City of Murrieta Planning Commission 5/27/26

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:44:13]young lady that was up there.

[00:44:14]>> Crystal Aurora.

[00:44:15]>> Yeah. Uh Crystal. Um she kind of blurted out it was going to cost $750,000, right? And then uh the finance and I'm still learning everyone's name, so I apologize.

[00:44:26]>> RN Mendoza. and uh he said he kind of backtracked on that and kind of said like we don't know. So I think my question was surrounding more like the saving money thing. So if you can explain that because my question was surrounding like if it's going to cost $750 is that even enough money because I've been to that uh question center and it's like collapsing.

[00:44:46]>> I'd say in this in this context in this training it's more about the big picture of the city and that the commission can help the city sort of overall save money. We're not really talking about individual budget items. that's really the council's purview and not yours. Um, but the com the commission can help the city in essentially well I I would throw it out there working on the objective standards and helping us move that forward. That's we're essentially doing that. We're someone's doing helping us do that for free and you guys took that in one we did a workshop with you. You took it in one hearing. We really appreciate that. That is going to help save us money help moving that forward because it's you know essentially free money that we got from the state to do that. So, um, there are other ways that you help us in that in that regard, too, and we try to communicate that to you.

[00:45:31]For example, like in that staff report, we told you right up front, right? Like this is this is covered by the state.

[00:45:36]You don't have to worry about it. So, let's move it forward. Um, we'll try to do that when we can. Um, but that's that's kind of more the big picture is is how you can help us. But, um, >> they'll we'll we'll try to outline it for you, I guess, is my response. like when it when when we know we'll try to highlight that for you that you're helping us kind of with the city budget, whatever it might be. In the case of the CIP tonight, they really can't get into the numbers yet because the council is going to decide on that.

[00:46:02]>> Okay, >> so that helps.

[00:46:04]>> Thank you.

[00:46:05]>> Appreciate the questions though. It's good discussion. So, general expectations from staff. Um, we just want you to be prepared for meetings.

[00:46:13]Um, contact us in advance with important questions. You guys have been doing a good job on that. Um, this really I keep this slide in here because it's good practice, but two years ago I would say it was a little different. You all are doing a good job. I appreciate the calls sometimes when you guys want to talk about things. I appreciate the emails and the questions. We a number of you have done that. Um, keep doing that when you're not sure about something. It's totally okay. When you get a staff report and you're like, I really don't get this. You know, give me a call, send me an email, whatever you want to do. We can chat. Um, we want to perform our hearings in a manner that's fair, courteous, and responsive. Obviously, I think you're all doing a good job of that. This isn't a critique of you, but this is just kind of our expectation.

[00:46:51]Um, you want to think about your decisions in essentially the general overall public good. So, that's the hard part about being a commissioner sometimes, I think, is to take a step back and and not think about it necessarily from your own viewpoint, but is this the best thing for the city all around, right? And it's not necessarily even about what staff thinks, it's about what's good for the people outside, right? Um, you want to avoid bias. We're going to talk a little bit about that on a subsequent slide. You want to avoid conflicts of interest. Um, when you're unable to attend, let me know. Again, you've all been doing a good job of that. Um, let me know when you have a vacation scheduled. We'll make sure Tanya knows. Um, we've had some issues in the past, but I would say it's been going really well. I know sometimes we cancel the meetings. We had a slew of meetings canceled in a row. That was nice. Kind of give you guys some time off. We're back here again every uh every two weeks. But um yeah, just keep us in the in the loop when you when you can't make it and we'll try to make sure we can still have at least three or four of you to run the meeting.

[00:47:45]>> Um >> real quick, sorry, Mr. Chairman, just want to let you know we got our audio uh taken care of. So >> we're we're on.

[00:47:51]>> Thank you.

[00:47:53]>> All right. Um so essentially, and then just to lay the groundwork, what is what's staff doing for you? Staff does a lot of work, right? We're we're spending a lot of time. We do a professional analysis. We have excellent staff here. um a number of the staff uh that Jared and I have developed since we've been in charge here doing a great job and we're bringing you the best projects we can bring you that we've spent the time to make sure they're the best we can. Um we'll bring you a recommendation.

[00:48:21]There'll be a professional analysis in there. You essentially, like I said before, you kind of have two things that come to you. You'll have the legislative matters like the ODS or the hillside ordinance. That's really going to be about you kind of putting on your hat that, hey, how does this work with zoning? How does it work with a general plan? Then you're going to have these quas quasi judicial manners is kind of what we call it. That's projects, right?

[00:48:41]So that's like the bar we did a month ago, right? Where it's really gets technical and it's about how does this project meet the code? If there's SQL impacts, we talk about that. Um staff's going to give you recommendation and we talk about things like what are the operating hours, you know, how many customers are there going to be, right?

[00:48:57]So sort of like a different you put on a different hat there, right? Um, staff's available for questions, but and I think you guys did good on this in some of the more recent items for the why questions, like, hey, why why does the bar want to stay open until 2 a.m.? Why why are you guys changing the hours, right? Save those questions for the applicant, and the applicant should be here, right? If the applicant spent all this money to process a project, they should show up and be at the hearing, right? So, ask ask the applicant those questions. Uh, the good questions for staff are like, "Hey, I didn't see how tall the building was in the staff report staff. How how tall is the building? Is is the is the wall really white staff or is it blue? I can't I couldn't tell by the slide, right?" That kind of stuff, right? But, uh, if you're not sure about the business, hey, what's what's the deal with this business? You know, Commissioner Harlon used to like to get into that stuff. That's that's really questions you want to ask the applicant.

[00:49:48]So, appreciate that if you kind of think about that when someone comes up. try to think about how to you're going to talk to staff first, but you can definitely grill the applicant and ask them lots of questions.

[00:49:57]>> And we always ask we always talk to staff first and then the applicant reserves time to come up and answer rebuttal, right? And then we can >> every time. Okay. It's it's the same. So you're going to talk to staff first really the best and my just this is my advice as staff. The best time to ask staff those technical questions really is in that time frame right after that you've made the presentation. Ask those technical questions. Hey staff, I saw in the SQA document that we're doing an override. Are we doing an override staff? Can you explain a bit more why we're doing that? You know, things like that. If there's a technical question, um, that's a good time for that. And then when the applicant comes up, then you get into the details. Hey applicant, oh, you're you want to do a new business? Okay. Well, have you ever run a business like this before? I think the questions on the bar were really good and and we found out, you know, for example, that gentleman was a former sheriff that I appreciated that line of questioning and we kind of asked them, hey, what's your security plan? Those were really good questions and you know, city attorney Paul Martin's filling in for Paul tonight, but Paul was really impressed, I would say, with with all of you at that hearing. I thought you guys did a good job asking questions.

[00:51:00]>> Yeah. Was I here for that? What was the bar?

[00:51:02]>> It was um Champions Bar and you might have been out that one.

[00:51:06]>> Where's that at? It's uh Margarita over near the Hot Springs Resort.

[00:51:11]>> Oh, okay.

