed uses,

receiving support from city planning staff.

Annexation and extension of services to this land ignores agreed to land use plans, the city's general plan, the North Natomas community plan, and multi-jurisdictional habitat plans.

Some have called this proposal infill.

Annexing 447 acres is not infill development.

This is creating sprawl.

And there is substantial existing warehouse space and infrastructure.

In the North Natomas area, I found 970,086 square feet of warehouse space available.

And appropriate land is currently available for development.

In Metro Air Park, directly north of North Natomas, there is 4,270,890 square feet of warehouse currently available for lease.

And warehouse construction continues there.

The search for total square footage of warehouse space for lease in Sacramento shows 264 listings for a total availability of 9,776,970 square feet.

Good planning must prevail.

The noted EC industrial are very small in scale that were built in North Natomas.

And they do not utilize large diesel trucks.

So can you tell me where in the city Sacramento has or is currently planning to zone 447 acres of industrial park with 6 million square feet of warehouse on top of housing and schools?

Think about where you live.

Think about where you live.

Think about where you live.

Would you want 6 million square feet of warehouse?

Freight trailer truck traffic diesel pollution at your doorstep?

A key responsibility and core principle for a planning commissioner is to prioritize the public good, set values for quality of life, and separate incompatible land uses.

For example, would you cite a factory in the middle of a neighborhood?

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

The next speaker is Jim Packel.

They get to go home to their area and we have, we stay in our area and they get to go to their home.

There is no compelling reason to create urban sprawl, remove agricultural land, and have a cap.

Excuse me, ma'am.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Jim Packel.

I am the EIR and annexation.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Is Jim not here?

Thank you.

Is the microphone working now?

No, it's not working.

Yes, it is.

Thank you.

Yes, it is.

It is working?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm Jim Packel representing the Friends of the Swenson Hawk.

However, today I will talk about waterfowl versus airplanes.

The Sacramento airport is very close to the project site and both are located beneath the Pacific Flyway.

During the fall and winter, there are millions of waterfowl passing overhead.

Aircraft using the airport sometimes collide with geese or ducks.

A collision with a goose getting sucked into a jet engine can cause, can disable the engine and cause the crash.

Sacramento airport has one of the highest bird strike rates in the country.

Waterfowl are attracted to areas of open water such as the project's 96 acres of detention basins,

which are sited 4,600 feet south of the airport directly underneath the departure path of aircraft leaving the airport.

The preliminary drainage plan by Wood Rogers engineers calculates the project will need 96 acres of detention basins on the project site about 10 feet deep.

The FAA correctly regards detention basins within 10,000 feet of an airport as a hazard by attracting waterfowl into the path of airplanes using an airport.

The project site is 9 to 10 feet above sea level.

It's the bottom of former American Lake.

The FAA is a waterfowl to the lake.

It gets a lot of water in there.

Groundwater may also intrude, can intrude into the detention basin at elevations reaching, reaching, reaching, 3 to 10 feet.

The project's 96 acres of detention basins so close to the end of the airport will increase the likelihood of a tragedy caused by a collision.

The project can easily be located at a less risky location elsewhere, preferably east of the Natomas Basin, where the need for detention basins is much less and you do not have wildlife or HCP issues.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Judith Lemaire.

Good evening, Commissioners.

I'm Judith Lamire.

I'm representing the Friends of the Swainson's Hog.

With a message that Natomas rules are a bit different and that's because of the NBHCP.

So I wanted to remind everyone that the NBHCP says that if the city's going to develop outside of the permit area of the NBHCP, which it is in this case, that will trigger a reevaluation of the plan and permits, a new effects analysis, potential amendments and revisions to the HCP, new permits.

And none of this has happened.

This was not mentioned in the EIR and we consider the EIR to be deficient because it does not identify this impact on the NBHCP.

Cheryl was able to interpret things for you in such a way that she's claiming that the project is consistent with the NBHCP.

There are three people in this room that were there when the NBHCP, I don't know if Senator Ortiz was there at that time, but Heather was there, Jim was there and I was there and we know what's in the NBHCP.

We've spent decades working on it.

There are a number of places in which this project violates the NBHCP.

One is mitigation out of basin.

The city council, when it adopted the NBHCP specifically determined that the mitigation would take place in the basin, especially for Swainson's hawks.

There are several nesting swains and hawks along the perimeter of this project which will not survive.

The nesting activity will not survive this project.

These nesting sites were not included in any take analysis of the NBHCP in the permit that was already given and certainly not in the EIR for the Natomas Community Plan or the NBHCP.

So the claim that somehow this area can be included in the NBHCP and that the take is covered is completely false.

So what you also need to understand is that Swainson's hawks don't eat fees.

They are wild creatures that forage on agricultural land.

They help the farmer by getting rid of pests, rodents, and they're part of the agricultural process in this county.

So taking away the ag land, doing the mitigation somewhere else, this is a direct undermining of the HCP.

We're going to encourage you to dig in on some of these issues.

Hold on to this. Look at it. Work on it. Put your minds to work. Try to help the city.

Because when Howard Chan made this deal with Captain of Industry, he didn't have an EIR.

He didn't really know what the NBHCP was. He was doing his best to build the economic development of this community.

And it needs work. Please help us. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Okay. Our last four speakers are Joe Rice, followed by Harriet Steiner, Oscar Ballinger, and Mitchell Bechtel.

Good evening, planning committee, commissioners. My name is Joe Reese. I'm vice president of operations for Panelized Structures.

I've been with the company for over 25 years. We are a signature to the Carpenters Union all over the West Coast.

Panelized has been in business for 36 years and employs over 450 employees.

This project means a lot to us because it would employ roughly 18, 20 panelized carpenters for about 5,500 man days.

North Pointe.

North Pointe development has been a partner in business for many years.

We've done a lot of work throughout the Valley and other markets.

In closing, Panelized Structures will like this project to move forward as it will benefit our economy and our workforce.

Thank you. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Harriet Steiner.

Good evening. My name is Harriet Steiner and I live in North Natomas.

Back before I retired, long before that, I was the general counsel of SACOG at approximately the time that the Natomas Basin work was being done.

I represented SACOG at the time of the first blueprint. That shows how old I am.

But I just wanted to say that as you've heard from other speakers, this project is inconsistent with policies that have been adopted by the City of Sacramento and the County of Sacramento and SACOG for many, many years.

So many, I suppose, that they're taken as a given and now they're just not that important.

But they still are really important because they safeguard our way of life.

They safeguard the agricultural connections that this area has.

They safeguard the birds and the wildlife that live in this area.

And they safeguard our children, our grandchildren, and ourselves as we live in areas like North Natomas.

So here, in my opinion, and I oppose this project if you haven't guessed yet, this project does not promote open space.

This project obviously doesn't promote conservation.

This project will destroy agriculture.

And contrary to what was said earlier, the project, this property is not underused.

It's not, you know, it may be undervalued from an industrial standpoint, but it's clearly not underused.

It's used for agriculture.

It's used for conservation.

It's used for wildlife.

And it's used for views.

Just yesterday, I was driving by down from Woodland coming, excuse me, coming back.

And Sacramento is so different from so many of the other valley cities that you see or Bay Area cities where you drive past the airport.

And all you see are tilt-ups.

And all you see is row after row of tilt-ups that some of them are empty, some of them not.

But you don't see wildlife like I did yesterday.

You don't see open space like I did yesterday, which sets the tone for people leaving the airport and coming to see our great city, which is a wonderful place, a farm to fork community.

And I think that it's important that we retain and preserve these areas.

It doesn't even, it just gives, these projects don't help us deal with our climate change.

They don't help us deal with potential flooding areas.

And in this particular case, if you look, if you dig in, as Ms. Lamar said earlier, you'll see that the, this project has significant impacts that are not even attempted to be mitigated.

You know, this project could, this is not a bad project.

You could move it up north of the airport where it's not going to impact on air, on birds and airplanes landing and taking off.

You could move it where it's not going to be immediately adjacent to a school, immediately adjacent to houses.

Thank you for your comments.

It could be fine.

Your time is complete.

Okay.

So I just think you really,

go forward, send it back for real, adequate mitigation before you join the email.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Oscar.

Oscar.

Thank you.

Hi, commissioners.

Good evening.

I'm Oscar Balaguer, retired environmental scientist with the state order board tonight representing 350 Sacramento.

We oppose the project for several reasons.

But tonight I just want to mention that the project is proposed outside the county's USB, the ultimate growth boundary that's intended to be reached only for extraordinary purposes, according to the county.

So why does the city care about the county's USB?

The reason is that because with its hotels and its retail, this project, if it goes forward, will surely inevitably be used as justification for additional residential development beyond the USB.

Did I mention the USB?

Did I mention the USB has never before been breached?

This would be precedential.

And that precedent would be followed up on by future development projects, residential projects, just as it has, just as that same argument is being made today for the county's Upper West Side project, and for the multiple projects that the county has already approved beyond its use.

The county is eager to develop these projects.

And it's, and I can prognosticate will not hesitate to, to breach the USB and its decisions.

The impact to the city is that those, is that those developments, those sprawl developments beyond the USB will draw investment from the better situation, situated projects within the city's boundaries.

350 believes strongly that it's in the region's interest, it's in the county's, residents' interest, and there's to the city's interests to maintain new, new growth within the city's boundaries.

Where the city will benefit from the long term, will have long term benefits from, from that growth, tax revenues.

I submit to you tonight, that the city has a long term fundamental interest in supporting, smart growth, low VMT development within the city's boundaries, and not supporting future development, green field development outside of those boundaries.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Our last speaker is Mitchell Bechtel.

Aloha.

My name is Mitchell Bechtel on behalf of the District Council of Ironworkers.

We represent around 30,000 ironworkers, 2,000 that live in this region.

What I would say about this project and all the comments that you guys have heard tonight, are that this project is going to create meaningful jobs and meaningful wages for, for families across the region.

Sacramento has been growing over the last 15 years exponentially.

If you were here during the pandemic, you guys have all seen all of the influx of people coming in from the Bay Area.

Projects like this are the smart growth.

This is what's going to create the infrastructure on the logistics side to expand Sacramento's base.

Not only that, when we talk about jobs, these aren't just jobs.

These are living wage careers that span the lifetime of those workers.

It's not about what's happening today and the next five years of this project.

It's what's happening to our residents and the local residents that are going to be working on these jobs.

These jobs and these careers are going to create a predisable trades, men and women, from multiple crafts, including over my shoulder, the carpenters.

They're all local residents. That's why they're here tonight.

And everybody, everybody over on my left shoulder.

They're also going to be working on these projects.

This decision tonight is going to allow you guys to create a better city of Sacramento.

We urge you to vote. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. I have no more speaker slips.

Excuse me. I'm Ralph Proper. I was out when my name was called. Is it okay if I still speak?

Yes, sir.

Yes?

Yes.

Oh, thank you very much.

Yeah. My name is Ralph Proper and I'm on the board of Breathe California Sacramento.

We just had our board meeting and that just ended, so that's why I wasn't here until now.

I worked at the Air Resources Board as an air pollution research specialist, also as a chemistry professor at UC Davis.

I specialize in toxics, cancer-causing chemicals.

I got diesel exhaust that identifies a toxic air contaminant based upon its cancer-causing problem.

And I think one of the big problems we have to deal with here is the fact that the Airport South Industrial Project

practically borders on the Paso Verde Elementary School.

Parcel 8 right now doesn't have any development proposed, but it's clear it'll be developed as warehouses.

Right now, from the diesel trucks, the final EIR says that it almost hits the 10 million required for cancer risk for mitigation.

But clearly, if there's a similar warehouse development in Parcel 8, it'll exceed that 10, but then it'll be too late to do anything about it.

