Is there any uh there's a version of this?

Is this a okay everyone?

I'd like to call the December eleventh, twenty twenty-five meeting of the planning commission to order.

Well, the recording secretary, please call roll.

And I realize this is our last meeting of twenty twenty-five.

Commissioner Carter.

Here.

Commissioner Sisko.

Here.

Commissioner Horton.

Here.

Commissioner Pardo.

Here.

Commissioner Sanders.

Here.

Vice Chair Daggan?

Here.

Chair Weeks.

Here.

Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present.

Thank you.

So we don't have any remote participation under AB 2449.

We have one set of minutes from November 13th.

Are there any changes, corrections, additions to the minutes?

Okay.

So with that, they will be approved as submitted.

If you have any public comments on the minutes, please go to the podium.

See no one rise.

We will close that.

And take it over to public comments on non-agenda items.

So this is the time when any person may address the commission on matters not listed on this agenda, but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission.

If you are in the chambers and wish to make a comment, please make your way to either one of those podiums and please state your name for the record.

You'll have up to three minutes for your comment.

And a countdown timer will alert you at the conclusion of that period.

And please note that item 11.1 is being continued to the January 8th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

So if you wish to make a comment on that, this would now be the time to do that.

And for those of you who maybe don't have an agenda, that item is the public hearing regarding the housing element implementation plan.

Okay.

See no one rise.

I will go ahead and close the public comment on non-agenda matters.

Yes.

Yeah, logo fresca is uh eleven point.

Yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

I should have probably said that the so with that um we'll go ahead and commission commission business in our statement of purpose.

We are charged with carrying out the California planning and zoning laws in the city of Santa Rosa.

Duties include implementation of plans, ordinances, and policies related to land use matters, assisting in writing and implementing the general plan and area plans, holding public hearings, and acting on proposed changes to the zoning code, zoning map, general plan, tentative subdivision map, and undertaking special planning studies as needed.

And with that, we'll go to commissioner reports.

Are there any commissioner reports?

Okay, no commissioner reports.

And we don't have anything under other, and so we move right on to department report.

Thank you, Chair Weeks, members of the commission.

Um, I do not have a report for tonight.

Okay, so moving right along.

Um, do we have any statement of abstention or recusal?

Okay, item eight is our first presentation tonight, and it is uh the draft community-based transportation plan for the South Santa Rosa Avenue Corridor, and the presentation will be given by Torina Wilson and Steph Britt Terina Wilson is Transportation Planner for the City of Santa Rosa and Steph Britt is with the Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authorities.

Yes, good afternoon, Chair Weeks and Planning Commission.

My name is Torina Wilson, I'm the city's transportation planner.

Beside me is Steph Britt, who works with the Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authorities.

So you might see that on their presentation.

Um Steph will give the presentation today since SCTCA was the agency that did run this project.

City staff was involved, so I'm here to support and also to answer any questions.

So we'll get the presentation shared and then we'll go ahead.

How many planners does it take to get your presentation shared.

Okay, we did it.

Success.

Hello, everyone.

We have to get really close to the microphone.

Super close to it.

Okay.

Hello, good evening.

I know I stand between you and the holidays, so I'll try and be a succeed and very energetic as possible.

My name is Stephanie Britt.

I go by Steph Brid with SETCA.

We are the Sonoma County and Transportation and Climate Authorities as Terina mentioned, and I'll be presenting on the community-based transportation plan for the South Santa Rosa Avenue area.

And this is a plan that was recently completed.

This plan is consistent with the Santa Rosa Active Transportation Plan, General Plan, and the South Santa Rosa Area Plan.

Santa Rosa staff have been part of the team on this project, and we've been coordinating closely on the concurrent planning efforts for this area.

So here we have the agenda.

So the CBTP program is a regional planning program that is intended to identify transportation issues and potential solutions in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

This effort is funded by MTC, the Metropolitan Planning Commission, and supported by SCTCA locally.

MTC has funded and identified to help implemented recommendations made in CBDPs, and SETCA also supports in prioritizing these priorities by funding and implementation.

The keystone of the CBTP program is the identification of community source and prioritized transportation improvements identified through a robust community engagement program.

The plan also includes a demographic and existing conditions analysis, list of transportation challenges, and a discussion on how to implement community recommendations.

So a question we get a lot is: don't we already have a lot of plans?

We understand that there's a lot of outreach fatigue, and we don't always hear from residents in underserved neighborhoods.

So the purpose of the CBDPs is to provide a focus on underrepresentative voices.

There is also dedicated funding allocated to CBTP's recommendations and the outreach and engagement conducted as part of the planning effort helps these projects in a more competitive for grant funding.

So here we can see the study area in South Santa Rosa.

We have prepared a number of CBTPs in the past, including the Roseland area, and we have done other projects like in the Russian River area, South West Santa Rosa area.

And in this cycle, we identified South Santa Rosa Avenue area as a concentration of having lower income households and mobility and connectivity issues.

And we concurrently prepared a CBTP for Central Roanur Park during this process.

So here's a map in which we focused on, as you can see, it's adjacent to South Santa Rosa Avenue, and there's a lot of high injury network issues in this area that we were trying to address.

And as the corridor stretches through the area, we're trying to make it more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists to be able to travel the area more safely.

So here we can dive into our project team.

It included SETCA staff, City of Santa Rosa staff and consultant staff from Fern Peers, Latino service providers, and was guided by the community representative committee made up of community members and a technical advisory committee made up of agency staff that would be implementing transportation improvements in the area and could otherwise support in planning efforts in the area.

Here we can see engagement phase one.

This project heavily focused on getting out into the community and talking with residents about transportation issues, barriers and concerns, and coming up with ideas for addressing these issues.

There were two phases of outreach, and in phase one, we focused on identifying issues and potential solutions, which included focus groups, pop-ups, the technical advisory committee, and the community representative committees.

And through these meetings, sender feedback and also a web survey and interactive map, we got as much feedback as possible into a very extensive list of projects.

So that was the conclusion of phase one.

And during phase two, we took the very long list of projects and we went back to the community to try and prioritize what these projects should be.

So, as listed here, we hosted a very fun transportation resource fair.

The tacos were very popular.

And as we were there, we asked the community to prioritize the list of projects and come up with what they really needed to see in the community and provide them in the plan.

As part of the outreach, we also provided food prices, information about community travel options and other concurrent planning efforts were present there, such as the SETCA mascot study, Redwood Bike Share, etc.

And we also got a lot of feedback and ideas for the appendix for the CBDPs that recommended improvements and included broad categories such as transit improvements, like service improvements for transit, new improved bus stops, shelters, benches, and water was a big one that people tended to mention.

For bike improvements, we asked for bike lanes, safety improvements, off-street pathways, etc.

And for pedestrian improvements, there was a lot of interest in better crossings, sidewalk safety enhancements.

Santa Rosa Avenue came up consistently during this process, and there was a lot of requests for better uh traffic calming, speed reductions, more crossings across the avenue, and just generally making the corridor more multimodal for everyone and easier to navigate without a car.

So now we can dive in into the final recommendations of the plan.

So don't expect you to read that Excel sheet, it's quite tiny.

But we got some broad categories out of it, and we have a map here showing the recommendations, such as a shared use path on Yolanda, a reinvision Santa Rosa Avenue recommendation to make it more pedestrian, bike and transit friendly, which included cross sections, speed reductions, crossing improvements, and transit improvements.