[00:51:11]>> Then they're expanding their hours. But I'm sorry I'm throwing it out there because it's a fresh example, but I we were I just want to say and it's good time to compliment the commission. I thought you did a really good job at that hearing and I appreciate the commissioners who attended. I know you would have done >> No problem.

[00:51:28]>> So, it's all right. Um so, just want to kind of lay the groundwork. That's kind of how we we want to do things. Um, I think you all know this, but um, one of the things that was talked about a lot a couple years ago, there was a commissioner who kind of constantly asked staff about, hey, when are we noticing, when why are we noticing, how do we notice? And wanted to like maybe do more noticing. So, we we provide plenty of notice. We provide the notice that's basically in state law. We also provide the notice that's in our development code. So, people are have plenty of opportunity to be noticed. If it's a project, there's probably a sign on the site there. There's been notices that have gone out around the site.

[00:52:06]There's been an ad in the newspaper.

[00:52:07]It's also on the city website. It's like people get noticed. So, just want you to understand, we follow the we follow the procedure. We do it by the book. Tanya does a great job for us with the newspaper. Um, we do the noticing that we're required to do. Um, if you're not sure, please ask me in advance. Um, as as staff, I would ask not to bring that up like out of the blue at a hearing.

[00:52:30]Um, if you're not sure, ask me in advance and we can explain to you how we noticed it. But you can ask staff, you know, if you if it comes up and someone says, "Hey, I didn't get a notice." You and you've done this before. I think all of all of you have done it before. You can ask staff, "Hey, staff, can you just remind us how was this project noticed?"

[00:52:46]And then staff will be able to walk you through, we did a newspaper ad, we put a sign on the site, we noticed within 300 feet of the site. We can we can walk you through that. Um, but essentially we we have codes and rags that we follow to make sure we do it the right way and it gets done every time.

[00:53:02]>> Yeah.

[00:53:03]>> And and it the goal there it is to make sure people know they have an opportunity to come here. Um we don't go down the street and bang on a drum, you know, like we that's not required in state law and I don't think anybody does that in any other cities. But um we do everything we're required to do and if people are interested they can be here and we don't as as you all know we leave the doors open here. People can come in anytime. Um, we do want to give people an opportunity to raise all issues. It's okay to limit the time. We typically, you know, we do limit it to three minutes, but sometimes special hearings, we give people more time. Um, for example, at the last hearing with the Hillside ordinance, you know, it's a it's an important item to a few people, we give them additional time. I thought the chair did a great job on that. Um, it's also okay to reopen the hearing. If you if you know, maybe somebody shows up late and and they're waving to you and they're like, "Hey, Dennis, I told you I was going to be here." You could say, "Hey, uh, we want to reopen this item."

[00:53:54]If you're still on the item, you can do that. Um, I've seen that happen before.

[00:53:58]>> Yeah. Or in that case, I think there was, uh, somebody who wasn't on the list didn't fill out their card, but they're waving like, "Okay, we'll let you jump in."

[00:54:06]>> That's chair's discretion. And yeah, you've you've done a good job on that, Chair Roman. Um, so that's just something for the commissioners to be aware of that you can you can help people out if you want to. I mean, they've come all the way down here.

[00:54:16]Let's let them have a chance to say their piece. Um, obviously you want to be impartial. Pay attention to what people say. You can also ask a speaker to clarify something. If they come up and they say something and they're, you know, people get nervous, right, and they're speaking quickly. If you're not sure what they said, it's okay to say when towards the end of their time, say, "Could you clarify what you were saying?

[00:54:35]Is this what you were asking about?"

[00:54:37]It's okay to do that.

[00:54:38]>> Yeah. Sometimes, >> excuse me, sometimes it's like um it feels like we can't we can't have like an open dialogue like with the person speaking.

[00:54:46]>> Yeah. The city attorney can chime in.

[00:54:48]Yeah. You don't want to have an open dialogue, but you can say, "I didn't hear what you said."

[00:54:51]>> Okay.

[00:54:52]>> Yeah.

[00:54:54]>> Basically, that that's exactly right.

[00:54:55]You you really um >> you can ask a clarifying question.

[00:54:59]>> Yeah.

[00:55:00]>> But you you really don't want to encourage all of a sudden a discussion or somebody challenging you and and having a back and forth. That's not what public comment is for.

[00:55:09]>> When I was chair, I sometimes like you have the urge to like want to make someone feel comfortable because some people are super nervous and I've been there before and I was super nervous.

[00:55:17]But like you can't you can't like besides saying like welcome or you know state your name or anything like that.

[00:55:22]There's really nothing more you should elaborate on.

[00:55:25]>> Yeah. But but it's okay to to say hey you know we didn't get your name right.

[00:55:30]Maybe maybe someone says hey I didn't hear what they said their name was directly clarification.

[00:55:33]>> Can you state your name? Right.

[00:55:34]Clarification type things.

[00:55:36]>> Yep.

[00:55:37]>> Um obviously review things in advance.

[00:55:40]That way the public knows that you've reviewed things too. Right. That's always good to convey. Um so we'll just talk a little bit. I'll wrap up on bias and conflict of interest. And then Martin's gonna join talk a little bit about running meetings. Um, so obviously we want to avoid bias. Please come in impartial. Don't bring in your own stake. I always use I like the example of like, you know, people like ice cream or they they like frozen yogurt, right?

[00:56:03]And if a guy comes up and says, I I want to do an ice cream place. And you say, well, I'm not voting for this because I like fro yo, right? Don't do that. So just check your bias at the door. It doesn't matter what it is you like. It's really, like we talked about earlier, it's about what's best for the city. Um, and just try to think about it from uh sort of a neutral standpoint. Let's have a fair hearing. Um, we've talked about this before. Please disclose if there have been expartes. That would be so for example, if an applicant contacted you and said, "Hey, let's go out to lunch."

[00:56:32]And you guys went out to lunch and you talked about the project. You should disclose that on the dis before we hear the item so that everybody on the dis knows, the public knows, everybody that's in the room knows. Okay? That should not be something that comes up when he walks up to the the the lect turn and says, "Hey, chair of Vroomman, when we went out to lunch and talked about Yeah, that's not good. And trust me, I've seen that happen at more than one hearing in my career." So, yeah, please, please, uh, if someone reaches out to you, you see them on the golf course, you're talking to them, just disclose it, right? It doesn't hurt. You can say, "Hey, yeah, I saw the applicant when I was at McDonald's. He talked to me about the project. um he just told me about it and just letting everybody know, right? Safe. Um obviously avoid commitment when you have those conversations with people. Uh please just tell them, hey, I'm a I'm a commissioner. You're welcome to talk to me about it, but I can't tell you about what I'm thinking about the project, right? Um and then please when you're here, read your decisions basically based on the evidence. What we want from commissioners is we want you to walk in the room and not have decided anything.

[00:57:38]You should walk in, you've you've reviewed the materials, you're coming in to hear everything that's said, staff's presentation, the applicant's presentation, and then you're going to take that all in and make your decision.

[00:57:50]>> Um, >> excuse me. Just on that point because you brought up like McDonald's. I know that sounds silly, but um, just for my own clarification, let's say they want to buy you McDonald's.