I want to mention that besides the cancer-causing effects, the diesel exhaust and fine particulates, I mentioned that was a research area that I was very involved with at the Air Resources Board.

The impacts of near-road air pollution, especially on children.

Their lungs don't fully develop.

You're more likely to get asthma.

For grown-ups, low birth weight babies.

We know now, in recent research, it affects the brain in terms of various problems that we have.

So these are all aspects that need to be considered.

You have to make a determination for the City Council that this would be of benefit to public health, and I don't see any way that that could be achieved.

So those are my comments on this, that you really should look at the toxics and the fact that they're not mitigating for it the way that they should.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, no, I really do have no more speaker slips.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments.

Appreciate it.

It gave us a lot of content to consider and think about.

So I'm going to give this time to the Commission.

Commission, do you have any questions or comments that you would like to make?

Vice Chair Chase.

Thank you, Chair.

A couple of questions for staff, if I may.

How many, do we know, Garrett, how many hotel rooms are either on the airport property or nearby?

Yeah, none on the airport property.

Within the vicinity, there's a handful within North Midthomas.

Not a lot then.

Yeah.

And second question is, what are the, do we know what the prevailing winds are on that location?

I do not know.

Do you know, Rod?

Could you repeat the question again, Vice Chair Chase?

Yeah, so I was wondering what the prevailing winds are on that location.

Having lived in the Thomas my whole life, including before the community plan was built out in North of Thomas, I can assure you that the prevailing winds are from south to north.

Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you, Chair.

It's up in the winter, I would point out, but then it's more north to come out.

Commissioner Lee.

Yeah, thank you, Chair, staff, applicant, members of the public who came out tonight and for those who submitted e-comments online.

There's clearly been a lot of work on this, a lot of years on this, and this is certainly not an easy decision.

There's a lot I wanted to discuss tonight, but we'd be here all night and so I'm just going to focus on a few things.

But question for staff in regards to the HCP, you know, we had several members of the public comment with concerns about how this could affect the habitat conservation plans.

And I know you briefly covered it in your presentation, so thank you.

But can you just once again for the Commission and for members of the audience here, just sort of briefly explain how this proposal would align with the goals of the Natomas Basin HCP and ensure that those plans can still be implemented as intended?

Yes, thank you.

The HCP and I work with it every day, as I mentioned earlier, is pretty complex even for those of us that are working with it every day.

There's tons of different numbers.

I could probably talk for hours about the various acreage numbers.

But the city was given an overall acreage number for future development of 8,050 acres.

Excuse me, could you speak up?

Oh, sure.

Yeah, let me just try to scoot in here.

The city was given an overall authorized acreage number per the habitat conservation plan of 8,050 acres.

This annexation area, two of the parcels that are contiguous with the city boundary are already included in the city's permit area.

And that those two parcels total 121 acres.

The remaining area of the annexation area, if it were to be developed in the future in the city of Sacramento, the city still, even with that additional development, would not exceed the cap of 8,050.

So the overall habitat conservation plan presumed that there would be 17,500 acres between Sutter County Metro Airport development and the city of Sacramento.

We would not be exceeding that with this annexation.

So if this project does come into the city limits, it'll be determined with the wildlife agencies what would be the applicable permitting requirements for the project.

We've been documenting annually in our annual HCP report for years.

The two parcels would be paying future HCP fees.

This applicant has agreed to participate in the entire HCP.

The EIR addresses that.

It includes the land dedication that I mentioned earlier.

It includes the HCP payments.

So it is consistent in all of that aspect.

Thank you.

And then if this project is approved, do we know how this project's compliance with the HCP will be monitored or if there's even any monitoring with compliance?

Yeah, there is monitoring compliance.

And that's the case right now for every development that's located in North Natomas and South Natomas.

So prior to issuance of a grading permit, they have to provide a pre-construction biological survey.

We determine if the habitat conservation plan fees have been paid.

If they haven't been paid, they don't even get a grading permit until those fees are paid.

They coordinate with the conservancy directly if there's land dedication involved.

And we require evidence of that land dedication, which has to meet very stringent requirements of the wildlife agencies.

I do want to mention, because I know there's been some concerns about the loss of the habitat, including the Swinson's hawk for this annexation area.

So the habitat conservation plan covers 22 covered species.

Out of that 22 covered species, and I wrote it down here, there's 17 that do not occur in the annexation area.

There is one that has the moderate occurrence, which is the burrowing owl, and then the giant garter snake all through Natomas is presumed to be present,

although it was never detected during biological surveys for the property.

And then the other is Swinson's hawk, which was mentioned earlier.

So it does have limited habitat value.

That was documented through biological surveys that were done in association with the environmental impact report.

So really the property that would be offsite, that would be protected in perpetuity, indeed,

to the conservancy has a higher habitat value than what is currently present in the annexation area.

So that's another aspect of benefiting the habitat conservation plan conservation strategy objectives.

One more question on the HCP and the applicant.

Is there an agreement in place for the applicant to support the HCP or is that something that still has to be entered into?

I'm sorry.

Did you say to participate in the HCP?

Correct.

It is mitigation that is in the EIR.

It's conditions of approval that are placed on the project and it is also in the proposed development agreement.

And the applicant has been coordinating directly with the conservancy already.

It's right now is the only project located in Natomas Basin, outside of the city limits,

that will participate in the HCP and work with the conservancy in the city of Sacramento.

Only if it comes through the city of Sacramento.

And so if I'm hearing that correctly, once the planning commission here, let's say we, if the commission does approve it and then goes to council and it gets approved at that point,

then at that point that would be effective.

Is that right?

Yes.

So what would happen is, well, let's stop for a minute.

Let's say this goes all the way through city council.

The city council doesn't have the authority to change the city boundary, only the Sacramento local agency formation commission.

So there's even still more hearings.

So let's say that LAFCO does approve the boundary.

So the general plan amendment pre-zoning all become effective once that annexation is approved by LAFCO.

And then everything that's been approved by the city would be valid.

It'd be effective.

The development agreement, everything else that has gone through a process with the city.

So that means that the landowner would have to adhere to the habitat conservation plan.

We're placing that requirement on the entire annexation area, not just North Point.

So any project that comes into the city of Sacramento for that area after it is annexed into the city would be required to comply with the habitat conservation plan.

Because we want to keep our HCP whole.

We want it to be successful.

And the way to do that is to require full participation in the habitat conservation plan.

Thank you.

I'd like to shift focus to the buffer between this project, this school and the West Lake neighborhood.

The EIR states that there are some air quality impacts even after mitigation.

You know, obviously we all know that poor air quality can lead to several serious health effects.

The EIR identifies also some long term noise impacts as well.

I know that's especially concerning for a project that could potentially operate 24 seven.

I know some of these West Lake residents, you know, they've been here, gosh, is it almost 25 years now?

And now they have a large project that's potentially as large or as large as their entire neighborhood that's being proposed right next door to them.

And I believe that the applicant here wants to be a good neighbor.

I'm sure I know they've been working with the city and the neighborhood on making improvements.

And I hope we can support them in doing that here tonight.

You know, when I look at other nearby communities and when industrial uses move in the next two homes,

you know, there tends to be a wave of complaints from what I've seen.

You know, you got the backup beepers from the trucks in the forklifts that go on all night depending on how late the operation goes.

You have constant HVAC home, especially if there's a refrigerated warehouse.

There's also some truck traffic that could potentially spill into some of the residential streets.

And I know that some of the cities are, you know, really grappling with these issues often too late after projects are approved and the residents are already affected.

So I just really urge that this commission, you know, think carefully about how we're buffering and protecting the community from the long term impacts.

And so for the buffer staff, just to confirm, I think you mentioned it in one of your slides, but I just want to re-mention it here again for everyone.

So in total, there's a 325 foot buffer between the residential and industrial. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. On the non-participating property or known as parcel eight, there's an existing buffer that is just north of the school.

That is in county controlled land and outside of the annexation area.

And then we're, staff is proposing the additional 125 foot buffer to be consistent with the setback requirement that is imposed on the PUD.

Got it.

I do want to acknowledge that we had at least one resident, maybe somewhere in the e-commons that expressed a desire for a 1500 feet buffer between the industrial and the residential.

I know we have here a 325 foot buffer. And then Garrett, you mentioned there's the 125 foot buffer between the school and the not participating parcel.

Question on that as part of tonight's recommendation that say that the count, the commission here approves this item.

Could the commission expand that 125 feet buffer between the school and the industrial use?

The commission would have the discretion to recommend a buffer at their own will to the city council.

The city council would be the sort of the final decision on the appropriate buffer.

But staff is proposing the 125 foot to be consistent with the PUD guidelines.

Got it. Thank you.

So, you know, just looking at all this, you know, what I'd offer in response, given all the comments and neighbor feedback and everything,

is that if, if, if I'm going to support this project, I do think that there's an opportunity to do a little better in terms of a buffer,

especially when it comes to protecting the nearby residents and children at the school.

From what I've seen, you know, the truck loading areas are the primary source of long-term impacts.

You got the noise. I mentioned earlier the backup alarms. You got the diesel emissions and depending on the facility hours,

you know, activity, you know, late night. You know, to address this, you know, if we approve this project, I believe we need to include a clear condition of approval.

That, um, no truck loading and unloading areas may be located within 500 feet of any residential or school use.

Now there could still be a building within, you know, that 325 foot buffer after that, but, um, within 500 feet of the residential or school use,

that there'd be no truck loading or unloading areas.

Um, and then for parcels directly adjacent, uh, to these uses, uh, as well, uh, all truck loading, uh, and unloading areas, uh, be oriented so that loading docks and bay openings face the opposite direction, uh, residential and school property lines.

Um, and I, I just think that this is the basic, uh, uh, standard of good site planning, uh, especially considering this, the scale of this project.

Um, I sort of did a, a, a, a, a back of the napkin measurement in, um, the project width from east to west is about 7,500 feet.

And so I think that a 500 foot buffer is, is reasonable in, and it balanced expectation.

And actually I just learned that the governor, um, uh, just signed assembly bill 98, uh, which, uh, sets a 500 foot buffer for, uh, warehouses on non-industrial land.

And, uh, it also requires that loading bays be oriented away from nearby homes and schools to minimize, uh, health and noise impacts.

Um, however, I'm not sure how that law applies here specifically.

Um, but whether or not it, it does, uh, you know, I still strongly believe that, uh, we need to include at least a 500 foot buffer, um, as a condition of approval.

Um, third noise, um, I want to address that as well.

Um, I think adding a 500 foot buffer for truck loading areas will go a long way.

Um, but even with that buffer, um, uh, there's still issues with noise.

And I think I mentioned earlier, uh, if there are refrigerated warehouses, you have the issue of, uh, rooftop AC units, um, emitting noise.

Um, um, so I'll look at丈夫.

Um, so I'd like to also add as a condition that, uh, for any buildings within 500 feet of residential or school uses, uh, all rooftop HVAC or mechanical equipment must be, or must use low noise models.

Um, be located on the part of the roof farthest from shared property lines with residential and school uses and be fully screened and acoustically treated, uh, as needed to meet the city's needs.

Um, so I'd like to ask you to meet the city's noise ordinance at the property line.

Um, but before I go further, I do want to hear from, uh, my colleagues if they have any additional comments.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lamas.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, staff and the community for coming out and voicing your, um, comments in, um, in terms of this project.

Um, it is, um, there are a lot of, uh, points to kind of sift through here.

It's a big project, fairly complex project.

Um, and I wanted to dig a little bit into some of the, uh, items that were brought up.

I know, um, parcel eight seemed to come up a couple of times.

Um, so I had some, some questions that just get a little bit better understanding of what's

happening in that, on that parcel in terms of the EIR and future development.