Regarding city bus route, they asked for higher frequency and to extend further south for city bus east, and they asked for an east-west crossing and provide better connections across Highway 101 and at Hearn Avenue and on Todd Road.

They asked for a shared use pathway on Colgan, improved sidewalks on Kawana Springs Road, improved conditions for non-auto travelers on Petaluma Hill Road, and finally, many of these improvements would improve connections with Taylor Mountain Regional Park.

So after prioritizing, we got this list of projects, which I mentioned.

And here we can see which implementing agencies might be able to work on these plans and opportunities for quick build approaches, very rough costs of how much these projects could be that's not provided there.

But in the plan, we have the rough costs for these projects that you can dive into some more and just the level of community priority for them and the long-term medium-term range for these projects.

So now off to next steps.

We are currently reaching out to commissions.

This was recently presented to SCTCA's board of directors, and we currently have a comment period, which is closing very soon on the 12th.

We encourage you to provide comments before then.

After that, we are going to finalize the plan and start implementing these projects.

If you're interested in their progress, we do have a comprehensive transportation plan that is updated every five years.

During this process, we do track the progress that we made in each CBTP effort and whether we're making progress towards all of these projects.

And you can see that we've added this plan and as part of our tracking efforts, and we're eager to get them done and implemented in the next five years.

And that's it for me.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are there any questions?

I have a couple of questions.

You said that there was funding allocated for this project for this project, and where does that funding come from?

There is the care grant that makes this illegible.

And when you have CBTP plans, the care grant is based on the environmental phase is going to be available this next fiscal year to apply for grants, and then the next year we're expecting implementation funding to be able to do that.

And this is all MTC funding.

Thank you.

And when you have the plan done, will it come back to us as part of the South Santa Rosa plan, or will it be the overall South Santa Rosa plan, or will it be done separately?

Yeah, I recognize it can be a little bit confusing.

We had the active transportation plan, their city bus has the short range transit plan and the long-range transit plan.

We have this community-based transportation plan, and then as you say, the planning department is working on the South Santa Rosa specific plan.

So because the city bus and the active transportation plans moved forward first, this document adopted all of the project recommendations from those documents.

So they are consistent, and we are having ongoing meetings with the folks who are working on the specific plan.

The goal being all of them are consistent with one another.

The benefit to this plan, specifically being that the community helped us prioritize what we already had decided needed to happen there, and now the specific plan can then add another level of enforcement for that.

And to add a little bit onto the funding item as well, the funding does mainly come from MTC, but findings in a community-based transportation plan can also give you leverage in state or federal grants because you can then say we did this extra level of engagement within this community that is considered disadvantaged.

So I know it's confusing, a lot of plans, but there is quite a big benefit that we were able to do this with SETCA.

And then you indicated that the Latino Service Providers Group are part of your outreach.

What role do they play?

They were a huge help, and I'm so grateful to Latino service providers for that.

We did a lot of pop-up events and outreach events where they were available and particularly helpful in the transit fairs that we hosted, they helped organize it, helped organize by reaching out to the community, making sure that we're engaging them, help with translation.

They were fantastic to work with and very engaging with the community.

That's great to hear.

Thank you.

So with that, I will go ahead and open the public comment on this item.

If anybody in the public has a comment they'd like to make on this item, please make your way to either one of the podiums.

Seeing no one rise, we'll close that public comment period and bring it back to the commission.

And just want to make sure there aren't any other questions.

And so, what do you need from us?

Just a thank you and happy holidays.

Well, we'll always take a thank you and happy holidays, but it was just mainly informational.

The public comment period has been open for a while.

It is only open again through tomorrow.

Um, but something to reiterate is all of the projects within this document are already part of other planning processes that have been completed and had public outreach.

Nothing should be surprising.

It was really just the community in that area telling us here's what we'd like you to focus on first as funding comes in.

So it's just for your awareness, so you know that it's happening and you know how it relates to everything else that we've been working on.

Great.

Thank you very much.

So with that, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh, we have no consent items, we have no report items, we have uh scheduled items.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, the first item 11.1, which had to do with the housing element implementation, has been uh moved to January 8th.

So the second item, and our only public hearing tonight is item 11.2 public hearing Lago Fresca Apartments conditional use permit 2445 Summerfield Road and 4744 Hoenn Avenue, CUP 22-050.

And uh this is an ex parte item, so we'll go ahead and start with Commissioner Horton.

Thank you, Chair.

So I did uh visit the site and I met with the applicant.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sanders.

I also visited the site and met with the applicant.

Thank you, Commissioner Carter.

Uh the same applies here.

Okay.

I also visited the site and met with the applicant.

Commissioner Sisko.

I also visited the site, met with the applicant and have no new information.

Thank you.

Commissioner Pardo?

I visited the site and did not meet with the applicant.

Thank you.

And I also visited the site and met with the applicant and have no new information.

So with that, Michelle Kali.

Thank you, Chair Weeks, and good afternoon, Commissioners.

Uh, the project before you today is a conditional use permit for a 50-unit multifamily residential development.

The project will include four very low income affordable units on site.

They will be TEET restricted to very low-income individuals.

And uh the project is providing 63 parking spaces on site, will be designed into four separate buildings, the residential units and will include some on site amenities.

The project has received a density bonus approval for the provided four units and two concessions and five waivers, which are described in this slide.

And the project site is located in southeast quadrant of the city, shown with the red star.

Here is an aerial view of the project site.

Uh, the site is two parcels, one facing Hohan Avenue and one Summerfield Road.

The zone for the project is uh CO office commercial, which is consistent with the general plan land use designation.

As you can see here, uh the surrounding land uses are a mix of office uses, institutional, public institutional, residential, low density and medium density residentials.

A brief history of the project.

Uh we had a neighborhood meeting for this project back in 2021, and in 2022, a concept design review was submitted for this project, and same year later, the full package for this project, including use permit and design EVU was submitted, and the notice of this application was distributed.

And last month's on the on November 12th, uh the director of the planning and economic development department approved the density bonus letter, and the project is scheduled to go before the uh design review and preservation board next Thursday.

Here is the project site.

The entrance to the project site will be from Hoenn Avenue, and these are the four buildings proposed on the site.

Building A, Building B, Building C, and Building D, which will be the tallest building on the site.

So, as a part of this project, also a crosswalk with uh a warning devices will be also installed on Hohen Avenue.

Here is the yellow arrow that shows the location of this uh crosswalk, and the picture is just an example of what this crosswalk will look like.

And uh the project has been found to be consistent with the General Plan 2035 and General Plan 2050, and also our housing elements and consistent with the zoning code.

Here uh I have included only uh a few of applicable uh goals and policies, an extensive list of the schools and policies is included in the staff report.

And this project has been reviewed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, and it qualifies for an infill exemption under Section 503032.

And about the comments, we have received several comments since the project was notified in 2021.

I will go briefly over the main comments that we have received and provide responses.

So one of the main comments we have received is concerns about 63 parking spaces for 50 units, and saying that it will create overflow into residential neighborhood.

Staff response is that because the project includes these restricted affordable units for very low-income households, it makes this project eligible for the state density bonus law.

The law allows applicants to request reduced parking requirements beyond local zoning standard as a part of their density bonus.