[00:58:01]>> Well, it's that's your decision, right?

[00:58:04]if you want to do that and and I would let the city attorney like weigh in on that if he's interested. It's really more about did they talk to you about the project. So, and because you don't want him to come up and say, "Hey, I talked to you Commissioner Denna about this and when we talked, this is what I said." You know, that that does not look good for you or for the city. So, it's really just disclosing that you did talk to someone if you talked to them. And as far as having him buy having them buy you meals, um FPPC regulations are there. Any gift over $50 needs to be reported. Any gift uh over right now, I think it's $668 from a single entity is prohibited during an annual period. Um my advice in in these situations has always been um pay for your own lunch. Uh it's it's uh uh just to dovetail on on what Carla was saying. Um in in these ex party communications, they're talking to you only for one reason. Uh they want to take your vote and if they're talking to you, they're talking to everybody else and you're running a chance of a of a serial meeting. And we'll cover that a little later. And I've seen some very embarrassing moments uh in in my time when somebody stands up there and and lies and says, "Well, when we had lunch together, you said you were going to vote for this project if I do this."

[00:59:32]>> And you have a commissioner saying, "I never said that."

[00:59:35]>> And sort of like what Martin's getting, it's good for you to head that off at the beginning of the hearing. Like, and it can happen, right? You could be at the grocery store and you run into the applicant and he talks to you for five minutes. head that off when you're when you get here and the item kicks off.

[00:59:49]Say, "Yeah, I ran into Joe Blow at the grocery store and he talked to me about the project." Just letting everybody know. That's it, >> right?

[01:00:00]All right. So, that's bias. Um, and then I'll wrap up with when to recuse. We kind of talked a bit about this uh with one of the commissioners recently. Um, essentially when there's a conflict of interest. So if if it seems like there could be any material financial effect and often time that's if it's if the project's near your property, right? So we'll try to identify this when we see it, we know where your properties are, we know where you are. Um so we'll try to help you with that when we can. Um but if if if you if you're not sure, this is a good time to reach out to staff, right? When you get the staff report and like you're like, "Hey, I'm not sure." And we and we'll look and yeah, you're 502 feet away. You're okay.

[01:00:40]Um so we'll look at that. Um, but, uh, let us know if you're not sure and and we've had a couple commissioners do a really good job reaching out to us on some recent items and said, "Hey, I'm not sure." And we talk about it and we'll bring in the city attorney if we need to. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Martin to cover Brown Act. And just tell me, Martin, I can move the slides ahead when you're ready.

[01:01:00]>> All right. I will. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. Commission uh, Commissioner, Senator Chair Rumman. Um just a couple of words about uh uh the prior slide. Uh there are various kind of situations where you want to think about recusal.

[01:01:16]Uh the obvious ones are financial effect, the property um proximity uh to the project. Um but if for example your neighbor um comes out before you with a with a project and um your neighbor has four barking dogs and you have very bright lights on your house and for the last uh 5 years you and your neighbor have been fighting it out in small claims court or doing whatever else it is that you're doing to each other. uh when that person comes up there uh and asks for a project to be approved, you need to search inside and say, "Can I be impartial?" Uh so there are other kinds of conflicts or or or recusal situations which you should be considering when when you're sitting up here. Um just um to to finish up what what Carl was talking about. So Brown Act um in the late 50s one of the uh senators um Ralph Brown um decided that um you know all business of the government should be done in open and should be viewed by the public. All decision-m processes, all deliberations need to be in an open meeting except for the state.

[01:02:40]Brown Act does not cover state legislature. Uh so it's been handed down to to the cities. It is a good law. Uh it is is a law that apparently was needed in those days. Uh I think it's still needed now. Uh I I've seen situations that that are not um something that should be tolerated. So um it is it is good that we have the law and and we should all follow it. Um, Brown Act requires you to any legislative body, we'll talk about the planning commission, to meet and deliberate uh all items in open session.

[01:03:16]It has to be properly noticed on the agenda 72 hours before the meeting. I'm not going to dive into the little tiny details, but it has to be agendaized. It has to be an action item. Then you can deliberate and take action on it. Now, what does that mean? What should you be careful about? Well, there there are several things that um should be avoided obviously and and I think we'll get to that in the uh in the next slide. But but the important part is for you to remember is that um anytime the majority of you, three of you u are discussing anything that's within the jurisdiction of the planning commission for the city, uh you need to be in a notice meeting.

[01:03:56]And if you're not, then you need to not do that. you need to stop. With it goes also perception. Uh you're all residents of the city. Um I spent a lot of time talking to um legislative bodies about um small small and big cities. It it really doesn't matter. But always remember what uh also what it looks like. Um, if three of you are sitting in a a dark corner of a of a restaurant here about 4:00 in the afternoon, 2 days before your planning commission meeting, and you're sitting there and you're drawing stuff up, and you're talking and and doing that, and somebody sees that, they're going to go, you know, they're they're talking about this big project that's coming up, whether it's the bar, whether it's the hillside ordinance.

[01:04:42]Well, you happen to be planning your kids' birthday party uh or a graduation.

[01:04:47]you're not you're not doing anything has to do with the city. But what does that look like? What is the perception of that? So just keep that also in mind when when when you accept the appointment of sitting in on this body with it comes certain restrictions and certain responsibilities and and uh it's just something that as you go through your everyday life you you always need to keep that in the back of your head is is uh you know >> is it excuse me is it three or more or it has to be three or more >> it it it has to be three form a majority of you. Um but also um beware and be careful and we'll get into serial meetings. Um when it's just the two of you talking about something, you both are trusting each other, then neither one of you will be talking to any other commissioner about that because the moment the one of you does, you've committed an illegal serial meeting if it's not agendaized, if it's not in the uh in the meeting. So any direct communication employed by majority of you that is not um agenda not during a regular meeting or a special meeting of the planning commission is an illegal meeting whether it's one of you doing hub and spoke talking to the rest of you or whether it's serial one says one one then the next then the next and next it is um and it basically constitutes an unlawful Um, most of, you know, it's it's just embarrassing. You know, it it the issue with it isn't that, you know, the world's going to end or something's going, you know, it's just that you do not want to have a member of the public sitting here or coming before the city council and saying, "Hey, you know, look at this. These guys were before this meeting. These guys were meeting and they, you know, this was all planned out when when they turned this down. They they you know, they had it all planned out. was all set up and and people will try to do anything they can to to get their way in front of a legislative body, whether it's you, whether it's the, you know, city council. They will stretch the truth. They will make assumptions. They will take things like you sitting in a, you know, restaurant planning a birthday party, uh, as as a sign of you breaking the law. So, again, we go back to that.

[01:07:18]remember, you know, your role in the city and and it doesn't start and stop at 6:00 and and at 8 or whenever the meeting is over.

[01:07:29]uh social media. Um it was a uh very tricky um part of the Brown Act when social media become very active. A lot of um you know I like or responses and on Facebook and and um for a long time it was basically a fairly prohibitive uh practice. We we would advise legislative body don't do that.