Um, so from my understanding, it's a non-participating parcel, which means, um, uh, it's not, it's not gonna be developed now, right?

But it could be developed later and it's being included into the EIR, EIR right now.

Um, so that if there was future development on that parcel, they would not have to do an environmental impact report.

Is that, is that correct?

I'm gonna just jump in and answer something just cause it's related to the LAFCO process.

And the sphere of influence amendment that was already previously now approved by LAFCO.

And now we have, you know, as part of this requested annexation.

So when you do a sphere of influence amendment, that just brings an area into the city sphere, which is now the case with this area, which has to occur first before something could be annexed.

There has to be land use assumptions for the analysis. So they need to be reasonable. So that's why all of the parcels were included in the EIR and evaluated.

So we knew we had to, you know, presume what is the likelihood it might develop in the future, even though that we don't have a specific project that has been filed with building plans, you know, with the city at this time.

So it was considered as part of the EIR and primarily that was driven by the sphere of influence amendment and the annexation and the need to prezone the property.

And also just being upfront that there is a likelihood there's going to be interest to develop it in the future.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. That's helpful.

So if it were to get developed late in the future, what would be the process for that development to take place?

Would it have to come to the planning commission? Would it be at the discretion of the director of the zoning administrator or, or would it go to city council?

Like what would that look like in folks? Would folks have an opportunity to kind of chime in?

Sure. Yeah. So it's part of the annexation process.

We're obligated to prezone the property or select a zoning designation and a compatible general plan designation, which is what we've have done as part of this.

So they would be subject to subsequent planning entitlements. We don't know what they're going to propose.

And as Cheryl mentioned, we made land use assumptions as part of our sequel analysis and for the annexation purpose.

Um, but depending on what they propose, they could likely would subdivide the property into a smaller parcels like what are seen here, um, on this subdivision map and propose likely some sort of warehousing or a research and development facility.

And both of those would require a tentative map and site plan design review at a minimum that would be, um, a zoning administrator or director level hearing decision.

So that's a public hearing, um, body. Um, and at that point, you know, staff would be, um, reviewing the project.

We would doing a thorough analysis of, uh, specifically that border on the Eastern and Southern boundary where it is close to the, uh, the school.

And we'd be working closely with that developer on, um, applying any kind of, uh, buffer or, um, being cognizant of.

As commissioner Lee mentioned about where the truck bays are located, how tall are these buildings?

What does the lighting look like? What are the noise potential noise, um, impacts?

Um, so all of that would be vetted and thoroughly analyzed through that subsequent entitlement process.

Thank you for that. So, um, so there will be a process for folks to provide comments.

Um, I am a little, little concerned that there, you know, there won't be an opportunity to provide more, a more thorough environmental examination of what that proposal can look like, um, beyond the EIR that's been approved that, um, included some potential development.

Right.

I, yeah, that's a good point. I would add that we, um, they would be subject to CEQA with the discretionary application like that.

So we would review the project with the analysis that's been done currently in the EIR.

And then staff would be, um, required to determine if they need further CEQA analysis in some other document, or if we would make a finding that it's consistent with the, um, the findings of the current EIR.

So we would be obligated to go through and review that under CEQA again.

Okay. Thank you for that. That, that is encouraging, um, to know that that's a good point.

Um, encouraging, um, to know that there is still some, um, mechanisms to further examine the environmental impacts of that locks.

I think that for me is a big, um, kind of challenge in terms of, um, what's going to happen with that parcel being so close to the school and, uh, abiding, you know, the residential community, um, with just a lot of unknowns. Right.

Um, so it sounds like, um, there, there is a mechanism for, for, um, engagement there from folks who want to, um, be involved with what's going to actually come into that, that site.

I know there's been, um, there's also been talk of, um, the urban service boundary and, um, whether or not, um, this site, the approval of this site has any impact on future development outside of the, the urban service boundary.

Um, and I was wondering if you can speak a little bit to kind of the process for, um, development outside of the urban service boundary, right?

The county led development versus, um, development that is either within the city or through this annexation process.

How much control does the city have in what is getting built out if it has no intent of getting, getting within the city, you know, the city limits or the urban, urban service boundary?

I'll go ahead and answer that.

And then step might want to jump in.

The city has very little control outside of the city boundary.

I work with our city boundary daily as the new growth manager for the city.

So anything to do with the city's boundary or sphere of influence, um, this area of Natomas basin is designated as a special study area and has been for years because the city has had an interest and concern about the future of the basin.

Because so much of it is unincorporated and out of our land use, you know, jurisdiction.

So if this area does not for, I'll use this one as an example.

If this area does not come into the city limits, it would be up to the county to decide whether or not they want to expand their own urban services boundary.

And they have before.

And they are considering that currently with other pending projects in the basin that the city has been actively engaged with coordinating with the county.

And other parts outside of the basin they've done the same thing.

Most recently they've approved West Jackson Highway specific plan over 16,000 homes.

They made an amendment then.

So, um, the, the, the first step of having some control and say with the county is the sphere of influence.

So I'm happy to report that it was approved by LAFCO.

So we have a little bit of, um, I think, um, more standing and communicating with the county when it's in our sphere of influence.

Because basically it puts the county on notice that we have an interest of that area and we may expand our boundary in the future and extend municipal services.

But when we have these large areas that are just next to the city and they're not in our sphere of influence or they're not proposed for annexation, we have, we were just almost at the mercy of the county just trying to work with them.

Okay.

Thank you for kind of walking us through that.

Um, it sounds like, um, regardless of what we're doing here, the county has the opportunity to develop on these areas outside of the city.

Um, and the city has limited control over those developments.

If, um, this, if we go through this process and the project does not get planning commission or city council approval, what could happen to the project?

Would it then go to this, the county for potential development and the city loses any control to the city?

Any control to try to mitigate certain impacts of the project that is currently being considered?

Does that just become full discretion for the county on what they want to build in that site?

The quick answer is yes.

It's at their full discretion.

We know that because we coordinate with the county on other land use matters outside the city's boundary.

So, it would be up to the land owners if they, um, if this process failed with the city and they decided to take an application to the county and move forward.

They've, you know, already purchased the land.

Um, none of it would have to be subject to, um, the habitat conservation plan, city design standards, um, any of the city requirements.

Uh, we would be a commenting jurisdiction like we have been on other projects that are in the basin and around the city's boundary.

And, um, sometimes we get responses from the county where they might make some changes, but, um, we are a commenter almost like anyone from just the public commenting on the project.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

I think that, um, is a noteworthy consideration, um, in terms of what is being proposed here and what, um, level of input the city is kind of working through, um, with the current project that we're reviewing tonight.

Um, with that, I, um, I'll yield my time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Hernandez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Um, I have a question for the applicant and then maybe a question for the, um, city attorney.

Uh, but first I just wanted to thank you all for being here today and lending your time to this, uh, process and also thanks staff and all those involved who have been, um, a part of this project for many, many years.

I am a little torn on this issue because I want, um, I want investment in Sacramento.

I want economic development.

I want jobs and workforce opportunities.

I also want clean air.

I want a vibrant wildlife.

And as somebody who grew up, um, and was raised in a farm worker community in the valley, I, I also appreciate, um, agriculture and open space.

So, um, my question for, for the applicant, um, I saw in your presentation that, um, the North Point, uh, developer supports various charities and organizations, but I didn't see any Sacramento specific organizations.

And I'm particularly interested in, um, you know, in what ways related to invite the environment, um, related to STEM education or pipeline and workforce training opportunities that this project could potentially have in partnership with the elementary school.

Um, I understand that we, um, um, uh, and the, um, uh, in partnership with the school.

I understand that we have, um, some questions and ideas surrounding here around, uh, uh, additional buffers.

but if this project were to move forward I'm interested in hearing what kind of

partnerships there could be with the school to potentially either mitigate

or remediate some of the concerns for example you know as a K through 12

educational institution how can you know these projects support perhaps them

getting into the workforce there as well.

I'd say regarding the workforce training I certainly would look to our

labor partners and the programs that they provide in terms of the pipeline for

for those types of skilled labor jobs as it relates to the local presence and

and charities and what have you I'll let Jeff talk a little bit about that.

Yeah we've supported local charities here improve your tomorrow the Sacramento Food

Bank amongst a couple others Ticket to Dream. Regarding your question interfacing

with the school I assume we could do that we haven't considered that but as Nick said you know working with the labor organizations and their apprenticeship program

seems most appropriate since they've already made the choice to go into that field of work so but I appreciate the suggestion.

Thank you. That's my question on that I do want to raise it just as an idea to you know again if this project were to be approved and move forward that there is a commitment there and some kind of partnership to help the school and provide at least show that you have that community engagement and you want to improve the community as well so thank you. And I know it can't make up for the number of environmental issues and concerns that were expressed here tonight by the opposition but I think that I think that's a

again just wanting to think about ways in which you can continue to be a good neighbor if this were to move forward. Thank you. Question for the city attorney. Am I correct in understanding that there was a legal challenge filed against this and can you add some light to what that means and what it is what's being challenged and what it means for this process.

Sure. There have been three legal challenges filed against the LAFCO approval of the sphere of influence amendment. We can still rely on the environmental impact report here today and the city council can rely on it. The presumption is that it's valid until a court determines that it is not valid.

Okay thank you. So I guess my just final thought and comment for the time being now is that you know

I'm trying to reconcile all the different sides to this issue and I really appreciate the comments that were made here tonight. The questions and ideas that are being raised by my fellow commissioners.

I do appreciate the folks who are here tonight that have also previously served on this commission and for the city as well. Thank you for being here.

So with that I just want to continue to hear what my fellow commissioners say and get their perspective on it. I yield my time. Thank you.

Commissioner Ortiz.

Thank you.

There is so much that we have been presented with.

I thought I'd read everything and covered everything before the first scheduled meeting and then of course we get more materials.

I want to start out with the focus on the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

And I know a question was raised by Commissioner Lee but I want to dig a little bit more on this issue of

an agreement that was entered into specifically between Sutter and the city, Sutter County and the city presented by Jude Lamar

that alleges that there is specific language in that agreement

that in the event there's future urban development should occur prior to approval of any related zoning or pre-zoning

such future urban development and here's a critical language shall trigger a reevaluation of the plan and permits,

a new effects analysis, potential amendments and or revisions to the plan and permits,

a separate conservation strategy and issuance of incidental take permits

to the permittee for the additional development.

What is the status of this agreement and how does it relate to your presentation that argues

or makes the case that the EIR covers the mitigation measures?

Does, is this no longer in effect?

Does this provision get voided?

Talk to me specifically about that and I don't know if you got the handout and I apologize if you didn't.

I really do want to hone in because this appears to trigger a process that may not think you,

that may not be perhaps it's embedded in your report

but I don't know whether this is controlling

and or whether it's been incorporated in your fuller analysis.

Thank you for asking that.

I actually love having Habitat Conservation Plan HCP questions

and like I said I do, you know, work with it every day.

The agreement that you're referring to is actually, there's the HCP,

I'll just refer to just the Habitat Conservation Plan HCP document itself,

which covers the entire basin and what Sutter County is going to ultimately develop,

what the City of Sacramento is going to develop,

and it presumed what Metro Air Park is going to develop.

The City then applied for incidental take permits to cover the authorized development

in North Atomos and South Atomos.

Those incidental take permits, which allows us to issue grading permits and building permits,

incorporates by reference an implementation agreement.

The implementation agreement is signed by the City of Sacramento, Sutter County,

the State, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Federal, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,

and our operator, the Natomas Basin Conservancy,

who operates on behalf of the city and Sutter County,

acquiring and managing lands in the basin for the mitigation for the HCP.