Also, we have received concerns about the project will increase the traffic on Hohen Avenue and Summerfield Road, especially during the school hours and emergencies, which can impact safety and access in the neighborhood.

So staff response is that a focused traffic study and an addendum have been provided by WTRANs for this project.

Both have been reviewed by the city's traffic engineering division.

The study includes that the project will not significantly affect traffic condition in the neighborhood, and the traffic division has reviewed both of the studies and had no additional concerns.

We also have received concerns about the project building height, which a comment says that it does not fit with the primary one or two-story buildings in this neighborhood.

So staff response is that the site is zoned office commercial, which allows the maximum height of 35 feet.

The tallest building on this site is building D, which is 45 feet.

And again, under the density bonus law, projects that include affordable units are eligible for waivers of development standards, including building height.

And because of the inclusion of affordable housing units for this project, the high waiver is requested, which is consistent with the intent of the state program to support affordable housing productions.

So staff response is that while this project introduces new residential structures on this currently vacant lots, the density and building height are allowed under the zone, which is office commercial and also is consistent with the state housing regulations.

The project has also been reviewed for consistency with the general plan and found to be consistent with the several plan, several goals and policies for compact infill housing development.

Also, the project was presented to the design review board as a concept item, and our design review board provided feedback and comments for this project, and the applicant has considered those comments and made changes to the project design by changing the color massing architecture and landscape of the project to make it more compatible with this neighborhood.

Concerns were raised about potential impacts on home values, local businesses, and construction noise affecting nearby businesses during work hours.

So the project site, as you notice, is in an area with mix of office, public institutional and residential uses are separated by the uh the by a summer field road across the street.

And uh construction noise is temporary noise.

While the project is done, there will be no noise beyond the regular residential activity noise on site.

Also, the project has to meet with the zoning ordinance with the uh noise ordinance, and there won't be any construction on Sundays or holidays, and other construction have to happen during the daytime.

We also have received comments stating that the uh multifamily housing is not consistent with the zone and general plan for this site, and the project needs an environmental impact report.

So the project again has been found to be consistent with both general plan and our zone, and aligns with several goals and policies of both plans and also our housing elements, and uh per our zoning code, uh multifamily residential use is allowed in this zone through through the conditional use permit, which is before you today.

And as I mentioned, the project has also been reviewed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, and it qualifies for an infill exemption because it meets all the criteria for in-fill development.

Uh environmental studies have been prepared for the project, which indicates there would be no significant impacts on traffic, noise, water quality, and air quality.

As such, the project does not need any EIR.

And we also have received some comments, emails in support of the project, and some stating the low percentage of affordable housing provided for the site is not enough, which the project is only including four units for very low-income households.

So those were the overall public comments that we have received since 2021.

And as a reminder of the planning commissioner's role, today you are reviewing a conditional use permit for the proposed residential use within the commercial zone for office commercial.

The design review board next week will review overall design of the project, the architecture landscape, and the uh density bonus request for this project has already been reviewed and approved by the Director of Planning and Economic Development Department.

And with that, it is recommended by the planning and economic development department that the planning commission by resolution approve the conditional use permit for the logo fresco project located at 2445 Summerfield Road and 4744 Hohen Avenue.

The applicant has a presentation, and staff are also available to answer if there are any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before we hear from the applicant, are there any questions from staff?

Commissioner Sisko.

Oh, yeah, I have a number of uh clarifying questions about the affordable housing element.

So first one should be fairly simple.

I noticed that in our uh packet of letters uh one of the writers referred to uh that there were going to be six affordable units, and I just want to verify that it is four.

Okay, correct.

And then um, the purpose of the units is that they're going to be used as a sober living environment.

Um, I'm wondering what the maximum rent under our very low affordable housing is for those units.

Good evening.

My name is Angela Morgan.

I'm a program specialist in the housing and community uh services department here at the city of Santa Rosa.

Uh I'm happy to answer your questions about affordability uh for the for the unit.

So, as indicated, this project is um uh proposing four four units at uh very low income uh tier of affordability, and um I believe there's uh one bedroom and four bedroom units.

Uh so I could I could provide you with a gross rent and give you some idea of what um some potential utility allowances are uh for this uh for this project, but the gross rent for a one-bedroom unit under that tier of affordability is 1,510, and uh the gross rent for a four-bedroom uh at this project would be uh 2039.

Please keep in mind that is gross rent, so it would mean it means that amount uh and uh minus the utility allowances for the specific project, which we don't know just yet.

Um, but uh I'm happy to provide that at a later date once we do know what utilities uh will be paid uh by the tenants.

Okay, great.

Appreciate that.

Um these are going to be shared units, so like each room would hold potentially a different individual in a sober living environment.

And I just want to be certain that no matter how many individuals are living in the unit, it cannot what what is charged to them can't exceed the gross rent under our laws.

Yes, uh so again that gross rent is for the number of bedrooms.

So if there is multiple beds in the bedroom, then it's that set that same amount for that size unit is divided by the number of beds, but it's still the maximum gross rent is it remains the same.

Okay, can't go over that.

Okay.

Um then um does the housing authority is there any type of uh laws dictating that they have to have long-term leases uh for these individuals as opposed to a turnover because it is a sober living environment, someone may not be sober and they may want to leave.

What are the what are the protections for um not that kind of turnover?

The applicant has stated that this condition will be long term, it's not gonna be a short term.

Some of them might stay there for life.

So it's not like a six months transitional and moving and bringing another one.

Okay, and do does the housing authority oversee that to be be certain that that is the case?

Yes, so what the has what the role of the housing authority is is to ensure the compliance of this agreement that we would enter into with the developer or with the owner, and not necessarily with the service provider.

These units would be similar to what we call set aside units, and similar to what we do at other developments where there are specific set aside units for a particular population of people.

And so if this is this, we would consider this very similar in that way and that in that manner that we the agreement would be between us, the housing authority, and uh and the developer, and we have uh 55-year restriction.

Um it would be a document that is recorded against the property for for that term, and we do have ongoing um quarterly reporting uh and annual reporting as well under the our requirements.

Okay, and then um if it isn't managed in accordance with our policy, are there any kind of consequences?

So under the agreement uh there are um so we would consult with our attorney if there ends up if there happens to be a breach or some sort of a default under the agreement.

Um I would have to consult with our attorney to okay, but it is gonna be it sounds like overseen quite frequently and getting reported as to how it's being run.

Yes, that's that's correct.

And then um we're not conditioning the use as a sober living environment.

We're we don't need a zoning clearance or anything like that.

It's it's simply being managed under our affordable housing contract, that's correct.

So um as described, it would be supportive housing and in the office designation supportive housing is a permitted use by right.

Uh so they do not need anything for that.

So there's there's no specification in there, it is will just be conditioned and deed restricted to be um the low income affordability.

Okay.

With that maximum rent and overseen by the housing authority.

Correct.

Okay, great, thank you.

Very welcome.

Other questions of staff before we hear from the applicant?

Okay, thank you very much, Angela.

Will you be here for if we have other questions?

Okay, thank you.

So the staff has or the um applicant has presentation.

And if you could state your name for the record, please.

My name is Janver Hawley.

And good afternoon.

So on behalf of myself and my two business partners, uh Jennifer Hawley and Susan Feichmeyer, who are here with me, we are pleased to present our Lago Fresco project.

The Lago Fresco partners are decades-long Santa Rosa and Sonoma County residents.

