Oct 26, 2021 4:00 PM - Redding Planning Commission - Regular Meeting Part 1 of 2

[CALL TO ORDER] [ROLL CALL] >> -- the oral report on the groundwater sustainability agency. Do we need a motion? We have a consensus or any objections? Very good we will move on then to 4B2, public hearing regarding the City of Redding local mitigation plan. Who will be making that presentation today? >> I will be Madam chair. -- Planning division I will be making an oral presentation to you. This local program is a requirement of federal standards And we adopted the first mitigation plan in 2005 and basically it was developed by a team with the city of Redding, different agencies, represented, involving the police department, fire department, public works department and taking the lead was our Fire Marshal at the time and since then we have had two updates and it is required by federal standards to have revisited every five years and be approved by the office of emergency services in the state, and forwarding the team for final approval and what you see before you is an assessment of what hazardous materials are. And but rose to the top as we rank them and how they affect the community. No surprise. Number one is wildfire. Two is floods and witches see our activities and documents and things like that that are in currently in effect and this goes on to list even details of replacing water lines and cleaning out storm drains and keeping those noted to have a more resilient community and before you have the 2021 plan. And I have listed the general plan policies. And we have found that it is consistent so to move forward this to the office of emergency services we need to see if it is consistent with the general plan and if you do not find this consistent we would have to get recommendations from you on how to revise the plan so that concludes my presentation on the local hazard mitigation plan And I am open to any questions you may have. >> Has a plan already been run by OES and FEMA? >> Three previous versions yes. >> This update? >> No. >> What was updated? >> A lot of it is a history. We had to go through each section and update the information provided and the events. For wildfire we have had to include all the events that occurred over the past five years and then We had to update all estimates because cost of replacement value changes. Had to see those things don't apply anymore or add additional activities, basically updating the plan. >> Any questions for Lily? Comments? Anyone else? Cameron? >> Yes. Very informative report first off the depth and everything and how well the covers is tremendous. With regards to the floodplain portion down it Olney Creek (approximate sound) the plan indicated that is ongoing, Looking for grants and other things try to rectify the situation. Can you explain where we are at on that process? >> Certainly and for the audience. And the commissioners do not present at the time. It resulted in 2011 when FEMA updated the digital maps And as a result of Katrina and the Levy situation. They went ahead and evaluated all the levees nationwide and made a call that basically it does levees were not certified by FEMA they were going to decertify them. That impacted our Olney Creek levy. And what that meant was it will pull in that neighborhood into the floodplain which means For a property owner, not good news. They would have to pay flood insurance. And so during that time the city put forth Efforts into getting a grant and paying for an engineer, a hydrologist, To develop a study and that was forwarded to FEMA and it removed what FEMA wanted by 50%; reduced something like 600 property owners that would've been put in the floodplain. --- So what has happened since then Is that we have had that study and it determines how much cost it will be to really bring that levy into conformance with FEMA. There are few alternatives but the fix is a couple of million dollars. 2.5 million the time, in 2016. The cost is gone up tremendously. Our charge is to continue to look for funding to pay for design and also the physical fix and obviously we have not found any funding for that. A lot of funding is for housing but not for levy fixes; that's why it is an ongoing activity to continue to look for that. >> Thank you. >> I have a couple of questions. I know that CERTA is going through a hazard mitigation as well; is disintegrated at all with that? >> Opportunity was given to the beginning in 2004 when we started this to go with other jurisdictions to go with what we call multi-hazard that FEMA recognizes and we did not have active players volunteered, So we took charge and did her own and have not opened it up to any other agencies to come in together with us into a multi-hazard mitigation plan. Shasta County did involve Anderson but I don't believe Serta is part of that. >> The Serta one is specific to transportation corridor, is different Document so not related to the local hazard mitigation. It is related to the transportation corridor. >> I was also looking at the table on page 26. It says the drought is not included. I'm curious why that would be. >> As a result of drought, there's a lot of water resources and things like that comes into play. Odyssey things have changed. I don't think we anticipated to include that, Don't think we asked the question this time around but that is something we can look at, this is not to something we can update every five years. It is just the minimum requirements we can take that into consideration and we can always continue to revisit that. >> One suggestion for my fellow commissioners is to replace the history section on page I think 17 of this document, section 6.2 with the updated language in the downtown specific plan and that is I think 1-2 and then 1-4. And it seems to be more up-to-date. It was passed in 2018. Perhaps it was more relevant or more updated. Section 6.2, page 17, suggesting we replace language on page 1.2 and 1.4 of the downtown plan or some version thereof. >> Feel free to address your question about the drought. -- Will give a presentation about groundwater sustainability. The city does have a water contingency shortage plan; we have an urban water management plan. They are all addressing drought situations. (indiscernible) Josh can elaborate more. >> Thank you. >> Any questions down at this end? >> I do have one. >> Two Commissioner Hatch's comment, is there anything specific to what that document requires will cover specific things? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Do we get to choose that it is more interchangeable than anything else? >>looking at the history that Commissioner Hatch is recommending. It is updated but I will leave that decision for the commissioners. >> Go-ahead Luke. >> COMMISSIONER MINER: I am open to that being updated. I don't feel it would need to come back to us necessarily; like that would trigger a separate approval. If we made a motion about that I would say that we approve -- Unless there is something else-- approve the plan as is but encourage staff to analyzing and combine elements that are beneficial. >> Cameron? >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: I don't know that we need a vote on it, I don't know about replacement just because so much of this on the downtown plan on 1.2 and 1.4 would cover more of the downtown, or specific to downtown only, This is more of a citywide document but I can see some incorporation of one Or the others would not mind recommending that. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: Very good. At this time I'm going to open the public hearing. If you would like to address the Commission, there are blue cards in the lobby that you need to complete. And then hand them to Erica. >> Those are for another item Madam chair. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: I see a gentleman going out to the lobby. Let's see if he comes back to this item. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: John, are you speaking about the hazard mitigation plan? That is an item that we will discuss shortly. Since there is no one who would like to address the commission regarding this matter I will close the public hearing and ask my commissioners if there is any further discussion. Will someone like to make a motion? >> Maybe Mr. -- Can help me with that in terms of whether to update the language. I don't know if we need a motion. >> You don't have to have a motion but it would not hurt if you wanted to include that as part of your motion I would recommend that if you want to do that they would just -- Part of the motion is to recommend staff to revise the parking history On the local hazard mitigation plan to make it more current. And then of course capture the business of what they recommend being consistency determination. If that helps. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: We have a motion. Is there a second? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Is away this motion is worded, does it require it to come back to us? >> MR. DeWALTT: It would not. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: All in favor? >> Aye. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: Opposed? Thank you. The next item is the enterprise Anderson groundwater sustainability report. >> I wanted to give you an update on the enterprise Anderson groundwater sustainability agency. So this process started in 2014; there was a series of legislation passed by the California state legislature. All wrapped together and created the sustainable groundwater management act which is where engineers and technical people refer to as SIGMA. There will be a lot of acronyms and hopefully I will explain them as we go through. Interestingly enough, California was one of the last states in the West and even across the country to really regulate groundwater and so this was probably long time coming. The state Department of water resources developed A process and a series of guidelines that we had to follow based on mainly on specifications from the laws that were passed. The key guiding principle was that sustainable groundwater management is Best achieve locally what they did was to say anybody who is over the groundwater basin you can go together with other neighbors and partners and create these groundwater sustainability agencies, GSAs, and go to the process, submit plans. And once those plans are approved by the Department of water resources then you can manage that locally. --- Ultimately if the plan isn't approved then the state could step in at some point down the road. As I go through, I will show to you that we are nowhere near that situation locally and we are actually in pretty good shape. --- So California has 515 alluvial groundwater basins spread all the way around the state from North to South, East to West. And each one of these basins -- Really they are quite different. Our groundwater here in Shasta County defendant -- County and Siskiyou County and neighboring locations. Each one of these basins is classified from low to high priority and everything from a medium to high severity or high priority is required to produce a groundwater sustainability program. --- The Reading area groundwater basin is made up of five subbasins. The two larger, medium priority subbasins are the Enterprise and the Anderson. The city of Redding sits over both of those; The portion of our water service area is over the Anderson basin and that is what I'm going to focus on. DWR has criteria for the basin prioritization; most of it is determined by things like population, or population growth, the number of wells, things like that. Mainly because of the population, the Enterprise in the Anderson subbasins were given this medium priority and are required to produce groundwater sustainability plans. So, starting after legislation was passed we got things going in 2015. We started having meetings with local water purveyors. We ended up with a series of 6 agencies that came together and formed the enterprise Anderson GSA. The Anderson Collingwood irrigation district, city of Redding, Clear Creek, -- -- Resigned an MOU in 2017. One of the key goals and part of that MOU was to develop, adopt and manage the groundwater sustainability plans, GSPs, while keeping complicity and costs as low as possible. The MOU also authorized developing the groundwater sustainability plans, reporting