So there's quite a bit of requirements in this implementation agreement.

It spells out we're going to do annual reports.

Who's going to, you know, you need to designate a responsible staff,

staff person, Sutter County, the city, and the wildlife agencies for the city that is me.

So we have to report on every piece of dirt we turn in North Atomos and South Atomos.

How much have we allowed grading of our 8,050 acres?

How many fees have we collected?

There is language in there that talks about a permit area,

and that permit area is a specific, it mentions the overall acreage, the 8,050,

which with this annexation area, we do not go over the 8,050,

but it also has a very specific permit area,

which includes North Atomos, South Atomos,

and the two parcels that we're talking about the buffers on

that are contiguous with the city that comprise about 121 acres.

So what I was trying to say earlier is those two parcels have already been granted,

permit coverage by the wildlife agencies to be presumed to be developed in the future.

What this document says is that if additional development comes in.

Which is being proposed.

And it's tricky with this because we're not going over the 8,050,

but the permit boundary shows an area, right?

So that's going to have to be reconciled later on with the wildlife agencies.

It'll be up to the wildlife agencies how they permit,

actually permit the project, not the two parcels because they've already permitted that.

The other portion of the parcels.

And what level of permits would be required if they want to require that the HCP be amended,

a separate conservation strategy.

We've gone through this before.

This is not new.

We went through this with Greenbrier.

But let me stay on that point because I appreciate you.

What I'm hearing is the wildlife agencies will have to go through a process

and that we've already gone through that process with two parcels

outside of this particular project.

That is correct.

But I read this specific provision as applying to this project as triggering

and that the city is a party to that obligation to trigger.

Again, the specific language is that the city and Sutter further agree

it shall trigger a reevaluation of the plan and permits.

Why does that provision not apply to the proposal before us?

Okay. So what we've tried to address in the EIR and explain is that the HCP

and its conservation strategy is based on a total acreage number in the basin

from a biological standpoint and also what should be considered to be graded in the future.

We are within that amount.

So how that part that isn't actually in the incidental take permit, how it's determined,

how it will comply will be up to the wildlife agencies.

They've commented on this project.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife commented on the mitigation in this project.

They did not raise the issue that this completely conflicts with the HCP.

It will be up to them whether or not the project gets permitted just as anything in the basin

or like it was with, you know, Greenbrier.

So it could be that they require and there's different types of amendments.

So there could be a minor amendment to the Habitat Conservation Plan.

There could be a revision to it for a correction to recognize that this is within the 8,050 acres.

They could require additional analysis.

All of that would be decided in consultation with the wildlife agencies during permitting.

And we would need proof of that before we can even issue a future grading permit.

We wouldn't allow the project to be developed without those approvals from the wildlife agencies.

So I appreciate that because I think what you're saying is that will come down the road.

Yes.

My challenge is this project is before myself and all of us as a commission.

And there's a provision that I read to hold the city responsible in a party, not the outside state agency.

So I'm just interpreting this, and maybe I'm interpreting it incorrectly, that it's the city's duty to do this.

And I think I'm hearing you say we kind of have done all this other mitigation and permitting

and reached the 8,000 or we're within the 8,000.

So therefore, if we don't need specific, does the triggering of plans and permits are not triggered in this particular project because we've met it elsewhere?

We have provisions and requirements included in the environmental impact report that indicate that the project will be mitigated biologically.

What we've done an evaluation of what is present out there or could occur out there.

There is a provision in there in the event the wildlife agencies require some additional permitting or a different type of permitting.

It's already in the EIR.

But the most important thing is that this project, regardless of what the wildlife agencies may require in the future,

the most important part is that the city is requiring that this entire annexation area adhere to our habitat conservation plan.

So they would have to mitigate per the HCP.

They would have to pay the HCP fees.

They will have to work directly with the wildlife agencies.

So nothing could really actually get developed or move forward without all of that being completed.

I appreciate that.

And I think your point has been really clear throughout this process.

There's significant mitigation and funding of the conservancy and lots of mitigation measures by the representative of the property owner versus...

So I appreciate that.

And I think you're also your point was...

Well, that I think the question is, you know, if we left it up to the county, we would get less.

I'm just kind of puzzled why the county did not seek in their unincorporated...

Why the developer, perhaps, and the representative for the property owner didn't seek this through the county first without having to go through an annexation.

I hate when that question is asked because I'm worried they're going to change their mind.

No, no, no.

Whom?

The developer?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I want to be honest with you.

From the HCP standpoint, but now I understand what you're saying.

I'm kind of going bass-ackward.

I can...

By doing a sphere of influence, an annexation that's driven by one project that's not even in the city yet, but we're on our way to have it be in the city.

They could have easily gone to the county board and said, this is your land.

Why don't you do that?

Maybe Mr. Abduz.

And it would have been probably a more streamlined process.

And we probably would have got less mitigation measures.

Multiple agencies they have to go through, including LAFTA.

I agree.

But, you know, this applicant, and, you know, this is my perspective.

I can't speak for the applicant could maybe answer that question.

We have a policy in our own general plan that says if you want water supply, if you want municipal services from the city of Sacramento, you will file an annexation.

You will come to the city of Sacramento.

I understand.

That's not...

I understand that.

I get that.

And if they had gone to the county board of supervisors to say we want to do this project in your unincorporated county area, they would have...

The county would have had to provide that infrastructure as well.

I don't...

They wouldn't have to have gone through a sphere of influence and an annexation.

They could have gone directly to the county to do it.

They would not.

That's why I'm a little puzzled.

But that's kind of a side issue.

They do need the services and water supply and...

Of course.

But if they can get it from the county if this project was approved by the county, right?

Right.

Yeah.

So if they'd gone to the county and said we want to do this, the county said yes, then the county would work out that infrastructure and all of that.

So it's county land until it's annexed.

True.

So I'm not saying that's good for the opponents on the environmental issues.

I'm just saying I'm kind of puzzled why it has to...

We have to...

We're basically the tail wagging the dog by going through a sphere of influence and annexation and then this project driving that process.

Yeah.

But that's just my...

The other thing that I'm...

And this is...

There's a few other things.

So I'm a little bit...

And this is just a question out to the world of the proponents or the opponents of the project.

But I'm really disappointed that we don't have a position at all by the conservancy.

Maybe I missed it.

Are they on record supporting this, opposing this?

I can help shed some light on that.

The conservancy, especially over the last, you know, 10, 15 years, tries to remain neutral on land use decisions.

It's been more difficult.

There's a lot going on in Natomas Basin.

They have in correspondence indicated that of the pending projects in Natomas Basin,

and this is without taking a particular position on any project because they don't do that.

This is the only project that has come forward that has worked with the conservancy that would participate in the HCP

and would want to benefit the HCP.

This project being less than 500 acres, they have indicated, and it's not the conservancy board.

I'm talking about the executive director of the conservancy, that this would not impede the completion of the conservation strategy.

This project, there's obviously a lot of other things going on in the basin.

And I appreciate your interpretation.

My point, and I don't, that may be indeed their position, the absence of them, and they're not precluded.

In fact, it's in their very interest, since they're the stewards of the conservancy plan,

or that their absence is deafening, you know, their silence is deafening.

I'm just going to say, let me finish.

I get it.

$13 million is a lot of money for the conservancy.

I mean, there is a lot of incredible mitigation in here.

And I think your point is, and it goes to the reality that even if there are significant and unavoidable substantial impacts by this project,

which are on record, air quality is terrible.

Look, the process still allows this commission to approve it if there are overriding conditions.

And they're presented in the staff report.

We see it, the proponents of the jobs.

So we just need to stipulate this is really going to affect air quality.

They're significant.

They're unavoidable.

We even had one of the labor groups representatives saying, you know, we need to do more on the transportation issue.

So it's interesting to find some labor split here, not significant.

But let's all stipulate that there are very significant problems here.

To the opponents of the project, what troubles me is that despite that, this body can approve it anyway,

as long as there are findings of fact on the record, overriding conditions and specific reasons for us to do it.

And the staff has outlined them pretty comprehensively.

But I will say this is someone who there are other places these could have been.

Honestly, there's I would have far preferred elsewhere for this.

And I don't I get, you know, the property owner is going to get entitlements that will make that property more valuable to sell to the developer.

I get it. That's business. That's the nature of development.

It breaks my heart to see this area.

I mean, some of us have enough history here to remember.

But unfortunately, we're we can do we can approve it despite those significant impacts.

And the silence and the absence of the conservancy, I get the rationale.

Now, I think if if I'm the person, but they are they are the stewards of this.

So then for them to have come forward and say we're neutral on it would have been even more.

And I get the motivation to stay silent because there's a lot of mitigation money.

There's a lot of good things that have been extracted out of this deal.

So finally, I think I don't want to share.

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

But did did you identify I think what you said about the Swainson's Hawk.

They're not it's not as your position or your understanding of the studies is that it's they're not as impacted in this subject area,

but rather outside of this area.

There's a significant mitigation for the Swainson's Hawk or they weren't found to be in this area.

They're therefore the outside the areas where they are more likely to need support and preservation.

You know what?

I don't want to get it wrong.

So I'm going to read it right out of the EIR.

And I'll just recap.

The Habitat Conservation Plan covers 22 species.

Twelve have no potential at all to occur within this annexation area.

Five have low potential.

So that's 17 out of the 22.

One moderate, which is the burrowing owl.

Swainson's Hawk.

This is what it says.

Present.

Foraging habitat within the project site is considered high quality.

It likes ag land.

It likes vacant land.

It will be impacted significantly.

Swainson's Hawk was observed during April and May field surveys.

Nesting activity was not detected.

Nesting habitat is limited through the project area.

Okay.

This project requires full mitigation of foraging habitat for the Swainson's Hawk.

I don't want to reduce the value of the Hawk occurring in the area.

I mean, the city has spent 25 years protecting a one-mile buffer Swainson's Hawk zone along the Sacramento River, which has been really important to the survival of the Swainson's Hawk.

But I think we should all keep in mind the proximity of this site to the airport.

I have been out there.

I used to live out there.

It is amazing how low the airplanes fly over this property.

And they probably fly even a little bit lower than those Hawks try to fly.

So that could be one reason why there's even limited Hawk activity over this property is just quite honestly the conflict with aircraft.

Got it.

So I just, well, there will be significant and unavoidable impacts.

And we can approve this project despite that as long as we have their findings, overriding considerations.

I will support whatever picking around the edges of further buffer areas, et cetera, you know, if this project moves forward.

But let's be clear, I'm looking for the law, the agreement, the terms and conditions, the EIR to give me a policy or regulatory reason to not support it.

And I'm still struggling with that.

And, again, the absence of the conservancy on record, they are, I get maybe the political reasons they don't want to get involved.

But it's really disappointing because they are the stewards of this basin.

And for them to be silent is important.

And I think I heard the State Department of Fish and Wildlife will weigh in later on at LAFCO perhaps.

And I don't know the basis of the three lawsuits challenging the sphere of influence or the eventual annexation.

I don't know what the issues were raised there.

But I just wish there was more firepower under the law or the regulations or the terms and conditions to allow us either to reject the project or do significant more mitigation.

But I think there aren't many things to mitigate what are real impacts.

So as a commissioner, I'm still struggling where I'm going to go on this.

I just wish there had been a stronger case based on the Habitat Conservation Plan and or the state oversight regulatory body.

I don't have much expectations of the federal oversight role in this day and age.

But I appreciate the discussion.

And I yield my time, I guess, is what I need to say.

I do want to mention real quickly related to the conservancy.

We did at the last meeting in May, when I'm going to get my time frame since this was a month ago,

upload some correspondence email communications from the executive director of the conservancy.