I personally live in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa for 35 years.

Until my retirement two years ago, I owned and operated a local small business.

Additionally, I personally have volunteered directly and served on boards for most of my years here.

We've served in organizations focusing on homelessness, recovery from drugs and alcohol, as well as directly providing long-term sustainable housing for very low-income through middle-income Santa Rosa residents.

On the for-profit side, our partnership of Lago Fresco owns and operates other apartment homes in Santa Rosa, and we as a group have focused on rehabbing, decent housing for working people.

Lago Fresco is an extension of that value.

It's a compilation of middle housing, smaller housing, and four ultra-low income homes.

We have spent more than six years planning for this project.

We've taken comments from neighbors, design review board, the city staff, and various departments, most of whom are represented here today.

We've taken those suggestions and comments, combine them into this design while at the same time trying to keep the project economically viable.

Thank you for your consideration.

And I'd like to introduce our architect Ingrid Anderson.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

And there's a button on the side of the podium if you want to lower it.

And if you could speak directly into the microphone.

Yes, I will.

Thank you.

Um we have a brief presentation of some visuals of the project.

This is a depiction of the project from Summerfield Road heading north.

To the very left of the photograph, you'll see the white larger building that's the older Warwick Hospital camp building where the Redwood Gospel Mission is now.

The rest of the project is three stories or less, and within the zoning height limit standard.

This is a site plan showing how the parking lot is concealed largely within the site at the rear of the site, and that the buildings are set forward on Howan and Summerfield to activate those street fronts and create an urban edge.

And the massing of that office building is largely similar to three of the smaller buildings proposed.

We do route the design of the project in contextuality and compatibility with the neighborhood, and through the years have been addressing all the comments of the neighbors as well as the DRB to try to bring the project into the most to be the most compatible it could be with the neighborhood while still being able to take advantage of the of the neighborhood's attractiveness for the developer, the um established infrastructure, the schools, the parks, and the generally good condition of the housing, multifamily housing around adjacent to this to this parcel.

Um the front of the parcel is developed as an open space for the residents.

It's right off of Summerfield Road.

And along Hoewen, there are in the green um areas along the two sides of Hoenn, over 50 parking spaces available during non-business hours, and quite a number of spaces available during business hours as well to supplement the 63 spaces that are provided on site for parking.

Next slide, please.

This is a view of the project from Hoenn Avenue heading towards Summerfield Road with Annadell Park in the distance.

And the buildings, each building holds under 10 units, except for the largest building, which holds 26.

These units in building A, which you see in the slide, are townhouse style units.

We're trying to design a very diverse variety of units for families who need more bedrooms and greater flexibility in the use of space and also typical, more typical apartment flats.

Next slide, please.

And again, this is the view of the project from Summerfield Road with the open space in the front.

This is the view walking or biking along Summerfield Road, and you would see the open space in the front.

This is a view of the project on Hoenn.

The driveway entry along both sides of the driveway are parking spaces that are tucked underneath buildings A and B, and they are secured spaces with two spaces in each garage.

So each resident will have at least one space, and they have the option to choose to rent two spaces in a secured garage as well.

The number of trees being removed is 44.

We are providing in their room in their place 48 new trees, or 47 new trays that are box-sized, as well as paying an inloo fee to the city for the remainder remainder of trunk inches that we could not mitigate, but with replacement.

And this is a view of the project from Hoenn and Summerfield Roads, the existing office building at the corner, and in the rear, in the background, the project on the T-shaped lot.

Thank you very much for your time and for hearing our application today.

Thank you.

Any questions of the applicant before we open the public comment?

Commissioner Carter.

Can you tell me off the top what the in move fee was for the tree replacement or how many trees were subject to fee for mitigation?

It's 21 trees at a hundred dollars per tree.

Thank you.

And I have a question.

Yes, the parking is offered as unbundled, and so uh resident would rent a unit, and then they would rent the type of parking space they preferred an open space or a covered space, two spaces or a single space, or if they needed it, an accessible space.

Thank you.

Any other questions of the applicant?

Okay, so before we open the public hearing on this, I want to just um bring it back to staff for a second.

What we're talking about tonight is a conditional use permit, not the design.

The design will be discussed next Thursday, same time, same place.

Um but the only thing we're talking about is the is allowing the conditional use permit.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So it is just uh whether a multifamily project is appropriate on the proposed site.

And then the second question has to do with um because of state density bonus laws and other state laws.

Um what ability does the city have to um deny certain things?

Does that make sense?

Hi, thank you, Chair Weeks.

Um, yes, as was described in the uh opening comments, this project um qualifies for density bonus due to the provision of the affordable housing.

Um, and when it does qualify under that, you can the developer automatically is eligible for um in this case two concessions or waivers or concessions or incentives which um relieve them of their obligation to apply with certain comply with certain development standards under our code, and the city can only it's actually it's mandated that those our the city sorry it's mandated that we accept those concessions unless we make some written findings based on substantial evidence in the record um that it does not result in identifiable and actual cost reductions or would have a specific adverse impact on health and safety, their request for these concessions and incentives has been reviewed, and there is no substantial evidence that would um that would that would satisfy those findings.

Then the um the law also allows for an unlimited number of waivers also from development standards, so in this case, they've applied for five, correct?

And the city also must grant those waivers unless we make findings that it would create a public health and safety issue or an environmental issue or would harm historical property.

Again, there's been no evidence submitted in the record to support any of those findings, therefore the request for the two concessions and the five waivers, our basically our hands are tied, and we must approve those waivers and concessions because we've not had any evidence submitted to the contrary, and so when we're hearing comments about the the height, the parking, the setbacks, those are just three of the five that were applied for here in terms of the concessions and waivers, and those must be granted by the city uh in the absence of substantial evidence as I suggested.

Um the applicant did submit the request for density bonus.

It was reviewed by the planning economic development director and was found to comply with state law and therefore was in your packet.

Um, there was a letter issued going through in detail all of the requirements under state law and how this project meets those requirements and therefore is eligible for those concessions and waivers.

Thank you.

So with that, um, I will go ahead and open the public hearing on this item.

If you wish to make a comment, please go to either one of the podiums.

We can use both of them up there.

Uh you will have three minutes.

Please state your name for the record, and you will have a timer which you see right there that will count down the three minutes.

Uh and as I mentioned, our focus tonight is based on the conditional use permit.

So, ladies, so with that, yes.

So with that, speak.

Go ahead.

Good evening, planning commission.

Uh Janice Carmen here.

Uh I grew up on Summerfield Road and walked both to Slater, graduated from Slater and to Montgomery.

And I was at Montgomery Wednesday night for a uh Tuesday night for a soccer game.

First time I've been back in a few years.

But anyway, that said, um, it's a great picture that they show on the screen, but don't be uh impressed with it because it looks somehow it's brought out and it's wide angle and it looks like there's a lot of room there.

The uh I personally read the uh letters objecting uh to the uh traffic and the density on that corner, which is Hone Avenue and Summerfield Road where they intersect.

And I still know people over there, a lot of the neighbors never moved, and um, I I went over there today.

I was having a hard time finding exactly what it was.

Of course, it's the old hospital and say, etc.

But uh when I read the information back up to the project, uh what caught my attention was that there were two waivers that were asked for uh closer setbacks, one was on Summerfield Road, and uh that one was from uh 15 to 7 feet, and seven feet is not really very far uh to be set back, and the sidewalk uh as it is spotty right now, but I would assume that since the city's working on it, it's probably gonna be a sidewalk all the way through.