groundwater use, developing management practices for groundwater and prohibited raising fees or taxes on landowners so all the costs are born by the agencies part of the GSA. No land-use planning authority. That is a question we get a lot, Other than what we normally have as individual members so the City of Redding 's land-use planning authority but agencies like Bella Vista water district don't. And Shasta County is applying authority for that area and We do have a portion that overlaps with Bella Vista so City of Redding has residents that get Their water from Bella Vista. That is a term called de minimis, domestic will users, defined as less than 2 acre-feet a year. That will be an area of 2 acres. That eliminates most of the rural residential areas that are using this water for pasture, grass growing, Feeding farm animals and things like that. It is more of a significant use. How is sustainability determined? It is the middle name of the GSA, groundwater sustainability agency. There is a series of data collection and there is actually incredible amount of data that has been recorded and collected throughout the years going back decades and they are looking at things mostly related to groundwater levels. And reduction of groundwater storage and land subsidence and degraded water quality so I'm going to go through each of these and quickly ensure you have the two basins fared with these categories so what we're looking for is to avoid these undesirable results So or chronic lowering of groundwater level is not something we have seen in dry years are what years we had very healthy groundwater basins and while there may be lowering of groundwater during the summer months we are pumping our production wells The water table returns quickly even in dry years, So that is something that has not been noticed. So we don't see a significant reduction of groundwater storage. Seawater intrusion is something that we are not concerned with thankfully. If we do we are in worse trouble then groundwater sustainability. There are local areas -- Like a tank at a gas station but those are confined to specific locations. For City of Redding we don't have any of those water quality problems. In other parts of the state, the San Joaquin Valley has areas where literally the ground is dropped 50ft. over the last half-century. That is an incredible amount of subsidence. We take the water out of the ground. Certain geologic materials, a lot of clay; you remove the water and the land compresses and the surface sinks and we can't add water and expand. It is a permanent factor. Does not come back. That has huge problems for infrastructure, canals roadways, bridges and abutments things like that. Significant depletions of interconnected surface water and groundwater? Not observed in our area but surface water and groundwater do interact with each other so it is something that we are looking in our plans. --- So the process -- For example for groundwater levels, You go through flowchart. Is this representative? Are you meeting your minimum thresholds? Is that one well really representative of the site? Is it part of the groundwater basin for maybe have a localized problem and not in the rest of the basin? For each of the decisions is number of things done to determine whether we are sustainable or not. I want to give you of the enterprise subbasin, everything east and north of the Sacramento River where City of Redding has the most groundwater wells. The chart on the left or groundwater elevation for a well in the enterprise abasing and you see fluctuations in the water level in the stars high in the winter and drops in the summer and you compare this to an adjudicated basin, And basin are thinking of Mojave Desert, Antelope Basin. There's a series of lawsuits over water rights and water use. So adjudicated simply means he has been through a law process to determine how much water is used in things like that, And you can see that there is a significant drop. Over a period of time. It has not come back to historical levels. The Merced Basin is in the San Joaquin Valley. You can see bigger annual fluctuations but the general trend is significant groundwater levels lower in these groundwater levels have not come back and without significant changes they may never. Luckily we don't have to deal with those types of issues. So as part of the GSA, we have our public outreach, board meetings; each of the six members is one board member that is on the GSA board, and we met about three times a year at the Anderson City Hall Council Chambers. And those meetings are publicized, and they are Brown act compliant and with all of that process. We have headache could present the whole earth and watershed Festival, not last you because it was canceled. We are looking forward to be a presence in the community in the future and hopefully we will have some opportunities to get on the front of the public and inform people and let them know the status of the groundwater basins. The EAGSA has a website; there's links from the city's webpage and a link that Jacobs engineering has provided for us. Jacobs is a consultant that we hired to produce these groundwater testing ability plans through the end of the contract and then the EAGSA will take it over And the simplest ways to do a simple Google search for EAGSA, and at the top of BV City of Redding's link or Jacobs's. Right now we have draft versions of the GSPs and we are accepting public comment through November 12. There is a link here on the web hub for the entire GSPs. The text is about 230 pages and the attachments take it to well over 1000 pages. There is a lot of information that goes through the process about why we are sustainable and it is not just that we are because we say we are; it is the data that is behind that. --- And our GSPs you will go to the eagsa board for acceptance in January and once again this is written For the whole state and there's other bases that are not in as good of shape as we are. To give you an example. This chart-- really young thing I want to show you is surface water diversion. Officer Clement River (correction) off the Sacramento River in Shasta County, ACID is the yellow