And he did provide some clarification related to the Natomas Basin because there's just so much information out there

and obviously different positions about these various projects.

And so I think he was trying to make an attempt to clarify kind of the perspective of this project

in relation to the other large projects in the basin and what this project can do for the HCP.

And that it's, you know, some of the growth that is planned or being proposed for the basin.

Some of that was kind of the barn door open with the airport, you know, of course, Metro Air Park, Greenbrier.

And he kind of goes through a little bit of a history of that.

But you can tell through that communication that there's, you know, he's clarifying there's not,

that Airport South isn't the problem for the HCP to be completed.

Yeah, there's been an encroachment for years around the ages.

So we are where we are today.

Yeah.

You know, thank you for that.

For the best he could clarify.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Tao.

Thank you, Chair Young.

Wow.

What a first meeting.

First off, I would like to thank my commissioners for posing such great questions to staff.

Staff as well for briefing me briefly on this item.

I've done a lot of research on it as well, too.

And, you know, former Mayor Fargo, you know, the advocacy for protecting our habitats.

I agree with Chair Ortiz, you know, this, this, oh, Commissioner, Commissioner Ortiz.

You know, you're looking at this site, you know, North Natomas Basin and the development.

We have to protect our habitats, right?

That's what we, we master planned North Natomas community, you know.

And I grew up in North Sacramento, so I follow the development there.

And it was a great master plan community of what you really want the city, urban city to be like.

And, but then there's a reality that growth is coming.

Growth is coming.

From the discussion, you know, I realized that, you know, the counties, and correct me if I'm wrong, Garrett and, yeah.

The, the county is not a part of the H, signature of the HDB plan, correct?

Okay.

And the county has been developing parcels in North Natomas Basin without, you know, a lot of mitigation fees with the HDB plan as well.

That's what I'm hearing.

No.

No?

Oh, okay.

So.

The only area that has paid is subject to habitat conservation plan fees.

And it's not Natomas Basin.

It's Metro Aero Park.

They have their own habitat conservation plan.

Interestingly enough, it is also not signed by the county.

It was actually the business group landowners that got that habitat conservation plan prepared and approved.

But all of Metro Aero Park does partner and pay into the HCP.

Nothing related to the airport pays into it.

The project nearby this one, Watt EV, will not pay $1 of HCP fees.

And thank you.

Thank you for the clarification.

You know, I think one thing is we have to look at strategies to protect the natural habitat and the original HDB plan.

And I would encourage the applicant, you know, to work with the community to come up with some benefits agreements that would definitely enhance natural habitat protection, you know, even further.

Definitely.

And I know this is not, I read the e-comments.

This is not something that the neighborhood is really supported from the e-comments.

I'm really happy that we have our labor groups here today and support the project.

I think something that's really good.

Sacramento is a small city as we grow into a big city.

Definitely we need good jobs for our community, our folks here in the community.

And I do see this project as a catalyst for that.

And so these are the stuff we're weighing on.

And, you know, I have to make a decision tonight.

And, you know, I am, and I thank you fellow commissioners who weigh in and as I educate myself more on this project.

You know, I really want to see, and we are making a recommendation tonight.

So our recommendation will go to council.

Council is going to vote on it.

And then that's not the end.

It's going to go back to the LAFCO.

And so we have multiple chance to have more robust discussions, additional conditions to this project.

And so this is not the end.

But I would love to see a more robust, you know, condition plan for the community in terms of what Commissioner Lee talked about with the gaps to the residential neighborhoods.

And so this is a truck stop plan.

And I, from North Sacramento, I realized that our industrial area does not, you know, protect our neighborhoods.

You know, the air quality, the pollution, it really affects the community.

And we want this to be that catalyst project to say, hey, this is, you know, what we, it's done right here, you know.

And so this is an opportunity for that.

And so, you know, this is a very tough project to really make a decision on.

And I realized that, you know, hopefully, you know, as we discuss more, we get more.

And so I am looking in favor to support this project moving forward.

However, I would like to see more conditions of protection for habitats, more protections for the community and egress and space from the school as well.

Any further comments, Commissioner?

You good?

All right.

Commissioner Blunt.

Yeah.

So, first of all, Garrett, congratulations on, it's been a pleasure working with you.

I really, really appreciate all the work that you've done.

So, I didn't get to read the plaque, but I'm sure it's nice.

Also, I want to say thank you to my sisters and brothers of unions of all for coming out, providing comment, and just being in attendance.

You know, being a member, being a member, I know the hours and that your time is precious and that you being here is, it means a lot, a lot.

So, I personally want to say thank you for coming out.

And also to the applicant for, you know, coming to an agreement with the building trades.

I, you know, one of the comments from the public was about, you know, how much work actually gets covered by other unions, which is significant.

So, it would be nice to see that happen, an agreement happen with them as well, but I carry on.

I also wanted to thank all of the public comment.

I don't know about everyone else, but I learned a lot.

And my biggest takeaway was about the bird strikes, the airplanes striking the birds.

I didn't know that Sacramento ranks so high amongst airports that, wild.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do have some questions for staff.

So, in the presentation, you mentioned that there are other projects like this neighboring residential areas.

I work at one.

I work at the Pell area, you know, and that butts up right against the neighborhood.

We got chickens walking through our streets every now and again.

I'm just curious when, was there any effort to reach out to residents from those neighborhoods to talk about what they experience and sort of get to influence this project?

Anecdotally on discussions that I've had with members of the Robla community association is that, you know, they're very cognizant of the impacts that these industrial buildings or warehouses are when they're right directly adjacent to the residential.

And so, you know, taking that into consideration, I, you know, staff is being very thoughtful.

And so we tried to, you know, we're proposing the additional buffer, um, from what already exists between the city buffer and the one adjacent to Paso Verde school.

And we input, um, restrictions within the PUD to restrict height and additional setbacks and locating the truck bays further away.

Um, and we also, uh, created the smaller parcels, um, within the PUD area.

So that would, uh, enforce smaller building sizes.

So you're not gonna get the giant warehouses like what you would see in the example you provided the Long Pell.

So we were very cognizant of, you know, sorta, um, bad practices from the past and how we would not replicate that and do better, um, in this scenario.

Okay. Yeah. Um, just working there, there's so many trucks and the exhaust issue is, like, I feel it every day just being outside.

Um, okay. Well, thank you for that.

Uh, I, so one of my, one of my issues with this project is, um, the I-5 of it all.

Um, like, at this point, right now where we stand without this project, we're already experiencing a lot of congestion on the I-5 corridor.

Right? Like, it's, and I know, like, there's been attempts to, like, um, create an off ramp.

And, like, the last time that the applicant was here, you mentioned you spent millions and millions of dollars in infrastructure to, uh, provide that offer.

And I, I thank you for that. But I'm just curious whether or not there are any intentions of increasing the number of lanes on I-5?

In that area? Like, because right now it's just the two lanes each, going each way, right?

Is there any intention from Caltrans or, well, I guess it would just be Caltrans of increasing the number of lanes there?

In that stretch of I-5, there are three lanes. Metro Airpark was required to construct auxiliary lanes to ease the, the traffic impacts.

You're talking about the exit only lane?

Is that exit only?

There's both exit only and when you pass the overpass, there's the three lanes that gets you to the airport.

So they were technically a Caltrans project but it was auxiliary lanes part of the Metro Airpark.

Okay. So would there be more, would there be another lane with this project or no?

No.

Okay.

Huh.

All right.

Um, I, okay.

So you mentioned, to staff, the, you mentioned in the, um, staff report, which by the way, extensive, great work,

um, that there are many goals, this is a quote, there are many goals and policies in the general plan and North Natomas community plan that support the project.

And then a comprehensive list of the supporting goals and policies are provided in attachment 30, which by the way, starts on page 541 if anyone wants to take a look.

Um, and, uh, so, there were two that were listed there that I, I'm kind of, I'm really curious about.

So you list the noise source control, which is ERC dash 10.2.

And then you also list the vehicle miles traveled as metric M dash 2.3.

And I'm trying, I'm curious as to how you came to the determination that this project meets those goals.

Yeah.

I think the incorporation of these two policies was just to recognize that, um, as part of the analysis and going through sequel sequel that, uh, the city did the VMT analysis.

And so we're just kind of generally stating the fact that we're being consistent with, you know, direction of the general plan and complying with state laws and, and sequel.

Okay.

Um, yeah, that's, that's the only, uh, questions that I really have.

I, um, I also really appreciate the, uh, my fellow commissioners for, um, you know, this conversation and the items that you're, you're bringing up and the issues that you're bringing up.

Um, yeah, um, this is a tough one.

I'm going to yield my time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lamas.

Thank you, chair.

Um, why don't you go back to parcel eight.

From what I heard, um, there is a process for engagement on that side.

And it, but it's tied to the land designation.

Right.

Depending on what that is designated, the zoning designation, whatever the zone, the designated zone is would dictate whether the level of approval it would need in order to be built out.

Right.

So I presume it's being zoned as light industrial at the moment.

Correct.

It has a proposed, uh, pre zoning of M one or light industrial.

I'm glad that you did bring this parcel light back up because I had failed to mention that this parcel would also require development agreement.

Um, we do have a, uh, finance plan that's associated with this, that we would want to ensure that they are a part of.

And so the development agreement would make sure that occurs.

And so all development agreements are required to receive a recommendation by this commission, um, forwarded on to city council for a final decision.

So any first, uh, land use application submitted on parcel eight will ultimately require a decision by the city council and executed, uh, development agreement.

Okay.

So if it, so it would go to the city council.

So when future development is proposed.

Correct.

Okay.

And I guess that's what I was trying to figure out that there was some way for us to try to make sure that we are, um, particularly intentional about what gets built there.

Um, just given the proximity to the school, um, and that corner with the, or the residential, um, community is.

And so, um, it was just kind of worrying me, you know, but it sounds like there is, there is already beyond the CEQA considerations for future potential further evaluations.

Um, it will have to go through this city process and to city council for approval, considering this development agreement.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

You'll my time.

Thank you.

Commissioner Thompson.

Um, I wrote a bunch of questions down and sitting on this dais with all of these fantastic commissioners.

They were all answered plus extras.

So, um, I think more just a comment.

It's recognizing that we're right next to a place.

That's this delicate, sensitive, important area that we recognize as a city needs protection and created a plan to do so, um, a while ago and have worked hard at doing that in conjunction with a partner.

Um, but also, and along with that, to quote our newest commissioner, uh, growth is inevitable of this city and how we manage that growth alongside still protecting the areas that we can't can becomes a very modern problem.

Um, that I think for personally makes this such a complicated and difficult decision to come to, um, trying to understand, uh, and I think it was one of the speakers spoke to how important it is to protect spaces for the generations that are coming before us.

And I have kids in my twenties in their twenties, but kids in their twenties, but kids in their twenties who the world that they're experiencing is very different than what I did.

And I see now that the ability to protect something that's as important as the Natomas basin isn't just thinking immediately, but it's actually thinking long term, which means recognizing our ways of protecting might not be the, don't do anything, but might be, how can we really protect this?

In the long run.

And a lot of times that means how can we scoop this into a place to ensure that this is within the city's protection who we know that protection is going to stay.

We're the ones in control of that as opposed to, um, letting the dice roll.

It's like a parent.

Again, I know the protection I can offer my kids, but if I give them to somebody else, it changes the rules a little bit.

So, uh, I do agree though with, uh, commissioner Lee's recommendation of expanding the boundary in between the school and, and the start, uh, just for the sake of that neighborhood.

That neighborhood there did not have this type of growth anticipated, uh, cause I don't think it was a part of it.

And, and it does seem like a, a, a fair ask to understand that those who are growing up in that area don't have to be exposed to that.