But um seven feet is close uh to to the edge, I I think, and especially if it's multi-uh story, and the other one was on Hone Avenue, and uh that one was from um, what did I say here?

That one was to one was 15 to 77 feet, and the other was 15 to 10 feet.

Now, the 10 feet sounds like that could be reasonable, but the corner is a very highly uh used corner.

There's uh a number of lights there.

Uh, there is I think a crosswalk, I'm not even sure.

I had a hard time finding it today, but um I also ran for city council, and when I ran for city council, uh there were people that were already talking to me about that intersection and the danger of the intersection.

So I'm bringing it up as a safety issue about having it too close uh to the street, and um I think that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Oh, the other thing is I object to them having to pay for parking.

Um, I'm familiar with downtown and downtown you can find free parking on some of the side streets, but people who work and people who will need to be there, I notice the mission is taking it over right now, are going to be using that um area to park and uh the parking shouldn't be charged against the people who are living there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um we'll go with that podium, yep.

Good um good evening, happy holidays, everybody.

I'm Michael Chillingarian.

Um I'd like to start off with just a couple of items of perspective.

Um, Santa Rosa is the 155th largest city in the country, it's the 27th largest city in California, yet Santa Rosa is number 18 in the entire country for new housing starts, which is a wonderful thing.

Okay, I'm with you on this.

The medium house um cost $685,000 in Santa Rosa.

In the Annadell area, which is where I live, most of the houses, I'm just gonna say all of the houses basically are a million dollars or more.

It's a nice area.

They're compromises about 2.4 um square miles.

In that area, there's about 300 homes.

So if you were to take those number of homes and divide it by the area, you know, you're coming up with somewhere in the neighborhood of two acres per home as an average area that it takes up.

Not that that's what the properties are, but the streets and everything like that else.

What this project is going to do is going to add 50 homes in 1.3 acres.

So that tremendously increases the density in this particular area.

Now, the reason I have an issue with that is because for a number of years we were faced with evacuations.

And we, since we live with Panadel to our east, the only way we can escape if there's an evacuation is towards Summerfield, Hoen, or maybe even towards the uh towards the south.

But this is going to add a tremendous burden and probably an unsafe um situation.

Should all of us need to evacuate because of fires.

So this is like my biggest concern about us is that we were trapped last couple of fires, and if you're going to add congestion there, it's going to be a big issue.

Plus, the general parking and all that other is going to add to the ability for us to access or get out of that area if you're gonna have all these cars parking on the street, which we don't have at this point.

Um, you know, they're adding six uh 50 to or 65 spaces or whatever, so there's gonna be a lot of parking on the streets going moving forward.

I want to talk, so that's what I have to say about the um safety issue.

During the construction phase, you're gonna be having a lot of trucks coming and going with concrete, steel, whatever.

Um, if you look at your e-code 360, uh chapter 11 third twenty-eight, thank you, regarding um, thank you.

Uh excuse me.

Thank you.

That was your three minutes.

Okay, thank you.

Hopefully, we can keep our area safe.

Okay, we'll go to this podium.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Sonia Randrup.

I live in the neighborhood adjacent to this property at the Sierra Creek Homeowners Association, and um I have serious concerns about the adverse um health and safety issue.

The gentleman just spoke about the parking.

If the builders are expecting to park on the street for 50 spots, those are not designated to that building, those are designated to all of us in the community charging to park at a low-income um property.

By the way, four low-income um apartments is is what I'm understanding that qualifies for these waivers.

Is that not accurate?

I'd like to know that answer.

Um I'm also curious to know what the impact is uh from others about the turning in and out of that property onto Summerfield and Hoen.

That is quite congested area, as the others have just spoken about.

Um, so uh to know and learn a little bit more about how many of these units will be one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, and four-bedroom, because what I think we all know and have learned with all of the building that's happening in our community is that parking is an issue.

We are not a commuter um area where people bike and walk, everybody has cars.

You have three and four cars to a household.

If you're having a unit that has four rooms, most likely those are gonna be adults, and all of them are gonna have a car.

All of them are gonna be parked out on Hoen because probably they're not gonna be able to afford the parking spots that the owner is saying they're gonna charge, whether it's covered or uncovered.

Are you kidding me?

If I didn't didn't have a home now, I wouldn't be paying for parking.

I don't even go downtown because you charge for parking.

Um, so there are some serious concerns also about the adverse health on the parking on the street of the children and people walking in the community.

We walk our dogs, we lost a neighborhood child recently, and I'm wondering if why this that's why this project did not did not go forward um in a timely fashion after that accident and the death of Atticus, our neighbor.

Um, this is this is the the health and safety needs to be re-looked at and having all of these additional 50 units and only four of them are affordable.

Are you kidding me?

Four.

I don't understand.

Four is nothing in 50.

I think that this is um irresponsible project.

I am not in favor of it.

I have not been in favor of it from the beginning, and I think that if the rules are being worked through because of the four units, I think that's a plural.

If you're gonna call it an affordable project, then have more than half of it affordable.

And if the four units that are supposed to be sober are sober, thank you.

Then that's a question too.

I want to know if the whole property is sober.

Thank you.

Uh good evening.

My name is Michael Freed.

I live at 4844 Hoen.

This is a flawed project.

It was a flawed project four years ago when it came to light, and it is still a flawed project.

Let me explain to you why.

People speed down Hoenn to make the light at Summerfield.

They're gonna run into the late people leaving the apartment buildings.

People don't want to turn right because it'll take them an extra mile to get where they're going, downtown or to the freeway.

This is I understand.

I was a realtor for 40 years in LA.

I understand wanting to make money out of property you own.

Build a fourplex, have eight or ten or twelve cars, not sixty-five to eighty cars.

If you approve this project, I guarantee you you are signing a death warrant for people pulling out of that apartment building.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, go to this podium.

Good evening.

Uh, I'm gonna try to keep my car.

Actually, you can um raise the podium.

There's a hi.

Uh my name is Stephanie, and I'm the deputy director at Generation Housing, where we lead the movement for more more affordable and more diverse housing in the North Bay.

We actually have an event happening tonight, but I'm stepping out of the event because we so strongly support this project and your approval tonight of the conditional use permit.

Uh this project received strong endorsement from our organization because of its thoughtfulness and location to and it's and the desperate need for housing in this neighborhood.

It has immediate proximity to health care services, schools, some of the city's best parks, and the veterans facility, a city bus stop right at the project, frontage with direct access to grocery stores and retail, all of which scored highly um against our guiding principles.

We are also supportive of the unbundled parking at this project.

It's completely unfair to pay for a parking space in your rent that you don't use, and so only residents who want to include parking in their rent should have that in their right.

Uh I want to add a personal note that I was a resident of this neighborhood for seven years and recently moved my family out due to both the high cost and lack of inventory of housing in this neighborhood.

This project would have been welcomed by me.

Would I still be a neighbor?

You've heard a lot tonight about specific project details, but from our perspective, the bigger picture matters.

This is responsible, well located in Phil Housing that aligns with the city's adopted housing goals and with the state's direction to build homes near services and transit.

For these reasons, we urge your approval of the conditional use permit tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go to this podium.

Hello, my name is Robert Osling.