[01:07:54]you know, don't um unless you have an account that's that's a separate personal account, not a city involved account, don't respond. Don't reply all.

[01:08:04]Don't engage in these communications because all of you uh more than likely are are tracking the same items on on Facebook or Instagram or whatever other platforms exist. Now um law was passed recently state senate bill 707 which relaxed the rules a little bit you may participate in these as long as there is no cross communications among you. So either so in the past even if you just were replying to to everybody it constituted deliberation in a meeting.

[01:08:40]Now it's it's a little bit more relaxed.

[01:08:42]I still say be very careful. I'll give you an example. There's a case five years ago, maybe a little longer than that. Um, by now, yeah, probably longer to go down south um a board of supervisors or um like in Georgia, I think, or um a supervisor um unliked somebody for 16 minutes after a meeting.

[01:09:08]There was a big tumultuous meeting. She went home and she blocked one of the public speakers on on her on her and then I guess came to her senses 16 minutes later and unblocked him. He sued and received an award of money from the court because the court said if you use your social platform, whether it's your Facebook, your Instagram for public purpose, if if you're talking about your job as a council member, board of supervisor, planning commissioner, uh, and you and you're expressing opinions about the city, about the projects, it's a public platform. And once it becomes a public platform, you cannot stop somebody from speaking because you're violating their first amendment rights. So, it's it's an extreme case, but it's a case that illustrates um how significant these little what we think of, oh, yeah, I'm just going to yeah, do that. It So, again, um just kind of keep in mind when you're on social media, keep in mind who you're talking with and what you're talking about because it it it can make a difference.

[01:10:15]contacts with constituents. Again, I think uh Carl covered that really well.

[01:10:20]Um but you you obviously they can reach out to you, they can communicate with you. Uh do report it.

[01:10:28]Um >> in this context, it might be concerning if you each say, "Yeah, I ran into the applicant at McDonald's. Hey, I ran into the applicant at McDonald's."

[01:10:39]>> Yeah, that's not good, right? That kind of gets into this. So, um, hopefully only one of you said you ran into the applicant at McDonald >> and and >> I ran into the applicant at Ruth Chris.

[01:10:51]>> What I suggest um because people will try to get an answer from you. You know, what do you like about the project? What don't you like? You know, how you going to vote? Uh, you know, what what can I do to to to get your support is is what you're going to hear from from some developers. and and you know, Carl identified perfectly. It's it's you know, right now I I'll gladly talk to you, show me what you have. I'll I'll look at the site. I'll I'll do whatever, you know, um inspection, I'll I'll hear to what you say, but but until I have a staff report in front of me, until until I hear from the public um during the meeting, the public is going to tell me what they think about this. And until most importantly or as importantly I hear from the other four commissioners about what they think about this project, I'm not going to make up my mind. I'm not going to make a decision. So that gives you a little bit of an out, you know, without saying, you know, I'm going to tell you, it's it's it's like it all needs to happen first and then uh I'm I'm going to make a decision. I uh forced a council member in a city where I was a city attorney to get off the deis on a very very big important project because he wrote a letter to the developer just smashing the project just I I you know this is the worst thing you can't do this blah blah blah this and two months before the project even came before the council so just Again, be careful about expressing your opinions about things that you later are going to be uh presiding over. Uh because uh clearly you cannot be unbiased. If two months ago you told the developer that that you hate this project or this is the worst thing that could ever happen to the city, how can you sit down later here and give them due process and and and give them a fair hearing when when that happened? So you will develop your own opinions about projects. You you you will go and look at them. My recommendation is keep them to yourself and keep an open mind because sometimes uh what you hear from people about a project either pro or against uh is is colored by their desired goal. And and there are times when that's they're not telling you everything there is to know or what they're telling you is just simply not true.

[01:13:21]Um, >> I guess I I guess in that regard, the better option obviously if we do have concerns with something is not to communicate directly with an applicant, but to have staff voice our concerns indirectly. Uh, and they may be hearing the same from other commissioners or council persons as well too. And so that's how the message about things should get relayed.

[01:13:44]>> You you should um communicate with staff, >> right? Um, I would be hesitant to um have staff be a messenger of your message to a to a developer. Um, but I I would be very supportive of you speaking with staff and and saying, "Do you share these concerns? Do you have, you know, what are you doing about the traffic mitigation? This thing is going to bring 400 people in here every hour. Are we planning to force a light at this intersection? Are we doing an extra lane? Are they going to pay for it?

[01:14:20]Those are the kind of things that that are very very much fair game for staff and staff is probably already talking to the developer about it. If they're not, they will, but they'll bring it up as a city concern, not as uh >> yeah, and forgive me, I that that's basically what I meant. Not us. Got >> not me personally, but saying, "Hey, here's some bigger overall issues." And that's a great example is like, hey, is there going to be a traffic signal here associated with this project or something along those lines. It's not they wouldn't relate. Hey, this is coming from commissioner so and so. So that there's also an onus on their part.

[01:14:58]They would just say, hey, here's some concerns and they they would voice it, but but we we wouldn't uh want to communicate directly with an applicant on something like that.

[01:15:09]>> I I wouldn't recommend it. I mean you you you can you can meet with the with the applicant again and and listen to what they have to say. Uh but but I would >> um I would not try to shape the project uh from that in that meeting. U that's that's you know that's really something that uh I would recommend you communicate with staff about and then staff will will do whatever they can to to to carry that message forward uh and and to uh you know put it into the project. Um, every meeting needs to be properly agendaized. Uh, the agenda needs to be posted. Again, the materials that you receive um must be available to the public and and you know, every city does a great job making sure that that is available. Um, there are times when things change. you you you post the agenda, you post a uh staff report uh and new piece of information comes in or somebody overlooked something.

[01:16:10]There is no Brownlax violation if staff brings you a supplemental agenda and says, "Hey, you know this, let's put this in the agenda packet. There's 15 copies available to to the public lying on the on the table. It's up on the website. It's an amended agenda now. So you can receive um additional information um after the posting of the agenda and that's not a violation. Also you will often uh one of the favorite uh approaches of of a lot of the environmental uh groups is to send your 14page letter a day before the uh meeting or the day of the meeting uh an email. Um we will distribute that. Staff distributes that. It's it's part of the record. Um, I I think I've seen once or twice where the item was continued on staff's request because issues were raised that perhaps staff wasn't prepared to address or needed a little bit more time to evaluate.

[01:17:13]>> We've done that. Yeah. But Martin's right. Some sometimes it's a matter of like, hey, what's in the letter? And if if we're covered, then we plow ahead. I think we've had both sort of scenarios with some of you longer time commissioners, but um but yeah, as Martin's getting at, people might show up here with a 10-page letter and hand it to you on the DIS and that's their right and we'll look at it if we can in the time we have. Um but yeah, documents can be presented at the meeting.