Uh, and that's all I have.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lee.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh, fellow commissioners.

Uh, I appreciate, uh, you guys' input and questions.

Um, another thing that was brought up by residents was the potential for truck traffic into the neighborhood.

Um, I know that was, uh, addressed by amending the plans to include a roundabout actually, uh, that wasn't there, uh, previously.

And, um, uh, maybe you guys can sort of talk a little bit more about that.

Um, I, I think we may have someone, maybe our, our city traffic engineer in the audience as well too.

Um, but, uh, uh, Garrett, maybe you may be able to just give a quick overview of what is going to be done to mitigate the truck traffic.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that was a, a topic of conversation.

And so, uh, the proposed roundabout will, uh, sort of discourage, um, truck traffic from, uh, heading east, um, on Bayou and wrapping around towards the West Lake.

The applicant has also agreed to, uh, sort of inform all the future tenants to not utilize, um, that, uh, Bayou, uh, to head east.

And will instead encourage all truck traffic to use the, the main road and up on the intersection.

Um, and I don't know if you had anything else you wanted to add.

Nick.

Yeah, I just wanted to say these large logistics facilities.

Yeah.

The, this issue of traffic impacts along, uh, South Bayou, uh, eastward, um, very seriously.

You know, we plan to put not only the roundabout, which is enormous, because it's big enough for large trucks to turn around.

There will be signage discouraging trucks from utilizing South Bayou Way, as well as, uh, the, uh, commitment on the, uh,

on North Point to require in the leases that, that, uh, uh, truck, truck traffic be discouraged.

Obviously we believe, uh, most truck traffic will be, um, uh, not a problem.

We just, there, I can't guarantee there won't be an errant truck.

And so I can't, I don't want to say all trucks will be, but we're confident to a high degree that most trucks, uh, will not be traversing South Bayou Way.

And I will say, uh, air quality has been a repeated, uh, issue.

I would just say that it might be beneficial to have the air quality consultant as well, um, maybe articulate.

Um, there are some nuances here that I think are important to understand relative to looking at the air, air quality impact question.

So I would just suggest that, uh, the consultant be invited up to, um, provide some insight on that.

Is the air quality consultant here?

Mr. Chair?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was just asking that question.

The, the, the floor is with commissioner Lee.

So that's up to him.

Yeah, absolutely.

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, uh, chair commissioners.

I'm Rod Stinson with rainy planning and management.

We prepared the EIR for the proposed project, including the air quality analysis.

Um, I think what might be beneficial, um, to help clarify is that under CEQA there are two separate questions that we were answering.

One is mass emissions in the air basin for what's called criteria air pollutants.

So that's, um, ozone precursors, carbon monoxide.

And that is the impact, uh, where the mass emissions of the project exceed the thresholds from the air district.

And even with mitigation, that remains significant and unavoidable, which requires the statement of overriding considerations.

The other question is a question of concentration.

And that's the one where there was a health risk assessment prepared that analyzed the potential impacts of, uh, diesel particulate on the neighboring sensitive receptors, including the school.

Um, and so that analysis, uh, as was mentioned a couple of times tonight, um, is when we looked at just the proposed development, proposed project, it was just under the threshold.

We also did an analysis of what does this look like at full build out.

And because the concentration assessment is so site specific on where the trucks are idling, how are they accessing that site, um, without having a proposed project on parcel eight, um, we identified that there's a potential impact there to the school and to the neighborhood.

And have a mitigation measure that requires them to do when an application comes in, do an analysis at that point to make sure that that project in conjunction with the rest of the development stay under that threshold.

Um, and then it lays out some of the, uh, potential measures that can be implemented to make sure that that doesn't happen to include even moving that building going all electric.

Um, to ensure that there is a way that would, that there isn't a significant impact for health risks.

Um, I, I think that clarifies it.

I think maybe the, the last point I would make is that every, at every point in that health risk assessment, we made a conservative estimate.

The, the modeling identifies a maximally exposed individual, which is in the neighborhood area, not at the school.

But we assumed that that concentration occurred for a child that is born in that neighborhood, goes to school at that school and lives in that whole neighbor, gets a job at the school.

So there's a 30 day, a 30 year, um, exposure period that was looked at.

And that, that was the one that was still under the threshold.

So it's fairly conservative, um, and there's some protections with the mitigation measures for a future development of parsley.

Thank you.

Uh, going back to the truck traffic.

So Garrett, there's going to be a no truck traffic sign, right?

Past the roundabout or right around that area.

Is that correct?

Correct. Yes.

Okay.

And then, um, you may not know the answer to this question, but, um, I know our,

our police department's, uh, motor team, they enforce the traffic laws primarily.

Um, do we know if, um, they could issue tickets if a truck does end up driving past that posted sign?

Commissioner Lee, I'm sorry.

Could you, um, speak into the microphone?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Um, so going back to my question, if a truck driver drives past that sign and it's posted saying,

Hey, no truck traffic, but they just go right by and they drive into the neighborhood.

Could a police officer issue a ticket to that truck driver?

If it's not designated as a truck route, yes, they can.

Which South Bayou is not designated as a truck route.

Okay.

Thank you.

That could be included in the, as part of the enforcement program and the signage and

everything else.

And I think, you know, that's one of the benefits of having that larger designed roundabout for

new truck drivers who might come in there and they start heading in that direction.

There's an alternative to turn around.

And then if residents are seeing that they're seeing a larger volume of trucks, they can

always call the police department to request more enforcement, right?

Yes.

I'm not sure how they're going to respond, but, um, that's a different question.

Um, moving on here, um, well, actually one more thing on the truck stuff.

Um, uh, applicant, Nick, you mentioned, uh, there's going to be a plan to, um, work with

the tenants to ensure that the drivers don't go in the direction of the neighborhood that

they would go towards the freeway, right?

Correct.

Do you guys have any more details on that?

Like, um, are materials and route maps going to be handed out to drivers or, um, are there

going to be like signs at the, uh, exits directing drivers to the freeway or how does that work?

Well, we're open to talking about it.

For us, it was a commitment to inform our tenants that will be occupying these buildings

that, uh, that this is a sensitive issue and that there needs to be clear direction, obviously,

to the dispatch teams that trucks are not allowed on non truck route designated roads.

So it's really as simple as that.

It's really just the commitment of us telling you that's what we're going to do.

And the fact that they're the South Bayou Way is not designated as a truck route.

You know, that's, there's obviously an enforcement component as well.

Okay.

Um, yeah, you know, as, as you guys, uh, work more into that, I just really encourage that

you guys, uh, work closely with your tenants, uh, future tenants, um, on that part, because

I, I do hear, uh, from other cities that, um, you know, even though there's a truck sign,

uh, no truck traffic sign and everything, you know, the, the trucks, they follow their GPS sometimes.

And, uh, unfortunately they end up in the residential neighborhood.

So, uh, but that's all I have on the truck stuff.

So thank you.

Okay.

I do want to touch on the noise question you brought up earlier, but I'll wait.

Okay.

Unless you want me to say it.

Uh, you can talk about it now.

Yeah.

I know you mentioned earlier, uh, obviously you mentioned the idea of a buffer that frankly

for our project, just doesn't work to provide a 1500 foot buffer.

Um, you know, we worked very closely with your staff on parcel files,

uh, on parcel five to drastically reduce the intensity and the load and to design the building

such that the occupants of those buildings would not be a logistics facility, right?

That, that parcel five and the building sizes are really intended to be like what NIVA gen is

doing right across the street from an existing residential neighborhood.

And part of that, you know, we have to comply with the noise ordinance.

You know, some things with beeping and I, I understand those issues, but I, I don't think

that those, first of all, we have to, um, that those spaces have to be occupied in a manner

that's consistent with the city's noise ordinance, right?

So, um, I can tell you that the type of user is not a heavy volume truck user like a million

square foot, uh, uh, logistics facility like what we're planning on the west side of the

project area, right?

Considerably larger, um, uh, buildings and more directed to the more modern advanced, uh, logistics

facilities where you do have a lot of truck traffic, but it's immediately adjacent to the, uh, Metro

area park interchange.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So is it in the, um, item that we're approving here tonight that it actually limits the size

of the building or is that just a conceptual plan at this point?

So right now in the PUD, if we propose something different, there has to be an amendment to the

PUD.

The, the PUD does incorporate, uh, maximum, uh, building size restrictions for those parcels,

um, that Nick is referring to.

There's a height restriction too, right?

Correct.

Like 30 feet?

Voluntary height restriction.

Voluntary as in?

In the PUD we, uh, you know, because in the zoning designation it's 70 feet if I recall correctly,

but go ahead.

Yeah, correct.

It's limited at 40 feet in the PUD.

Okay.

Yeah.

That will be their max height.

Uh, and Nick, I think you mentioned earlier 1500 feet.

That, that was a, a resident's request.

Uh, what I'm proposing is 500 feet, which will be much less.

Now you can still have a building, uh, 300 feet away from the residential area.

What I'm suggesting is that, uh, for that building, you just can't have, uh, the loading, unloading

areas within 500 feet of the school or residential.

So that building could still be there 300 feet, but, uh, for that building, the loading

area just has to be 500 feet away from the school or the residential use.

If that makes sense.

It does make sense.

And I want to make sure that, uh, we're clear that parcel five is, if we look at parcel five,

as it relates to the West Lake neighborhood, more of the, the self storage facility is directly

across from parcel five.

You know, we do have a couple of residences, but that's what we're talking about.

And when you say 500 feet, you're really only talking about a couple of residences that would

really be, you know, uh, I guess implicated in, in that distance setback.

Cause parcel five is, is north.

And like I said, a majority of it is next to the existing, I forget what that space is called.

There's a life storage.

Yeah.

That's right off, right off the freeway there.

Right.

But we still have residences there too.

Yes.

Right.

But I'm just saying we're talking, the number is very, very small.

Okay.

Um, thank you.

Uh, just quick question on the lighting.

I think it's probably addressed in the report, but I just wanted to make sure that we discuss

it briefly here.

So the lighting that's adjacent to the residential, um, Garrett, I'm not sure if you know the answer,

uh, but it's, do we have a, a, uh, a, uh, design element in there where the light can't

be super high where it's shining down on the residences and you know, it's shielded and.

Correct.

Yeah.

So we have requirements within the PD that have some general, um, requirements like you

said for, for the shielding of light and not having light pollution.

It's also further backed by the city code where you can't have light pollution or spill over

across property lines.

And so when we get into this specific review of each, uh, parcel and each building, we will,

uh, we'll look at the lighting plan.

We'll look at the photo metrics to ensure that there are no, uh, light pollution or spillage

over property lines.

Got it.

Thank you.

Um, quick question on the parcel five.

Parcel five is just want to make sure we're all talking about the same, uh, parcel here.

That's the parcel with the broken up buildings that are smaller and was adjacent to the neighborhood.

Correct.

Okay.

I really appreciate the applicant for, um, uh, looking at that and making that change.

Um, um, I just had a question on that too.

Um, I know there were some questions about market demand in terms of the warehouse basis.

Um, have you guys looked at, um, you guys might have touched on it before, but have you guys looked at, um, sort of developing the larger parcels closer to the freeway interchange first and then, you know, as, as more demand happens, then you would.

Eventually end up towards the neighborhood or.

Yes, that's correct.

It would phase from west to east.

And relative to demand, I think, uh, kind of a tangent here, but I do think it's important to know.

I think it was raised about, uh, locating, uh, this logistics facility elsewhere or that there's plenty of land in Metro Air Park.

That's actually an inaccurate statement.

If you look at the available land inventory in Metro Air Park and the size of the parcels, the last parcel that can accommodate a large 1 million square foot building was just purchased by Costco.