Um, I live on Stonehenge Drive.

When the map was up there with the red star, I think our house is about four inches on the map.

If you could speak into the podium, please.

We live our our house is probably the closest residence to the site across Summerfield at the beginning of Stonehenge Drive.

Um I do have a concern with the inadequate.

We're having a hard time hearing you, so if you could maybe.

I will okay, thank you.

I do have some uh anticipation that the limited parking on the site, that very small site will spill over and uh cause people to cross the road and park near my house.

And now that's that's a right, but I uh uh I'm afraid that uh people will be walking across to their car and twinet and the unit without a crosswalk, so there's a danger in that.

Um I think there's a factor that didn't exist when the studies were made, and that is the news of the large, very large linear Mario Carrillo Adobe, which is going to impact Montgomery, which is one of those routes that people take from 12 to mission to get over to, you know, finally get over to highway 12.

Um, and it's gonna force more, encourage more traffic to be using Summerfield to get down to get to Hoenn.

So I think it's gonna increase traffic significantly.

Yeah, that's my those are my final comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go to this podium.

Good evening.

My name is Kashi Gazog.

I am the owner of the property that is being surrounded by this project.

Not a fan.

Um 63 parking spaces for 50 residents is ridiculous.

I understand that they're leveraging the density bonus law, but this is a safety matter.

Their highly flawed traffic report that they paid for and obtained was studied during the COVID era in mid-2021 when nobody was going to work, nobody was parking on Hoenn.

All those offices were shut down.

I don't care what addendum they put out on 2025 just about 10 days ago, December 1st, throw it in the garbage.

The city has a duty to look at the safety issue here.

Um the traffic analysis that they did also extracted collision data from City of Santa Rosa from 27 uh 2017 through 2022.

Here's a press democrat article about a 19-year-old in 2023 getting run over right down the street from her house 43 days after Atticus Pearson was put in a coma by a different car less than two months before, and he eventually died.

City of Santa Rosa has the burden to protect its residents, and I hope you do that tonight.

Thank you.

Oh, one more thing since I already have more time.

And I'm gonna roll.

That's gonna be a complete SHIT show.

I can guarantee you that.

And who's gonna police my parking lot?

Who's gonna protect my tenants?

Uh if I call the cops, you think they're gonna show up to tow people when there is zero visitor parking lot allocated?

Where's UPS gonna park?

FedEx, Uber, US Postal Office.

I can go on and on and on.

Domino's Pizza, how about the birthday party?

All the visitors that come to visit.

They're all gonna park in my parking lot because it's the most convenient one.

I hope you do the right thing.

Thank you.

Go to this podium, and you can lower the podium if you want.

There's.

There you go.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Mary Catherine Miranda, and I live in the Sierra Creek village, which is uh off of Hoen.

Um I am not as eloquent as previous speakers, and I'm not as prepared as the gentleman before me, who I completely agree with and appreciate fully.

Um, having that young boy, he was a young boy cross trying to cross the street on Hoenn, and he was hit by a car, and has now subsequently died.

The intersection of Hoenn and Summerfield is a highly trafficked area.

Please remember at the end of that, at the end of Summerfield, you run into yes, Annadal Park, where we have visitors coming, where we have tourists coming, where we have people exiting that park, riding their bicycles, unfamiliar with the area.

It takes me on at 8:20 in the morning.

If I want to try and pull out of my driveway, out of my street, Arroyo Sierra Circle, I can sit for a solid five minutes.

I take a left, I sit at that light at Wailupa in Hoen for another three to five minutes.

That's prime traffic time, that's prime school time, and the Hoen is backed up all morning.

You're gonna add more cars, which means that people pulling in and out of these areas can't see.

So you have ambulances coming in and out, you have people in distress going in and out.

Add that factor in.

Please also consider it seems to me that you y'all are trying to like bend the rules to meet your needs.

You went from six units down to four units, which is the bare minimum, and your overflow parking, which the first presenter said they weren't going to be using, and then the second presenter's applicant said that they would be using Hoenn.

There's very there's barely any parking on Hoenn right now for residents that already live there and people that are coming to visit.

So please, please, please consider the fact that uh traffic in that area is horrendous during school time.

We have five schools within there Slater, Village, Matanzas, Montgomery, all of those people trying to get their kids to school, everyone trying to get to the 101, everyone trying to just get downtown and leave the area.

So please consider all of that.

I've known people that have been rear-ended on Summerfield in Hoenn.

I think everyone in this room, if you've driven on that road, you've probably seen an accident.

We don't need, we don't need more people on a very congested area.

So I please, I beg the commission to really evaluate it.

I would love to see an updated traffic study, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

So my name is Steven Schwartz, and I um uh own an office building across the street from the proposed project.

Um, I'm asking the planning commissioners to deny this use permit for the Glago Presca apartments.

I disagree with uh with the um the traffic analysis, and I feel that there is a significant public safety concern, uh, due to the impact of this project, and disagree with their conclusion.

Uh I've owned this office for 38 years and have directly observed the traffic in this area, and it's progressive worsening.

The project the difficulty with this project is its single entry and access is so close to the intersection that it it pre creates this uh this problem.

The uh the traffic engineer admits that um the exit to the project is only 150 feet from the intersection, and that during the peak at traffic hours, that the cars will stack or queue a hundred and eighty-eight feet, blocking any entrance and exit to the project.

So the people coming and going will have to wait until there's a clearance, and in particular, if you're going west on uh Hoenn Avenue, uh, and trying to turn left into the project, you will be blocking the through lane.

The traffic engineer says that if we merely restripe the uh westbound traffic, um access to bikers, um, that will mitigate the problem.

I think that that you have to use your your own judgment in this project.

I look at the commissioners as a jury, and a pro in any trial, you'll get experts that will give you their conclusions.

They're going to be biased by their uh representatives, and I think you need to look at this project and realize that the entrance is just too close to the intersection.

These people are speeding by.

Thank you.

Hi, hi, Mindy Shamba.

I'm probably a lot of yours um neighbors.

And I'm very concerned about the traffic report that was done on this.

My son went to school with Addy, the young man who passed away.

And every day I was concerned about my son walking to school, something he should be able to freely do every day without concern.

And I just I don't agree with the assessment that's been done.

I find it very difficult to pull into the parking lot with the post acute and the vet center.

Those, there's not ample parking in those facilities as is, and to add more parking, more people around there, it's going to be chaos.

And I hope that you take everybody's comments here today into consideration because it's something that the tenants over in Hoewen don't want.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments from the public?

Okay, so with that, I will go ahead and close the public hearing on this and bring it back to the commission.

I do have a few questions, and I'm sure my fellow commissioners do too after hearing some of the public comments.

So let me just start out real quickly and then I'll pass it on.

And I'm not sure if on evacuation issues.

We've got uh I see him up there.

We have a representative from our fire department here.

We also have a representative from our traffic engineering division um to speak to that as well.

Okay.

Come on down.

Thank you.

Mike Johnson, assistant farm marshal.

Thank you for being here.

So um one of the commenters talked about evacuation issues.

Um and how clogged up Summerfield was or how hard it was to get out on Summerfield.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, in the past, uh, going back to the tubs fire, Kincaid Fire, Glass Fire, we've made it significant improvements in the evacuation systems.

Back in 2017 for the tubs, we had no system, right?

We didn't have the cameras up, we didn't have early notification, um, we didn't have evacuation zones.