[01:17:40]>> Yep. Um so >> it's it just becomes part of the record and and I I don't think there is an expectation uh that everything stops and and you you analyze the letter and and you know staff analyzes it and and and you change course or direction or don't change course or direction of of the item. uh people who submit these type of uh materials on the last minute uh day of the meeting or day before the meeting, they do it at their own risk. uh if if in fact um a action ensues afterwards, a challenge, a writ to or or an appeal to the city council uh of your decision, uh that that letter will be in there as part of the administrative record, but it'll also be with a note that it was received an hour before the meeting or or day before the meeting, etc. uh public records act requests um much like the Brown Act um in order to have everything be transparent and and uh the way the government does business, the way the um you know land use department, the planning department does business and you do business is all open to the public with very very few exceptions. Uh so all documents that are produced as part of the city's business as let's focus on planning commission as part of preparing projects part of uh receiving documentation applications permits all of that is public record. So these these documents somebody come in and request them and ask for um that's the easy part. Here's the hard part. um documents that uh in the old days was passing notes uh on the DEAS uh that becomes a public record. Uh nowadays u any phone communications, cell phones, texts um if you're texting with each other, if you're texting with staff, somebody can say, "I want uh all the texts pertaining to item number six the day of the meeting." And that is a valid public records act request. Um at this point in time, the state law of the law is uh if it's your personal phone, the city staff will ask you, do you have any texts pertaining to item number six on this day? And you will respond and the city will accept that response and that response will move forward uh in the response that we provide to the requester. So, and and to back up a little bit of what Martin's saying, just know that so our emails to you are public record. So, if we if we send you an email and then a member of the public finds out about that email, they can ask for that email from us, but they can also ask for that email from you through the city both. So, just be cognizant of that, right?

[01:20:38]>> And and your response, >> right? All of it. Yeah. So, my friendly advice as staff is if you're worried about something that's a little sensitive, you don't want to put it in an email or a text, give me a call.

[01:20:52]We'll set up a meeting. We can sit down, talk face to face. There's nothing illegal about that and we'll have that discussion that way. Okay?

[01:20:59]>> Um, if you're if you don't want to put an email, you don't want it to be on the front page, y >> you know, let me know. We'll just talk.

[01:21:07]Time for a call question mark is one of my favorite texts that I get from my council members and my uh and staff.

[01:21:15]And and it's it's it it's not illegal.

[01:21:18]It's not being sneaky. It's not being it's just being smart because um in order to have a with me it's a little easier because my communications are privileged. So most of them I can I can protect but between staff and and and you um it gives you an opportunity to have a robust discussion.

[01:21:38]It it gives you opportunity to discuss it, talk about it, what ifs and this and that and and and if you put that in writing, somebody again is going to grab it, analyze it and and pick out three words that they don't like and they're going to run around with those three words saying, "Oh, Commissioner so and so said this and this." You know, when you really didn't say that. what you said was what happens if somebody says blah blah blah blah blah. Uh you know, so um that's why verbal uh communications are are a really good way to deal with issues that uh you know may be somewhat sensitive in some fashion.

[01:22:14]>> That's perfect, Martin. I really appreciate you pinching on filling in on those slides and then uh we'll turn it over to Jared and he's going to bring you home with a little bit more about our sort of strategic partnership between staff and the commission. But that's kind of the refresher for the long timers. The rest of it's all new stuff.

[01:22:34]>> No. And uh thank you Martin. It's always good for me as staff to rehear that because uh the Brown Act is something critical for myself. And thank you. And thank you Carl. Um these guys did a great job. I'll try to keep it up here.

[01:22:47]You know, a strong strategic partnership between planning staff and the planning commission is the foundation of effective local governance. When the planning team and the appointed commissioners are closely aligned, it streamlines coordination builds public trust and ensures that development projects navigate the public hearing process efficiently.

[01:23:08]You know, if we go back to 2018, we noticed as planners the h the legislature was starting to ramp up on changes um of housing law. This is the housing accountability act. In 2019, Carl and I attended a conference in Santa Barbara. It was the APA conference and Senator Scott Weiner was the guest speaker. It was quite shocking what he told us. He told us as planners we had driven the state into the ditch with our love affair for single family housing.

[01:23:36]And I kind of shook for a moment. I said, "Wow, this is the first time I'm hearing such a strong legislative change."

[01:23:43]Now, at that same time in 2019, we started to see laws that would go after subjectivity versus objectivity. So if your code as a local jurisdiction had any subjective code, you could not defend that with an applicant's submitt, you could only defend objectivity.

[01:24:01]So I wanted to highlight that at the same time, our city council was identifying that and felt that we needed to do better. And so through a grant that Carl earlier alluded to uh from the state, we were able to hire a consultant and staff worked on objective design guidelines. So, we brought that to you back in 2023 and just a couple weeks ago. And so, I wanted to just give credit that you guys have done things already to secure the city on behalf of the public and the city council, but I just wanted to say that that was a great first start. You know, people might not recognize that roof lines and and articulation and recessing is a big deal, but it's a big deal. and because of your hard work and getting us an objective design standard that's helping us already uh with our city. It's starting to look good and it's starting to stand out from other codes that haven't been changed. But I just wanted to start with that as you know something that I think we all did well together on behalf of city council which is on behalf of our public.

[01:25:03]You know, I often have to attend seminars and trainings just to keep up with the amazing amount of new laws that are affecting us as planners. Um, I just wanted to say that findings, trying to understand HCD's next move, that's housing and community development, and how best to provide our city council with defensible recommendations. That's really what I come to work every day for.

[01:25:29]You know, training helps us sharp our toolkit. You know, ensuring is that decisions are well written. You know, the findings are strong and that you can rely upon it. You heard earlier that if the finding isn't good, ask those questions. Let's dig that out at the hearing. The staff report is a good springboard for you, but we want to make sure that the findings that we wrote in your resolution are sound and can be defended by you or the city council if you're a recommending body.

[01:25:59]You know, I think what we're noticing is that affordability in California is the is the mantra for where people are living. And so, you are seeing houses get smaller. We are seeing a lot of multif family. I think that a lot of that is coming back to demographic shifts, but really affordability. I think we keep hearing that time and time again.

[01:26:20]>> This is just an open conversation, right? Are we are we like live on >> Yes. Yeah. Yes.

[01:26:28]>> Yes.

[01:26:28]>> It's public meeting.

[01:26:30]>> Okay. Continue on. Thank you.

[01:26:31]>> Okay. Okay.

[01:26:34]So, for our department, um we're focused on creating a housing specialist position. Carl uh found money in our housing authority budget. This is money that we wouldn't have to so much um add to the pile, but money that we're sitting on. And we want to make sure that we have a position that's very proactive in helping us with addressing some of the legislation in Sacramento.

[01:26:56]So we are trying to get a new position that will help us in this endeavor.

[01:27:03]Now I cut and pasted this from ACD's website. What's in purple is from them.

[01:27:09]Uh they want to highlight to the public what their mandate is. And I'll just read a jurisdiction does not have the authority to determine that it stopped element is in substantial compliance but may provide reasoning why HCD should make a finding of substantial compliance. I just want to start off with that because we do need to ramp up um to the bills that are being approved and being proposed for next year. Uh we do have some friends. Uh we have the California League of Cities. They do offer webinars and conferences. Some are coming up right now. Um we have a webinar coming up on June 3rd. We have the annual conference in September that's really more for city manager and city council, but there's nothing wrong with um with commissioners attending.