Is that correct, Jeff?

There's, there's actually one more remaining.

One more remaining.

So the point is there isn't land inventory of parcel sizes large enough to accommodate a million square foot logistics facility.

So.

Yeah.

All right.

Um, I think those are the questions I have.

I have, yeah, all the ones I have right now.

So I'll give you my time.

Thank you.

For now.

Commissioner Ortiz.

Thank you.

Um, if I may ask the air quality consultant to come forward and clarify a couple of points.

Um, I, I do appreciate that we've got to dig a little deeper into this.

Um, I want to make sure I understand your, um, what your presentation earlier.

There are essentially two measures of air quality.

One, I assume the first one, which we determined, um, was significant and unavoidable, which requires us to, to the findings of overriding considerations.

Is that, um, tell me that the, what is that measure?

Is it, um, what modeling is it presuming diesel trucks, uh, gas trucks?

It incorporates all emissions from the, from the project.

The truck trips, the worker commute trips, the trips associated with the commercial portion and any, um, vehicles coming to, coming to, um, use those facilities.

Um, as well as area source emissions, um, energy use, water, uh, conveyance emissions.

So it, it takes all those different sources of not only the proposed project, but full build out with some assumptions for the non-participating properties.

Um, and the metric that is used is, uh, pounds per day of the certain criteria pollutants.

Okay.

And the second measure that you presented, is that a public health threshold determination?

Yes.

And it was your, um, your statement was that it was just below the threshold and the modeling is the average child because that's, that's when they're most vulnerable is their lungs are being formed.

And if they're constantly exposed over time and you used a 30 year lifespan with a hypothetical child that lived through that time, worked their state in that.

And you found that that was just under the threat, public health safety threshold.

That's right.

Um, so I, mostly statement and maybe I'll ask a question.

Um, that presumes a modeling of what is there now.

It doesn't take into consideration cumulative impacts of future projects that will also add to that load in that area.

And I know you can't speak to that cause you're looking at just this project, but I just think, you know, the first measure, um, is pretty significant.

I mean, let's be clear.

That's, that's for the workers, for the community that is, is, um, significant and unavoidable.

And it is not great.

Uh, we live in a non attainment area.

Our, our valley has been out of compliance with federal standards for decades.

The second measure, the public health measure of exposure presumes a child.

I mean, what is there now, but as you add more projects, as you go along, that hypothetical child will be exposed to more over time.

Um, and this is a question I don't know that we can ask of the project.

Probably not.

Um, let me ask you if, if 50% of this fleet from this particular project was electric, what might that look like?

Yeah, I mean, that would reduce the emissions from all the different metrics that are used.

Um, in fact, that is one of the mitigation, potential mitigation measures that, or one of the potential options that was a component of the future mitigation measure, um, for parcel eight was, you could make this one all electric and then those diesel emissions go away.

Yeah, and I, um, I know we have the representative of the, of the property to, to be property owner.

And then we also have the developer and I don't know who the potential tenant is.

I think we can all speculate.

Um, but I don't know, does this commission have the ability to impose a condition of what that fleet could be constructed of?

Or is that outside of our authority?

You could, you could include a recommendation and then we can look into it and see, you can, um, include that recommendation to council and then we can look into it.

And if it is feasible and legal, then we can impose that, suggest that council impose that condition.

But if we determine that it's not, just give us a second to look into it.

You need to do a little research on whether or not that's within our, yeah.

I would add that there in the mitigation measures that came out of the air quality, the AQMP, um, is a component of a certain percentage of fleet mix that is electric.

May I ask what that percentage was that came out of AQMD?

It was 4.5 of the fleet mix.

Only for under 5%.

4.5%.

I, I would throw out there, I would welcome this commission considering, um, asking for a condition.

40% of the fleet.

If, if all we, so you're saying we can do a recommendation but not impose a condition?

You would recommend that council impose the condition.

And then I would take a look at it between now and when we go to council and see if that is a reasonable condition for council to impose.

I figured I'd hear from you this.

Well, you know, obviously, you know, the, the fleet mix is changing, although I guess with.

I guess with.

Who knows what's happening at federal level, yeah.

Yeah.

We, we, we obviously, the trend is certainly there.

Obviously, the huge investment in the WAD-EV project immediately adjacent to this project site is a huge indicator that this is a logistics hub, right?

And so the encouragement of these heavy electric trucks is something that's already happening.

Now, while I understand in principle what you're talking, I think the practical implications are, we won't be able to rent that, any of those buildings out.

Because there isn't a single user that has a fleet they can certify is 50% electric.

That's just not the way it works, you know?

And so, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm on to your idea, but I just don't know that it's practical.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, there is one potential tenant that is pretty much electric that starts with an A and ends with an N.

Pardon me?

And, and, you know.

Not, not, not their, not their large heavy trucks.

So they're, we're talking large semis.

Got it.

Yeah.

Their, their first mile, last mile, what do they call it?

The, in any event, the delivery trucks are electric, but as it relates to the big freight trucks, no.

So, thank you.

And I guess I'm just struggling with, I mean, this project already on the first measure is substantial and, and can't be mitigated and, and is unavoidable.

And then that second public health measure is just under the threshold.

But there's going to be more.

This, this is, this is the first project that's open the floodgate for far more development here.

So we're going to see far more traffic.

I don't know, Mr. Chair, if you want to have Mr. Abdi's jump up every time I make a statement, but.

I don't mean, I don't mean, I'm a little jumpy.

I just want to be clear that the assumptions that went into this air quality analysis assumed a certain level of distribution, heavy truck trips on parcel eight.

But as we've heard this evening, very conservative estimate that would have to come back to this commission and to the city council for further vetting.

So if you assumed there were no heavy trucks on parcel eight, the analysis significantly changed better.

So just a little perspective.

Thank you.

I won't pop up unless called.

No, no, I appreciate it.

I, I would welcome whether it's a recommendation, some percentage to be thrown out there.

I get there's a 4.5 in, in the, in the EIR mitigation recommendations.

Um, but I think, you know, a recommendation could be disregarded by the council, but assuming that there's a question whether we have the legal authority to do it, I would welcome a consideration of a higher percentage than 4.5 coming from this body.

Um, 10%, I think.

And I think, and if we're told we can't do that, then we're told we can't do that.

Legal counsel wants to clarify.

I would just perhaps suggest that you say something like increase the number of electric vehicles.

If these, you know, that you recommend that we impose a condition that increases the number of electric vehicles rather than picking a specific number.

Okay.

Seems like it would be easier.

Well, I would welcome with all the many other, um, amendments or changes that have been recommended that we consider recommending an increase in the percentage of electric vehicles fleet in this project with no number, but certainly above 4.5.

Thank you.

You, you, you yield your time.

I yield my time.

Yes.

Okay.

Commissioner, uh, Vice Chair Chase.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, digging into my career of, uh, many, uh, industrial and retail projects designs.

Um, a couple of comments on, uh, questions on noise and air pollution.

Uh, from a noise standpoint, many, um, uh, loading docks will require or have seals around the dock so that the truck backs against it.

It's then sealed, uh, to predict, you know, so that noise of loading and unloading, uh, is, is, you know, is, is cut off.

Very common among supermarkets where the loading dock is on the backside, uh, against residential.

If I could ask the, um, uh, the applicant if, if, uh, typically do you do, uh, require air, uh, dock seals in your projects or could you?

Yes, Commissioner Chase.

And most of these larger logistics facilities, the, uh, tenant requires dock seals, so.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, my other questions regarding the question I asked earlier, uh, prevailing, uh, winds, um, and as I expected there from the south, our, our Delta breeze is coming up through.

I guess my question for, uh, regarding air quality then, is, how does the, uh, analysis of the air quality on a particular site take into account prevailing winds?

Because if, obviously if the pollution's, uh, blowing away from a school as opposed to toward it, toward it, it would have a different effect.

Yeah.

Um, so that would relate to the, um, that concentration modeling where we're getting the concentration of diesel particulate.

The, one of the inputs into the model is meteorological data and it was gathered from, uh, monitoring that's done at the airport.

So it's fairly close data that should represent fairly, fairly closely with, uh, winds that are happening on the site.

And that's plugged into the model and then it runs, um, the simulations of, of the emissions.

So you were saying that that prevailing wind element should have, would be accounted for in there.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I yield.

I yield.

I yielded.

So I think we're 15 minutes away from our 9 30, um, threshold time.

And so, um, I do need to ask the commission if they would like to extend this meeting beyond

9 30 to, I guess the next 30 minutes, I guess would be a good increment.

We could, but I, well, I don't want to do it.

Oh, we don't.

Oh, we don't.

Okay.

All right.

We'll just, can, can I get a, um, a motion to extend, uh, this commission meeting past 9 30.

I have a motion from vice chair chase.

I have a second from commissioner Lee.

Thank you.

Commissioners.

Please.

Please unmute your mics.

I'm sorry.

Please unmute your mics for the vote.

Commissioner Lee.

Aye.

Commissioner Lee.

Aye.

Commissioner Tao.

Aye.

Commissioner Lamas.

Aye.

Commissioner Lee.

Aye.

Commissioner Lamas.

Aye.

Commissioner Lamas.

Aye.

Commissioner Camille.

I'm sorry.

Please unmute your mics for the vote.

Commissioner Lee.

Aye.

Commissioner Tao.

Aye.

Commissioner Lamas.

Aye.

Nybo.

Caden, absent.

Commissioner Hernandez.

Aye.

Asiis Reed, absent.

Commissioner Ortiz.

Aye.

Commissioner Blunt.

Aye.

Vice chair Chase.

Aye.

Commissioner Ruski, absent.

absent. Commissioner Thompson? Aye. Chair Young? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Llamas? Thank you, Chair. I have a question and thinking about the trucks

potentially traveling through South Bayou down through, you know, traveling east,

ultimately through El Centro. Would it be possible to build out some kind of an arc

that restricts the ability for large vehicles to go down that way, potentially

on the eastern end of that roundabout? Question. So we did discuss that. The issue is public safety.

You have to have access available for fire apparatus and fire trucks. And so that was a problem.

And so that's why we were not proposing. Well, we can't obviously do that. So it restricts emergency vehicles.

Thank you. You have my time. Thank you. Commissioner Thompson?

Thanks. A quick note, actually, for the commission, as we're talking about increasing the amount of electric vehicles,

which would be awesome, especially the fleet ones, that that also brings a different risk to the project,

which is fire. And in my experience in working on multiple parking garages that are bringing up a lot of electric vehicles,

that especially fleet vehicles that end up being all electric, they change the risk for fire for those neighborhoods.

So just adding that when we're weighing that in. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to ask a few questions, some basic ones.

I guess maybe the first question is for the applicant.

Just kind of big picture for all of us.

What was your rationale for coming to the city to go through this process,

as was kind of mentioned before?

I think, you know, I think we would like to know.

It was the services and the HCP coverage.

Because, yes, we determined that we could, in fact, proceed under the HCP,

notwithstanding the issues earlier that I want to necessarily rehash,

but what it comes down to, Senator Ortiz, or Member Ortiz,

I guess once a senator always is,

what it comes down to is there's an inconsistency in the documents.

There's an inconsistency in the permit, which says you can develop 8,050,

and that the Exhibit B, which outlines the area that is the permit area.

The permit area does not equal 8,050.

And so the HCP documents themselves allow for things like map corrections,

which, in fact, the city just did not too long ago on the property, the 121 acres.

That was recognized by the agencies as actually covered through the process of a map correction.

Sutter County has done several map corrections.

So my point there, just a little sidebar, I want to just encapsulate that issue,

but it really was the provision of services and the HCP coverage

that ultimately was a determining factor for pursuing entitlements in the city.