Since then, there's been developments uh such as uh if you go to the city website to know your zone, um, know your alerts.

Uh there's now we have zones to where we can strategically tell people to evacuate.

That area right there, we have it's kind of at the center of about four different zones.

So that doesn't mean we're gonna evacuate all those zones at the same time.

So you have East One, you have East Two, you have uh Summerfield and Spring Spring Lake, as I think the other zone.

So what we would do is we would notify people strategically so that they evacuate at different times, and so that helps flush people at different stages rather than everybody just leaving at once.

We also have way better early notification.

All the cameras that you see out, we can see where the fire is going, we can predict if it's going to impact an area, when it could impact an area.

So there's there's definitely a lot more technology.

Um there's ways that we can actually through traffic and engineering um might be able to speak on how the system we can turn lights green in that area so that we can allow people to evacuate quicker.

So there's several um features again that are in place that can that we've made advancements on in getting people to evacuate more efficiently.

Thank you.

Um as long as you're here, are there other questions for the assistant fire marshal?

Vice Chair?

Um, I appreciate what you're saying, and I know that we've got all these different plans that have been put in place since the tubs fire and the nuns fires, but human behavior being what it is, we could hear the chuckles.

I think if you're in your house and you think that the fire is close, you're gonna try and evacuate before your zone is called, or maybe you don't even know what your zone is, so you think it's time to get out now.

So, what's the plan in that case if people behave like they do?

Yeah, thank you.

Um the evacuations come far in advance, so it's it's maybe even before people realize that the fire is encroaching on the area.

We will start giving an early warning, such as um be prepared and then go.

So you're gonna get those notifications way up front of where the fire is approaching.

Um, an example of this was the Kincaid fire.

If you notice they we evacuated Santa Rosa way in ahead of when the fire was even within city limits, so it we're hoping to get ahead of the people actually getting to that panic stage, okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions of him?

Okay, thank you.

Um, there was a question on the number of units, the number of one, two, and three bedroom units can uh you refresh our memory on that.

Correct.

I have that information.

So there will be 16 one-bedroom units, 21 two-bedroom units, four two-bedroom townhomes apartment, and four three bedroom townhome apartments, and there will be five four-bedroom flats.

Thank you.

Um, let's see.

Um, and then questions on the traffic study, and people speeding on Hoen.

Um I wasn't sure who it's gonna be.

Thank you, Trina.

So there was the the recent addendum on the traffic study.

Um, but I the question um was on the traffic on Hoen cars going from the project onto Hoen on to Summerfield, people speeding on Hoen, trying to get onto Summerfield, trying to get on Y Lupa.

Can you clarify some of that for us?

Sure.

I would love to ask how much time you have because traffic engineering is so complex.

I know.

We're learning new things all the time.

Um, okay, so something that we usually point out, and this came up a moment ago with fire behavior, is you can engineer a road in however you would like, but you cannot completely control human behavior.

So in the past, we have made improvements to Summerfield and Hoenn.

We've done road diets, we installed buffered bike lanes in certain areas where we are able to, there are also the two-way left turn lane and the center.

All of these were proven over time to reduce the number of collisions for all road users.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to 100% reduce all collisions or completely eradicate all of them.

Part of that is because you cannot control if somebody drinks and gets into a car.

You cannot control if somebody is on their phone.

You cannot control if somebody, frankly, doesn't seem to care and does want to run a red light or speed around a corner.

So what we do with developments like this, and the role of the traffic engineering department is to make sure that any impact a development might have would not knowingly contribute to a safety issue.

I think there's a misconception sometime in the communities that our role is to make sure that everybody can get where they want to go as fast as possible.

And that's not what our role is.

Our role is to make sure that you can get to your destination in the mode that you would like to use safely.

And so it is true that sometimes when development comes in, there is delay.

So what we do in the traffic study, and what you see in this traffic study, is we request specific mitigations.

So something like site distance, we use the highway design manual, which is cited within that document to make sure that the site distance is adequate.

When we review developments like this, one thing that we do is we always review where the driveway is.

So with a lot that is shaped like this one, technically there also could have been an in-and-out driveway on Summerfield.

But one of the considerations that city staff had was having that many in and out driveways can sometimes create a risk.

And so we said minimize the number of driveways.

There's also because some of the parking, sorry, I talk a lot and then I just get excited.

Because some of the parking would be on Hoenn Avenue, and we know some of it's gonna be on that northern side of the street.

Therefore, we would feasibly be able to say someone may park there, cross Hoenn to get to the development.

That's a situation where we ask for mitigation like a new crosswalk with a flashing beacon.

So we say this development that's gonna come in, it may introduce new crossings of a street.

So developer, because you're causing this crossing of the street, please put in a safety improvement.

So it's kind of an example of what we typically do.

Um, I think that that mostly summarizes.

Um, and I want to reiterate that the uh traffic engineering division was involved.

We did review the drafts of the traffic study.

We provide comments back to the consultant with considerations.

So we are the ones who ask for the crosswalk and the flashing beacon or changes to the striping.

Um, we are the ones that can ask for increased site distance and things like that.

We did do that in this case, and so the ultimate finding uh was that the project would not result in an adverse safety impact.

Thank you, Tarina.

Are there other questions?

Okay, Commissioner Sanders.

Thank you.

Um, I'm looking at the project site, and uh one way in, one way out, is that correct?

It's on Hoenn.

So if you're leaving the uh site and you want to go west, it seems like you've got to do a pretty good game of frogger to get across there.

Is there any sort of mitigating restructuring of that?

So that you know, because I know that I've seen it, probably have been guilty of it myself.

When that summer field lights gonna change, people speed up.

I've never done that really.

Of course, you never would.

Never would I do that.

I'm a retired firefighter, I know better.

But that's what happens, and so I'm curious about what is gonna happen with those people traveling west out of the project.

Sure, and that's a great example of where we can put in certain mitigations, but then again, we cannot control driver behavior.

So we can't control someone making a split second decision like that, even though you put probably shouldn't.

So one thing is there is red stripe on either side of the driveway, and so there is extra sight distance there.

It's not only gonna be red curbed, but it's also marked as a fire lane, and so there will not be any parking right there.

If somebody parks, that is hopefully an immediate tow.

So that does give you increased sight distance right there, which in a lot of cases increased sight distance does make people more comfortable in making more informed decisions, I would say, and turning off of a driveway into a road.

In some cases, um, we can ask for a two-way left turn lane to be added or extended.

So that would then mean that if someone's turning out, they can hang out in that lane once the one closer to them is open and they can take their time getting into the next one.

That is not possible in this location given its proximity to the intersection with ummerfield.

So that was not a concession that we could have asked for in this case.

Um, but we did ask for the additional fire lane.

I know that that was also um in coordination with the fire department, and there is a little bit more space because there is a buffered bike lane right there for if somebody needs a little bit more visibility, and we do hope that that helps with the problem.

Um, so I'm just thinking of like all the different scenarios, right?

So thank you for that.

I mean, that's um doesn't really tell me what's gonna happen for this project though, right?

So we I guess we don't know what that is, okay.

Um and then with the traffic study, you're gonna have people again trying to get out of the unit, out of the building, out of the project site.

They're gonna try and go west.

Um, and then there's gonna be, of course, westbound traffic that's going to keep going, and now they're blocking east traffic.