[01:27:55]And then we also have the big show, the planning commission academy uh in next March. And so uh we're going to be underscoring that you gentlemen will be joining us um at that conference. It's a few days and so we'll we'll take care of the tickets and the the airlines and the hotel rooms, all that. But we have budgeted as we do each year for you guys to attend. But I think of all years, I think it's now time for us to to really focus on some strategy and how to help us with the city of Muretta and our city council.

[01:28:26]>> I I have a quick question um just because I'm trying to understand a few things. So, it seems like the state's mandating quite a bit of stuff.

[01:28:37]>> How do how does it work with the city reszoning property? So, if It's like if the precursor, right, if land is zoned for like rural residential or something like that and can the state touch that meaning can the state require us under these legislation to build multif family homes on that or like these apartment complexes >> or do we have to resone it?

[01:29:06]>> No. So most of what the state's done and we we think the last time we kind of talked about this was maybe a training we did a year ago. Um, most of what the state's done is they locked the density that's that exists on the ground. So, in the old days, and you know, Martin and Jared and I have been around a long time, um, there were times when, for example, an applicant might bring a project to the planning commission that was under the density that the zone required, and the commission had the discretion to approve a lower density project, maybe even very low density.

[01:29:40]and cities and counties did that. That all changed when the state passed SP330 and a number of laws around 2019. Um, and they essentially locked in density everywhere across the entire state. You cannot approve projects below essentially what the base density of the zone is. So the the big difference now is we have to we when applicants come to us and propose a project they have to meet the minimum density and some some applicants struggle with that and would like to do a less dense project. Um but the state the state as of right now hasn't changed our so for example our rural residential zoning or our uh single family zoning. They haven't changed it, but there are a myriad of different laws that they've passed that allow for certain types of projects anywhere a certain type of zoning is located. And that's also not something they were doing a decade ago. So, the newer laws like SP35 and there's a number of them. We Chris and I talked about it the last time we talked about the state laws, but in the places where we're zoned for residential, if someone proposes one of those projects and they typically have an affordable component and um if they propose those projects, we ha not only do we have to process it, we have to approve it. Um there's if they meet all the requirements in the law, there's no discretion by the city. We have to process it. We have to approve it. So, a big part tying back to what Jared was talking about, a big part why we need these objective standards that you've now number of you have worked on more than once is because when someone comes in with one of those projects, we want it to be the best project it can be. The state's already basically taken our power away. So, we want it to look the best. We want it to be designed the best. And that's why we spent the time on these objective standards with you all to make sure that we're sort of covered there, right? Um, but we've lost a lot of the ability to control those those projects because of what the state's done. It's essentially a mandate. They say we're still in a housing crisis. They haven't stopped with this housing crisis. We're still in it and they keep passing laws sort of piling on. So, um, >> have we ever just because I don't know the history as well as everyone else up here. Have we ever like reszoned land before? I mean, obviously we have, but have we ever reszone land that has kind of now become these high density areas because the law changed and that wasn't like predicted?

[01:32:04]>> I guess the thing to say is we we can't downzone anymore. So, in the areas where we have higher density zoning, for example, where we're building all the apartments near the freeway, we cannot reduce the density there. We could have six or seven years ago, the council could have decided that was something they wanted to do. Nobody knew this was coming, by the way. I'm sure 500 cities out there would have done it if they if they knew it was coming. Um, but we can no longer have reduced the density in those areas. So, the places north of the triangle where we have 30 dwelling units per acre, that was a city council 20 years ago that put that in place in two housing cycles ago. And we cannot change that. We can't take that away. We can increase the density in other places if we want to. Um, I would just say the council and the commission are reluctant to do that. Uh, because we have so much high density already baked into our general plan and zoning. It's out there, right? We still have vacant land that's high density u for this area. So, we don't really need more of it. Um, so you're not seeing us make a lot of changes. The last time we made land use changes was the general plan update that Jared and I worked on in 2020. And the only residential changes we made there were in the northern part of the city where the property owners were asking to change from office to residential along Whitewood and Clinton Keith. And we made changes up there for those people. And now those projects are being built.

[01:33:26]Those are, you know, the the Rustic Meadows project up by the high school and the Villas project that's currently under construction on Whitewood. you know th that area we reszoned in the 2020 update but we didn't make any other changes in this immediate part of the city in in the downtown and near the triangle. We haven't made changes in more than a decade. We they've been the same. Um the problem is the state has passed all these laws and now we have very little flexibility. Um, so we're doing our best to try to sort of play tennis and hockey, I guess we like to say sometimes, depending on the game, with the state and trying to make sure we protect the city's interests, but we don't want to get into hot water with the state either, right?

[01:34:06]>> So, um, so to that end, so basically because, uh, somebody who said, okay, was community commercial or whatever, and they decided, oh, we're going to put apartment complex in there. So it be but it it becomes a u multif family which it wasn't originally zoned for that. So, we have now a condominium or apartment complex where originally we thought that it was going to be a commercial center and but now you you have an area that was maybe zoned for apartments and you go, okay, well, there's no way to trade that off and actually turn that into commercial.

[01:34:48]>> It's diff it's difficult to do. That's kind of like a whole another discussion.

[01:34:52]Um, there is there's of course there's another law. You're I'm going to keep saying that over and over again. There's a law about transferring density within your city. So, if you attempt to do that, there's a law out there right now that essentially says, "Okay, you want to get rid of the density on this site."

[01:35:08]You have to find another place in the city to put that density. There's a law on the books right now that says that.

[01:35:13]That gets really tricky. Um, I'm sure there's developers out there on the street that say, "Man, I can make a deal for you." But >> not a lot of people doing that.

[01:35:22]>> This is the converse of it. The fact that they made something that wasn't going to be any zero density because it wasn't uh going to have any housing on it. It was zoned commercial. And so, the fact that now it's now going to have uh an apartment complex or or some type of condominium or whatever multif family housing on there that originally wasn't.

[01:35:44]there's not a way to basically trade off and go okay now we need commercial to offset it because now we have something that ba basically they use state law to to get it. So >> we we haven't I would say the one thing I would say is we haven't seen a lot of those projects here. So the areas where we're getting development are areas where we already were zoned for the higher density housing. All the projects you're seeing here close to city hall and over by the triangle that zoning was already there. It's they're not taking advantage of the new laws. They're really just building using the existing zoning that we had in place for a decade. The the TOD was in the housing element in 2008, I think. We're getting on close to 20 years now. So, it was sitting there all that time. Um I when I got here and Jared got here, there were developers who said, "No one's ever going to build 30 dwelling units breaker. Are you crazy? That won't pencil."

[01:36:33]>> Well, that ball game changed. So, you know, it the economics change sort of a little bit of what Jared was talking about. It's the ball games changed somewhat. It does pencil now, right? We got all these apartments under construction along the 15 south of here too in the other city south of us. Um, that ball game changed for them too.