chart. Look below the ACID surface diversion. ACID provides ag water for property in Anderson County what areas. They don't treat our serviceable users; everybody below ACID parts in the chart are City of Redding, city of Anderson, Bella Vista, etc. Over these years you see that our surface water diversions are usually around 40,000 acre-feet per year. The majority is City of Redding. We can divert roughly 25,000 acre-feet. The only take away from the slide is the 40,000 acre-feet number. And compare that to the actual groundwater production that we have from the enterprise and Anderson basins. The most we have used in this example -- would be 2005, above normal year, about 14,000 acre-feet a year. My point in what we determined going to the data in our GSP is that the amount of groundwater that would pump out of the ground is a small fraction of the surface water that is available. Then there's a whole groundwater model that Jacobs prepared it says that we can double or quadruple our groundwater protection the amount of water we pump out and we won't have any problem. Between the two sub basins is almost 2 times the amount of water in the ground that behind Shasta -- Which holds about 4 million acre-feet of water and they estimated that about 9 million acre-feet of water in the Anderson basin. This incredible amount of water we don't have big ag production like South of us. We are not anticipating big increases, even with increases in population won't be pumping significantly more groundwater than we are now. So I will end with that. Thank you for this opportunity. I will be happy to answer any questions. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: Thank you Josh. That was very informative and interesting. Any questions? >> If I read between the lines you are saying the water situation is pretty damn good. >> Yes. >> What situation is good and that is a good thing but we keep hearing about a drought. Is there any connection? >> Is there any connection between? >> Between what you're telling us tonight the fact that we keep hearing about it. Yes so the last two winters, last two years have been abnormally dry, Historically dry. So we are in drought throughout the state of California and the West. Specifically here in the Redding groundwater basin; Through historical droughts that we have had going back through 2014 and 2015, in the 90s, in the 1970s, we have data that shows our groundwater levels don't change. They may drop some but when it rains they recharge. What we have to be aware of drug usage-- and since we are in the drought, surface water diversions are usually restricted by the Bureau of reclamation. And depending on what you're water right is. Every water agency has different specifics. Generally in the drought we will be using more groundwater. If you do not have surface water the only attorney to is to pump it out. But what we have seen is that even with increased pumping dry years our groundwater basin is able to sustain that. >> Thank you. >> How do you measure how full the aquifers are? How often do you do that? >> The ground model water that Jacobs has prepared has historical data for City of Redding wells, monitoring wells throughout Shasta County and the groundwater basin so there's a whole series of processes of measuring water levels year-to-year. Measuring surface water flows. The Sacramento River flowing through the basin; actually they determined that the Sacramento River actually gains water from the groundwater basin rather than depositing water as it flows through. There is so much water underground basically that it is adding to the flows of the Sacramento River as it flows through Shasta County. >> Thank you. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: Anything else for Josh? >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: I had the privilege of attending the League of Women Voters forum that was on this topic which was exceptionally informative, Especially the gis resources that you guys talked about. There was so much. My pen was smoking as I was trying to take notes; so much of this really is incorporating those GIS links and I want to let everybody know that this is on the city website. I have been playing with them ever since, going online and looking at those maps and looking at the diversion point, the wells, study areas, everything. Very informative. Thank you for being a participant in the forum. It was good community outreach. >> Thank you. Charlene Beard with Shasta County was reported that she is very knowledgeable in the department of water resources has tremendous amount of information available. >> I want to make a comment. I used to live off Saratoga Drive in City of Redding, and there was a well next door to me and I never saw anybody out there. >> I don't know which well that was. We don't use all of our wells in the enterprise basin. Summer standby while we don't hardly use it all; it depends on the demand. >> Thank you. >> CHAIR GOEDERT: I think that is it. Thank you Josh. We are going to move along to item 4(b)1. Downtown specific plan update item. And we have a quorum issue, You will help us solve that. >> I will be happy to help on the quorum issue for those of you who are in the audience the quorum is for commissioners. As I understand it, four of our commissioners will have a legal conflict of interest. By process, the California code of regulations section 18 705 of Title 2, requires that for the planning commission to the business we would have to select one of the complicated planning commissioners by random means to serve so this matter can be heard and recognition be made to council so that is a general overview. So with your permission I will walk the commission through it. By show of hands how many of you believe you have a conflict of interest in this matter? Only three? Commissioner Meyer, do you own real property in the area? Okay so you'd have a conflict with real property ownership. Commissioner Miner, you also own property within the planned area correct? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Yes. >> Chair Goedert your conflict is based because of the source of income. So Madame clerk, Erica, have you prepare something for us so that we can select one of the conflicted commissioners by random means? >> Yes we have. >> Can you bring that to me really quick? >> CITY ATTY. DEWALT: I have in this bowl the names of commissioners Goedert, Meyer, and Hatch. Anybody want to see these before we draw? Hearing none, Erica, now is your time to shine. Happy Halloween everybody. >> CLERK: I have drawn Commissioner Miner. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: So you are in the long haul on the planning commission. If any reason this matter comes back for the planning commission, Second time or third time or so on you will be the appointed Commissioner. So Commissioner Miner will have to make them more direct inquiry with you so your conflict is based on ownership of real property, correct? How many parcels in the plant area you? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Five parcels. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: Where are they located? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Scattered through. One in the core and three in the mixed-use district. Two in the proposed 20-unit per acre. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: Off the top of your head you don't have the street address of those parcels? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: I can get that. Apologies. 1401 Market St. 2049 Walden. 55 Gilbert and 1080 Trinity. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: That is sufficient for our purposes there. Madam clerk, please retain this dialogue and appointing a commissioner Miner to serve into the minutes verbatim please. And with that, the three other conflict of commissioners are essentially required to leave the chambers at this point. Thank you. Chair Goedert I think the understand here is that you are free to go home if you so choose. >> I can wrap up. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: There you go. Thank you commissioners. >> CITY ATTY. DeWALT: By the way if you're interested I have been working at City of Redding for almost 20 years, And this is the first time we have had to do that for legislative body of the city. , Boring for you but fun for me. >> It sounded a lot tougher in email you put out. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: We will continue with item 4(b)1 on the agenda in this presentation of the downtown plan update is to be given by the planning manager. >> That is correct. Thank you Chairman Middleton, or co-chair? >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Not too many of us left up here. >> Let's get started. This is a downtown specific plan update. A little bit of history on this. This was initially adopted by the city in 2001, shortly after the general plan amendment was adopted in 2000 was created a policy to revitalize our downtown. This plan area was adopted at the time and since then it has had a few updates in 2010 it had an update dealing with the land uses and things like that and compatibility and developing standards for updated And most recently in 2018 it went through a huge revamp where we actually went through and revised the boundary and revisited through a whole two-year process, really Had a lot of meetings with stakeholders and the community and develop the 2018 plan. Since then was just availability of funding, With housings of focus and willing partners and with the city we have seen a huge resurgence as you see in downtown which is created over 200 units and new money coming in and people interested in bringing businesses into downtown, Even those who are existing businesses in our community are wanting to relocate in downtown. With three years under our belt with the 2018 plan we saw that having this plan being tested and really put to the test as far as implementing it in today's world and seeing what are the limitations or maybe you know some revisitation is far as whether we want to look at additional uses. It is right now before it gets too old because this is a living document. We want to revisit this. With that, we started some workshop meetings with stakeholders earlier this year and listened to some of the input from them and as we developed this plan we had some interest from the -- Neighborhood, a well-established neighborhood as you know, one of the oldest ones here in town impacted by the expansion area that we are proposing so we had an information meeting with the neighborhood on Zoom in her the concerns as well. So here we are today, and I want to go through some of the changes in summary we can discuss the zone changes and things like that. Let's start with just the summary of changes listed in your staff report and the more detailed ones. We are looking at requiring new developers including additions to what we call the pre-application process. And what that is is not anything that is onerous, but it is a win-win. What we are experiencing is that developers are coming in and wanting to do a development and we don't have a process that requires them to go through a review by different agencies such as the utilities department, the electric department, the building department; and what happens is that they spent all this money going in and putting in money towards building plans, and submitting the building permit and finding that they need to revise things and to be fair to those folks who are investing in those developments that we want to make sure that we call the flags early so that they can change things Before they spent 20,000 dollars in construction plans. So not to be onerous but have a first pass through, only requiring something as simple as the site plan or some sort of elevation plan or something like that. The second item is requiring a discretionary permanent by the director for a variety of uses. So what we're hearing is also that some of this, some of the uses that are currently outright permitted may need a little bit more vetting to the process so listed in the staff report are a variety of uses that we are having you consider requiring by director only, no public hearing. And the third item is allowing a variety of uses by right and right now the land-use plans little bit limiting and we have a list of