Does that factor into the traffic report?

I'm just thinking because uh as as um Commissioner Duggan mentioned, you know, human behavior, as you mentioned, right?

Human behavior, if you're trying to get out, I'm gonna get out where there's an opening, and if I can't get into that traffic, I'm just gonna sit there, and then traffic gets blocked, it backs up, things slow downstream.

Now someone can't get out of their uh off of their block, to also go west.

Can I just clarify?

Are you talking about if somebody is driving west on Hoen and they're queuing people behind them?

So what I'm I'm envisioning is that individual leaving the uh project.

Yep.

They want to go west.

Yeah, but there's westbound traffic kind of flowing.

Yes.

They can't get an in past this double yellow line.

So now they're waiting and are blocking eastbound traffic as they're waiting to go west.

Right.

Technically that's illegal.

So they should not be doing that.

So much is illegal, and yet in reality, and yet any, you know, somebody could make a decision, and I would hope that there would be traffic enforcement in a moment like that.

Um, thank you.

Other question?

Vice chair?

I have a question for Trina.

Um, I can appreciate that you didn't want to have a driveway or another entrance exit off of Summerfield.

And it would sort of set up the same situation that looks like here.

Um I didn't realize till the speaker who owns the parcel at the corner spoke that there's actually an access driveway for his parcel.

So there are three very closely spaced driveways off of Hoen.

And then do you have any concerns about the safety of having three of those with people coming in and out, especially if he's indicated some of the clients going to his parcel can't make the turn into their driveway?

If it was possible to go back and not have two driveways on the other one, that would probably end up being the recommendation because that property is developed the way that it is, and because a development proposal comes in for this one, our job is really to focus on how do we minimize safety impacts from just this development.

So that's the consideration that we make for as new development comes up.

And there's also the I can appreciate having a crossing that's got the red beacon, which is going to be a good safety feature for pedestrians, but it seems to be also very closely located to the driveway.

So you think you've got people coming out, they're trying to turn westbound, maybe they're distracted looking towards the oncoming traffic, and they don't necessarily see somebody stepping off the curb.

And was there any consideration for moving that crossing a little bit further to the west?

All of them are located and designed in a way that's compliant with the highway design manual, so those are not found to be an issue within those manuals.

Thank you.

Any questions for any but anybody else on this?

I have questions for the applicant, but no more.

Thank you.

So if the applicant could go to one of the podiums up there, that would be great.

Um I noticed in your project description that you have uh you're indicating that there will be a parking management program and a parking management person.

Could you talk about that and describe that for the public, please?

Uh yes.

Um the applicant um created a parking management plan, which is typical for many apartment projects now.

The tenants signing on to a lease would uh make a legal agreement to comply with the plan, and that mainly consists that of um all cars on the site, whether they belong to a guest or a tenant, have to be identified with a placard.

So the tenant has only one space and they want a guest to use it, the guest would receive that placard, and the tenant, if they have a car on the site would have to move that car off site.

Um also details how the spaces are unbundled, and that everyone has a right to one space, and no one will get more than two spaces.

Um, and that there is also a short-term parking space that's going to be identified for deliveries and other needs like that.

And can you just describe how that's the placard thing is going to be enforced?

Is there actually a person on the premises in the parking lot managing this?

Yes, the parking is going to be managed 24 hours a person employed by the developer or the owner of the project and their management team.

So somebody who'll be on site.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay.

So with that, if somebody could read the resolution.

Okay.

Okay, Commissioner Sisko.

I move a resolution of the planning commission of the City of Santa Rosa making findings and determinations and approving a conditional use permit for 50 unit multifamily residential development located at 2445 Summerfield Road and 4744 Hoen Avenue file number PRJ 22-019 CUP 22-050 DR 22-037 and DB 22-004 and wave for the reading of the text.

Thank you.

And is there a second?

Seconded.

Okay.

So that was moved by Commissioner Sisko and seconded by Commissioner Pardot.

So let's go ahead and start with Commissioner Carter.

Okay, we get an easy one for our last planning commission meeting.

I'm generally in favor of the project.

I won't beat around the bush too much.

Some of the scenarios that have been discussed could certainly be expected, but as has been pointed out numerous times.

I think the applicant has done what they can to make this site work well within the street system.

I think the land use is appropriate for the site, and I think the city is desperately in need of housing of this type.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sanders.

And while there is concern of what I call the Frogger Lane, I think that that is sort of outweighed by the need of housing.

And that this project I feel addresses multiple needs in one area.

I think it's appropriate.

Thank you.

Commissioner Horton.

Thank you.

And thank you to everyone from the public for coming out tonight.

Yeah, I, you know, I support the project.

I um think it aligns really well with a lot of the goals in our general plan.

So I'll just be very brief.

Um and I'll just add, you know, completely anecdotally, in addition to all the studies that were done.

I live in a very similar situation with the driveway coming out onto the busy street and then the crosswalk with the flashers, and just again, completely anecdotally, I feel very safe.

It works very well from what I've seen.

So yes, I can make all the required findings and declarations.

Thank you, Commissioner Sisko.

Um I will be able to make all of the required findings.

Um I just want to share that uh in looking at this project.

I appreciate the diversity of housing where I started to have heartburn, and you might have been able to tell from some of my questions, is that um the affordable housing becomes a program building because of the waiver for having it be uh interspersed.

You created in the in the building uh in one building, uh, the purposes are for sober living environment, which I'm all for, but uh sober living environments can be a business and a very profitable business, and that was the reason why I was asking the questions of our staff and housing authority to be certain that um it it truly does meet uh the very low standards because basically all of the concessions, a lot of the concerns that the public has you know our hands are tied of those because there is this very low housing so although I have heartburn over the way that this is done um I can make all of the required findings and I'm assured by the housing uh department that they will be monitoring it and making sure that it's it's run properly we have been seeing some things in the news where some things went awry with affordable housing so I don't think our department will do that but uh it definitely gave me pause so uh but with that I will be uh making all of the required findings and voting yes thank you commissioner pardot I too can also make all the required findings um I am happy that we are having a 50 project uh 50 unit project so we have more housing in Santa Rosa um I would have wished we would have had more affordable housing uh but I could also make all the requiring findings and um in approval with the conditional use permit.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Duggan.

I can also make all the required findings I don't have a lot to add.

Um I'm a little bit disappointed that the the um sober living units are the some of the big ones because I think there are probably a lot of um larger sized families who could do with a four bedroom unit but um I'm support the project I can make all the required findings thank you and I also can support the projects um I do have some as already been mentioned some concerns it would have been I would have preferred to see more affordable units and also as commission as Vice Chair Juggins said um when I saw the four affordable the four bedroom affordable units I thought yay for families and then I realized no that's not what it was but nevertheless um I can make all the required findings and we do have a need uh for units like this especially in that neighborhood um and so with that that was moved by commissioner Cisco seconded by commissioner pardeaux thank you chair we'll go ahead and take a vote commissioner Carter aye commissioner Sisko aye commissioner Horton aye commissioner Pardot aye commissioner Sanders aye Vice Chair Duggan aye chair weeks aye let the record reflect that that passes with seven ayes thank you so with that um this action is final unless an appeal is filed with the city clerk's office within 10 calendar days of today's decision pursuant to zoning code section 20-62.030 and with that I'll adjourn the meeting of the planning commission and we'll see you all next year.

I did it