[01:36:51]>> And that would you say that's partially because it's subsidized by government funding.

[01:36:56]>> Um, I would say it's more about the and Jared might want to talk to this. It's more about the it's the the cost to build at the coast has now gotten so high that it's it it it does pencil for them to build three and four story apartment buildings here >> in in our area now whereas it didn't >> maybe seven or eight years ago. Those projects just didn't pencil out, but the rents have gone up enough. And then the construction construction cost is still a little bit lower around here compared to building, you know, maybe closer to the coast. And so it's just sort of like this synergy where now you're seeing them come here and build those projects.

[01:37:34]We have a slew of developers who've all kind of rolled in here who used to we dealt with them in San Diego and they're not building down in San Diego and Orange County anymore. They're out here, right?

[01:37:45]>> Yeah.

[01:37:46]>> Uh sorry. Go ahead.

[01:37:47]>> No, go ahead.

[01:37:48]>> I was just going to talk about the state. You know, we we talk about the state and the state's like this big monster that, you know, can come take over the city and, you know, we've seen examples of it, I think, in Beverly Hills and and uh >> yeah, I was thinking of Huntington Beach.

[01:38:02]>> Huntington Beach and they took over uh the building department and Initas for a while. City wasn't issuing building permits. The state was >> Wow. So, that was my question. You guys have done a great job being very cautious and, you know, always taken that very seriously. Have we ever been contacted by the state >> like like do do like do they call and like check in like a you know like a >> like a landlord or something?

[01:38:24]>> They've I'm stealing Jared's thunder here. I'll talk a little. I'll try to stop talking. It gets me excited though.

[01:38:29]Um so HCD has a part of what's been going on with HCD is the state has been putting more money into HCD in the budgets and they've been giving them more enforcement and they've been hiring.

[01:38:41]>> Just for clarity, what is HCD?

[01:38:43]>> Uh housing and community development.

[01:38:44]It's it's the agency to for the lay person. It's good for us to explain to the people watching.

[01:38:50]>> It's another government bureaucracy that you don't say.

[01:38:52]>> Yeah. It's it's a state it's a state department. Essentially, what they've always handled is the housing elements that all 500 plus cities and counties do and they process those in a cycle, right? And they give us mandates as to this is how many how much housing we're supposed to build, which is somewhat unrealistic, but uh in my professional opinion, not the city's opinion. Um, but so we deal with HCD a lot. What's changed in more recent years, I've been dealing with them my entire career.

[01:39:21]They're actually being funded now from the state whereas in the past they really weren't funding them. Um, so now they're hiring staff and we know some of the staff. I got a letter once in the last couple years signed by a planner I knew and I'm like so I then we had a phone call because we had to clarify what was in the letter and I'm like oh you used to work at the city of Carlsbad. you're working for HCD now. So they're they're hiring professional staff now. They're plucking them from cities and they're using those staff as their enforcement tool.

[01:39:51]>> Wow.

[01:39:51]>> And so we do get letters from HCD. We've had more than one letter on different projects. Developers are getting savvy to it where developers will go to HCD and cry a story to HCD. HCD will send us a threatening letter and say we need to have a meeting. Um and we've had that happen. Thankfully, HCD has not, as you've seen, not shown up at any meetings, not sent us any nasty letters that you've seen in any of your projects. We try not to get to that point. We try to mitigate things with them, but there there are ugly things that can happen in the HCD, and they will work with the attorney general and go after cities on specific projects now. And the attorney general has gone after cities more recently. when the city doesn't pay attention to them, um they essentially will, it feels like at times they're turning it over, they'll like turn it over to the attorney general and then the attorney general takes the city to the court and then the project gets approved anyway, right?

[01:40:43]>> Yeah. And I don't mean to extend this meeting longer than it needs to be, but give us a little recap on what happened in Insenus for for the public.

[01:40:51]>> I know a few people that used to work there. Um, so they essentially are a city, if you if you just want to know a little bit about their history, they're a city that incorporated in the 1980s.

[01:41:02]Um, I know people who went to work there uh early in my career. Um, they never adopted a housing element. They they literally existed as a city for more than two decades without a housing element. Went through multiple housing cycles, no housing element. They finally the state finally took him to court. Um, and there was a time when essentially the there was a court order to step in and they didn't have permit authority.

[01:41:26]So all their projects had to go through the state first before it came to the city and the state was basically telling them here's your projects. You have to approve these. And they were they had they did not have permit authority. Now that's a that's a really outlandish case that's only happened 1% of the time. as I'm looking at the city attorney and he's nodding his head. That's only happened to a few cities out there, but that's a really it is it is a bad example and and one good example to think about. That's why we want to make sure we have a housing element that works. We did a lot of work on this last housing element which we brought to you all in 23 and we got that squared away.

[01:42:02]But we'll be coming back to you here soon enough as Jared's going to get into the next housing element cycle is just a couple years away. So, >> yeah.

[01:42:09]>> Thank you. Oh, I I did have followup. Uh I had one more question based on uh what I was speaking about before. So the um we we've had a couple instances here in the I'm putting my history hat back on here in the city uh where there has been land that has been reszoned that was commercial and through a citizen initiative ballot process uh land was reszoned. One in particular was at the corner of Clinton Keith and uh California Oaks. Uh it was supposed to be a shopping center long before your time. Uh this is back in the 1990s. And so there's currently a a housing track there, but it was going to be a supposed to be a supermarket shopping center. The other one is the uh the corner of Washington and Nutmeg uh just north of the um the LDS, the Mormon Church right there. that was going to be uh community commercial and then through a citizen-run ballot initiative was changed. So my point is is that does the state law preclude those type of situations where if uh if land we the city can't change it but if you're if there's a citizen ballot initiative to change something where does that stand?

[01:43:28]>> I Martin and I are both shaking our heads. I don't think so. I I think the state law is going to trump that and you you would be stuck with the same scenario we're in, which is you'd have to somehow lasso another property and make a deal with somebody else somewhere to shift the density. And you know, the developer, like I said, developers will will tell you, "Oh, I can do that." And I've never met a developer who's done it since the new laws have passed. So, it doesn't sound like an easy thing to do to get property owners to line up in density. I >> I have a question. Like at what point does a city go, we're not going to take this anymore? Like I know Beverly Hills started doing it and there's this fine like a very hefty fine for doing it, but like at what point can the city turn and this might be for you, turn around and say like we're going to band together and we're going to shut this down.

[01:44:13]>> I say so this is where we get into a little bit back what we talked about at the beginning of the meeting. So the commission is not political. So your job is not to get into that.

[01:44:20]>> Okay.

[01:44:20]>> The council can get into that and that's for the city council to deal with. And I see Martin's sh nodding his head. Yeah, I Huntington Beach tried and now they're paying for a lot of attorneys fees and and um have to hustle up and and try to get the housing element uh certified. It it it is getting more and more difficult to have any subjective say in the way that development is uh is moving forward.