Thank you.

And so I'm going to go through hypotheticals now.

You know, lawyers love hypotheticals.

So if, and this is not what I'm reading right now in the room,

but if this project were not to go through the route of the city,

what would be your play?

It would be to go through the county.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Follow-up question.

There was mention of quite a bit of underutilized warehouse space in the area.

Could you maybe speak to why that is the case now and why you guys are proposing?

Well, I think I kind of know why, but maybe just kind of speak to the general effect

that why is there such a large amount of underutilized warehouse space at this time?

Jeff, tell me, what's the minimum acreage for a million square foot building?

A million square foot building takes approximately 80 acres.

So the availability of 80 acres is extremely limited.

That's zone M1.

So that is the, that's the factor.

We can't look at a square foot of industrial being equal to a square foot of industrial.

The type of facilities that we're proposing require a massive land area that is unavailable in other areas.

So we can say that there's existing square footage in North Natomas.

Well, that might be fine for a 100,000 square foot building or a 50,000 square foot building.

But here we're talking about multiple million square foot buildings.

Got it.

And, and currently like what's, what's, what's the market right now for kind of light industrial?

I mean, I know commercial office is taking a big hit, but what, what are we looking at right now as far as the market?

The market is kind of at a historical average right now.

We went through a historical high, certainly in 2020 through 2022.

And we've now kind of leveled off.

Some of the figures that were mentioned tonight were totally erroneous.

Somebody did mention, I believe, that we're generally at a 5% vacancy rate, over 200 million square feet in our market.

So that gives you a picture of, that's 200 million square feet of every building that's been built as an industrial asset in the last 50 years.

So you can imagine how many are dysfunctional.

When you look at the class A inventory, there's not a lot of vacancy out there.

And there's a need for this product in our marketplace.

So you're basically saying there's sort of a structural issue with how existing warehouse space is actually designed right now.

Correct.

In which the market is really, the supply is really not meeting the demand, the current demand, which is why there are takers.

So you're basically proposing a product that will meet the current demand.

That is correct.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

The industry has definitely shifted over the past 15 years with the e-commerce industry.

And what's your proposed development timeline should you get the entitlements?

I've estimated for public works between 7 and 10 years to full build out.

That includes the backbone infrastructure project, which is 18 to 24 months alone.

Great.

Okay.

So I'm going to move on.

Thank you very much.

That was helpful.

I'm going to move on to kind of my questions regarding kind of the overall economics of this annexation.

I had a chance to go through the economic planning systems financing plan and the economic impact study.

I think it was fairly straightforward.

To me, I think the story is the developer is going to be paid for all the infrastructure costs and with all the number of different fees.

Correct?

Yeah.

So that is correct.

This will not impact negatively the city's general fund or any special fund in any negative way.

And so we're talking about approximately $93 million.

Is that correct?

I don't have it right in front of me.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

How will that get paid?

I mean, that's the estimate.

But how does that get paid over time?

Is that an out-of-pocket expense?

What's the mechanism for how that's going to get paid?

So we've assumed phasing for the project.

There's certain backbone infrastructure work that has to be done that will be day one expenses.

But that $93 million will be paid over phases.

Those are just, that's just financing that we have to include with our projects.

So my read in the plan was that I think there was going to be a $30 million bond measure.

That was one scenario.

One scenario.

Correct.

But that's a Melrose bond, a CFD that, the CFDs come, they don't come to the Planning Commission, do they?

Does anybody know?

No, they don't.

So it's not uncommon, obviously, for new development to tax itself under a land-secured financing mechanism known as a Melrose bond,

in which you tax yourself for public infrastructure.

So I guess are we contemplating that most of these facility costs are going to need some form of, well,

not almost all of it's going to need to be bond financed, of which.

It doesn't need to be.

No, no.

And even with the bond finance, we still need to finance that project up front and then refinance that bond.

So the money back out with a bond issuance.

Approximately what proportion are you thinking that you're going to come out of pocket?

There's formulas on how much you can bond against a property, and it's based on value.

So, for example, take a backbone public road like ASI Drive.

It would have to get built and accepted by the city, and then, you know, bonds would have to be issued,

revenue generated to reimburse the developer for putting in that public piece of infrastructure, right?

And you're limited on what your total number that you can bond for based on a formula, based on land value.

And so I would just, I mean, what was written in the economic and planning systems report was an exercise.

I don't think, I want to just emphasize, I don't think this was anything, these aren't going to be the actual numbers, right?

I mean, there's still negotiations that are there, but it was just to demonstrate to us that there was a financing plan.

And this is how it's going to generally get paid.

It'll most likely get sourced out.

Well, let's be clear.

There's a few different economic analyses.

There's the finance plan, which shows you how we're going to pay for public infrastructure.

And then there's the economic impact analysis, which talks about all the economic impacts that radiate from this project,

including property tax, sales tax.

And for that, we did make assumptions.

For example, yes, it's true that the tax share agreement has not been finalized.

So what the ultimate tax share split will affect that.

What we did with EPS was take historically what had been done in other tax share agreements

and use those assumptions to help generate a snapshot, an idea,

so you can have an order of magnitude of what this project could generate.

And on top of that, we didn't really include e-commerce sales tax component,

which would generate multiples of what the city would get under any realistic scenario for property taxes.

But we didn't want to speculate what that would look like because we can't guarantee there'll be an e-commerce user.

But if you do, the sales tax generation to the city would be multiples of what the property tax revenue would be.

Right.

So I think one of the questions that I had, and I don't think we're going to be able to adequately answer it here,

is you mentioned kind of the economic impact.

And, you know, what I found lacking in the report, believe me, it was very comprehensive.

I know a lot of effort went into it.

I was just bothered by the lack of a fiscal impact study.

I would have liked to have seen at least the exercise of what is the total revenue generated from this proposed project,

you know, whatever in different phases.

But also I think Rainey had done the exercise of, you know, all the various services that the city would need to provide in order to service,

you know, this additional annexation.

And so I for what I would have liked to have seen what the overall impact would be to the city.

Is this going to be a net positive, net neutral, net negative over time?

And so I think I would love if maybe at least for now anecdotally, I think the consultant from Economic Planning Systems is.

She unfortunately had a child care need.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, we had her until about eight.

So unfortunately.

Okay.

But I'll tell you, just be cognizant on.

So we've had this internal discussion understanding that this might be an issue.

I think the fiscal impact analysis is not, first of all, it's not something that's required by the city.

Secondarily, a project like this is very low service, city service demand.

And it's, when we, when we talked to EPS and we talked to several folks over there, the question was one of, well,

it's just generally understood that a project like this is a fiscal positive.

Now what that positive is, you know, we don't have an exact figure because we weren't required for that analysis.

But it's generally just understood in the profession that this is going to be a net fiscal positive to the city.

And I think that's kind of what I went into the, like, why would the city go into this?

Right.

But I think the problem is that, you know, we're, there's a lot of people not in the profession.

And, and we, as a commission are being asked, right, to recommend an annexation, right?

I think we've, we've discussed about the, the environmental piece, the safety piece, right?

But I think we also have an obligation to make sure that if we're going to recommend something,

that this is going to be a fiscal benefit to the city, I would not want to recommend something that would be a fiscal negative.

Go ahead.

One thing, just inject some kind of practical reality into it too.

I understand what you're asking as well, but just note that there is not a tax share agreement agreed upon.

Right.

So I don't know what the fiscal analysis would assume.

I mean, we can make another assumption, I suppose.

I mean, certainly want to provide the city with what it thinks it needs to make the decision.

We're confident about the outcome, but we're still going to have to make an educated guess

because it's quite likely that the tax share agreement might trail any consideration by the city council.

What's the timeline of the tax share agreement?

What, what, when are we anticipating?

Not entirely in the city's hands, but I can.

I think it's between the county and the city.

I think that's the first.

That's, that's, that, yeah.

So it is a property tax exchange agreement required by state law for, for annexations.

And it is not with the property owner at all.

It's, it's between the county and the city of Sacramento.

So that property tax exchange agreement, none of them are fast.

This one has been pending for almost a year and a half.

I think we're definitely,

especially in the last three months,

been working with the county on more specific details to work out the terms of the tax exchange agreement.

We may not have it ready for council.

I may have to take it back under separate cover to the council,

which we've done before on annexations, because we want to get it right.

We want to make sure.

So, and we want to keep as much of all the money as we can.

So to be honest, so there's, you know, and just, you know, mentioning the EPS study,

the county has all those documents.

Yes.

So they're very much aware of the potential revenue over costs and things like that.

So that, you know,

also plays into having discussions with the county and the negotiations on the tax exchange agreement.

Property tax is typically just a split, just the base, you know, property tax.

Yeah.

It's everything else that the county and city,

it's very common county and cities argue over the other revenues.

I think that in my discussions with EPS this afternoon,

a fiscal impact study is about $15,000.

It would probably take a month to do.

I think that even internally, the city might be able to cobble up the analysis.

I'm not about suggesting that we hold everything up in terms of the process

for the sake of just doing this exercise.

I just think that the final decision makers in this case, I think, is the city council.

So even though it's not ready now,

my recommendation would be that the city look into preparing a fiscal impact study.

Go ahead.

If I may.

Yeah.

We're open to working with your staff to providing an analysis.

When you say fiscal impact analysis, that is a technical term.

But if we would be open to a recommendation that we work with your staff

and your Department of Finance to provide a work product to help inform on the fiscal impacts,

something along those lines, rather than a specific technical document,

again, because we don't mind doing the document.

But the document is on its face going to be inaccurate because of the assumptions that we plug into it.

So if we can put together the information that we would normally put into a fiscal impact analysis,

you know, with some caveats, then certainly.

I would feel uncomfortable if this was an applicant-driven impact study.

I think it needs to be independent of some sort.

I would feel comfortable if it was city-driven.

I mean, even if it was done internally, the exercise.

We're fine with that.

But that's fine.

I just think that...

We can work directly with the finance department.

I've been working very closely with them on the property tax exchange agreement.

They have the EPS study, the public facilities finance plan.

So we could tear everything apart.

Again, I'm not here to gum up the process.

I think it's just important for us to just be able to demonstrate to the city, like,

hey, we're going to add 400-plus acres.

You know, like, are we going to be able to afford this, right?

And so that's all.

So that's just going to be my recommendation.

And I think that Vice Chair Chase has something to say.

But I do want to say that, you know,

I do feel like we have covered things fairly exhaustively.

And I think we've covered a lot of the issues.

And I want to give you your time.

But I also...

Because I'm reading the room,

I don't know if anyone else from ECOS is in the audience.

There are a couple.

And I don't know if they're comfortable kind of maybe answering this question.

But I think we're kind of at the point of looking at,

are there any other creative measures,

given this existing plan,

from which we can address whatever environmental concerns there are

for this proposal,

including whatever preservation or anything like that.

But I would dare say there are already mitigation fees

that have been, you know,

established that will be dedicated towards preserving

whatever other land

through actually acquiring that land

and preserving it for future conservancy.

But is there something else maybe that we aren't considering?

So that's my question for someone from ECOS.

Come on up.

Come on up.

I would love to just hear.

Hi.

Not really.

It's kind of a deferment saying that I'd have to take that back

to talk with everybody.

But we welcome the, you know,

willingness to continue cooperating

and work together to find a solution.

So once I talk with them,

I'll come back and talk with you.

We're also happy to speak with the city council as well.

I would encourage you to just talk to the planning staff.

I don't know when this is going to even come back to us,

but talk to the planning staff.

Thank you.

I'm going to just put a motion for approval.

However,

I think there's been a list of recommendations.

I'm hoping the planning staff has been sort of kind of detailing

what,