[01:44:54]cities who are proactive and good like this one because you you you have the objective standards, you have all that in place. um you you just take the best road you can and then in adopting your housing element just some of the questions the chair uh was talking about as long as you can show that you have accommodated and provided land that could meet the assigned demand whether it's low-inccome housing or just housing at all but most of it now revolves around low low income very low income housing so that's where the resoning part comes in. You you can't resone a piece of property if you don't have enough land that somebody who would want to build on would build on.

[01:45:40]So So you have to have enough land in the city zoned in a way that is supposed to be zoned in order to meet your arena number which is your regional housing need assessment which without being political I agree with Carl. there usually are much higher than very rarely have I ever seen I've been doing this for almost 40 years have I ever seen a city meet its arena numbers >> and I just want to point out I wasn't I wasn't trying to be political in any way cuz the previous slide said like we represent the people's interests so I wasn't trying to be political I was just saying like this is obviously a public thing I I was just trying to rep >> No Commissioner Denna this is a good forum and I appreciate the question it's a good forum for you to bring that up and I I know people are frustrated and so it's good for us to have this dialogue I think make sure the commission and staff are on the same page. So, I appreciate the question >> and uh Commissioner Denna, that's exactly why I have this slide up here.

[01:46:36]And earlier you'd asked, how do we save money? Sometimes you can save a whole lot of money by not walking into something, right? So, when the state says, "I'll find you $10,000 a door per day." Let's not go there. But, but that is the acumen that staff, planning commission, and city council and our city manager have is making sure that we don't make it easy on our attorney general to make an example of us. So coopetition, coopetition is a business term. It means how do you cooperate and compete? It's not really a government term, but I feel that we've been pushed into that. We have to cooperate with another government by law, but when they're playing unfair in my opinion, I think we have to have better strategies to get around that more. How do we help our city council, right, with our recommendations and our findings?

[01:47:23]Now, I'm just going to go through some of the approved laws and some of the pending laws. Not to go through each one of them. Chris and Carl did that really nicely last month for you guys. I just want to go over some buzzwords because when I try to look at tea leaves, I want to see where are we going. I want to read what HCD is up to. And we're going into our next arena cycle uh pretty soon in the next two years. There's a lot of stuff that HCD and the legislature are doing now to maybe tripwire us. So I just wanted to say that when I look at laws that say commercial to residential adaptive reuse and office conversions exemptions specifically for resonings strict post entitlement permit approval shock clock prohibits requires tightens.

[01:48:12]All of these things are very difficult for staff and commission city council to accommodate. They're telling us you got to chart it more. you have less time to do it and there's more rules and regulations um around you. Here's more.

[01:48:26]Enhancing fines and penalties against local governments. Local agencies must ministerally consider that carves you out.

[01:48:36]On and on and on. Happy to say in two days we're going to close out some of the bills that are moving through the floor, but there are some that are of concern. And I just want to say thank you planning commission because often the public doesn't know how hard we all are working on behalf of our city council and our um city manager and all that's for the public itself. Um what I want to leave you with tonight, forgive me, is you know as one of the staff of this great city, um I've observed a lot um over the last eight years with the housing mess. Um, I put this image of the chess pieces on purpose here because we're going to play chess, not checkers, right? Uh, we need to put our city first and we can do that by working together, training and threading, but I'm really excited because, um, staff and planning commission do have a wonderful role together. Uh, we're not always going to get along. we're not going to always agree, but the fact that we all care about this city so much in the face of heightening housing laws is what I'm interested in. And so, um, hopefully we're going to get that housing specialist position. Um, and we'll have more, uh, under our hood, but also we want to serve you guys well, and we want to make sure that you're getting the training and support that you need. But that's really tonight. I really thank Carl and Martin uh uh for this presentation, but I just really wanted to spend some time with you all and let you know that we got your back and we have a lot of work to do.

[01:50:03]>> I I really appreciate that. Honestly, I'm a newer um commissioner, so it really did help. So, thank you. Um just a quick question. I know everyone wants to get out of here. People are tired of listening to us. Um, but if we know these bills are being brought like to the table or to be passed uh to the floor, um, do we work with like the city attorney and things like that to try to get ahead to mitigate it as much as possible before it passes?

[01:50:33]>> City council works on a legislative agenda. That's something the city they work with the city manager. So, it's it's something city manager's office handles and it's um, I see David nodding. So, it's not really something that we as staff um get involved with.

[01:50:48]It's more of something in the city manager's office. But we as staff, I guess the bad news is we as staff when the laws are passed, we come and tell you about them, as you know, and we've been doing that on the regular. Um, and that's part of our job is to come and tell you, hey, they passed something and this is something that might affect a project that you see, right? Um, but when it comes to advocating against the laws, that's kind of in the political realm. It's it's the council and city manager that will handle that.

[01:51:14]>> Thank you for creating that demarcation between the two. I think that's been really helpful for me.

[01:51:18]>> No problem. Yeah, let me know. You know, like I said, um let's have a call if you guys want to chat about stuff and it's it's crazy world out there. Um and I appreciate all of you who've done that, but uh you know, it's there's no problem. When you want to have a chat, let me know.

[01:51:33]>> And that's not a Brownneck violation.

[01:51:35]You can each talk to Carl.

[01:51:38]>> Yeah. Call him. Don't email him.

[01:51:40]and and his job is to make sure that what you talked about or your questions or opinions don't get passed on to the next person that he talks to on the commission.

[01:51:51]>> That is that is uh absolutely legal and highly recommended.

[01:51:55]>> You know, I like to talk, but I won't tell people what you say.

[01:52:04]>> All right. Anything? Uh >> that's it for us. We really appreciate your time and I appreciate you all. um just paying attention. It's it's good to get through this with you all and make sure we're all on the same page. So, I appreciate your time tonight.

[01:52:16]>> Yeah, much appreciate it. Again, you know, just with the updates, the legal updates and what's going on. And of course, this brings a whole host of different new laws and things like that. Then uh of course we'll see what happens with our uh exgovernor eventually and where the legislature ultimately goes uh that direction and what what changes and what doesn't. Uh Carl, would you like to do your city planner comments from >> from in the well?

[01:52:44]>> Yes.

[01:52:44]>> Yeah. Um I think we'll likely have hillside ordinance back to you. I'm hoping at the next meeting. Um so we'll try to keep that rolling. Um outside of that, I don't have anything else to add.

[01:52:54]Chair, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

[01:52:57]Uh, Mr. City Attorney, uh, welcome again. First time here. Uh, thank you.

[01:53:01]Anything else? Uh, >> I I just wanted to express my my first of all my I'm immensely impressed with with the staff with you, the process.

[01:53:09]Uh, again, I've seen many and and this is really, uh, top-notch. So, uh, thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.

[01:53:17]I I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:53:19]>> We're glad to have you here. Um, any comments from any of my colleagues? No, just that was very informative from staff and city attorney. So, thank you guys all very much. Um, love going over the CIP as always as well. So, uh, it was good night for me. So, appreciate your time. Thank you.

[01:53:36]>> All right. Um, anybody else? Nothing.

[01:53:39]Okay. Nothing for me. Uh, then with, uh, there's no objection. We're looking to adjourn 7:50 p.m. Good. All right.

[01:53:48]Thumbs up.