uses propose to allow by right, which would not require a discretionary permit all from planning. We also reduce those uses currently requiring a use permit to the lesser director level SDP permit. We also want to address monument signs in the mixed-use district. Currently outright it is prohibited in the entire downtown specific plan but as you drive around downtown what you see are a lot of gas stations a lot of businesses that have monument signs which are separate, and those for buildings really benefit from signage is that a setback, and because they are setback to have land to put a detached sign and a lot of those signs are nonconforming and what the plan did in 2018 was outright prohibit them so they have been grandfathered in. The problem with having grandfathered rights is that they cannot touch that sign other than maintenance so they want to update a more modern sign or have to relocate it, if they test that signing anyway, it would take away all the grandfathering rights and they will not be able to rebuild the site. --- Adopting design standards and review processes for fencing. When a fence is proposed with zero setback from the building, As you drive around downtown you notice if you use is out there that have put in some fences out there. We don't have any standards on that. We have to convince them the chain-link is not a good idea. But we don't have anything on the book the controls that so we want those design standards to help regulate any further proposals for fences that is viewable on the street because we want to retain some good architecture some of those buildings are old and historic Want to be able to at least see those buildings and not have the chain-link fence with a slats in front of buildings, And lastly of course expanding the boundary of the specific plan which I'll go into now. So, looking at the slide, what you see is, I want to go through the history of the boundaries. In 2010 what we allowed was the blue is defined as the original downtown specific plan area adopted in 2001 and 2010. and in 2018 will reduced that, that is being defined in the red. What we did is we removed this multifamily here to the Northeast, and also this multifamily area to the Northwest/Northeast. And along here, along liberty, we remove the area and also the shaded area here along the Liberty corridor as we call it which is more the Shasta community health area. We removed that entirely. And working on towards Safeway That was also excluded from the Downton specific plan the idea is we hired a consultant at the time and with a lot of focus, They thought that by reducing the area this could really create a better focus, and of course revisiting this now, we are seeing huge revitalization that we thought might be a good time to consider expanding this boundary particularly with the Butte street area and what we are proposing is expanding the area to include the screened area and so what you see is the shaded area as the new boundary area will be in addition to that. So what you see is a core area and then the mixed-use area. What does that look like as far as zoning? What you see in pink is a current downtown specific plan area. The center area is the core downtown CD; specific plan, building height allowance and the other areas are the mixed-use area. And here is just east of the core and adjacent to the north we allow higher structures under the building height overlay. So what this would do is when you look at the existing zoning of the area we are looking to include a variety of zonings; So there is a general office with the building height overlay And public facility and building height overlay, general office and then down here public facilities and then this R10 area fully developed with multi family apartments and then we have the GC which is commercial retail and we left out this piece here which is adjacent to Sequoia. For your consideration this would be the standalone GVCR zoning if it were amended to the proposed mixed-use. This is the property that only has sole access off Sequoia so thinking about how to keep a lot of traffic off. In consideration this is already zone general commercial. What the mixed-use district would allow for a mix of residential plus commercial on this property so currently it has been developed with multifamily residential apartments. At the end of the day this area would be zoned mixed-use district specific plan with the building height overlay district which is with the existing overlay in the remaining area is a mixed-use specific plan without the building had overly. As far as general plan the area, the area shown is mixed-use district and that is current and proposed area expansion within be changed to mixed-use as well, And will be hatched. So where we considering the Butte Street corridor? A lot of those buildings are nonconforming; they are built to zero setbacks, we have uses in there that are grandfathered in, no longer permitted in the general office. So bringing them into a mixed-use district allows for a variety of uses and also allows for that zero setback. This allows for these property owners and businesses to really have a wide variety and open ability to put in retail uses which is not currently allowed in the general office, And I will go into more detail later with that. We are also considering the multiple family down on East and South area. This is at the very corner of South and East. This is developed with I believe four units with this property which is currently zoned RM10, they are only allowed two units so the four units already on there, are over developed, legal nonconforming rent father in. This property owner goes through God forbid a disaster like a fire, if they don't come in with the leaper be within 24 months accountability units, so it allows them at least a 30 units per acre which allows them three units by having the mixed-use and brings these properties more into conformance and this also goes for South Street; and you see that there's lots of apartments in South Street as well which would bring these properties more into conformance with their zoning than not. --- Doing the couple to come in. We did receive some written communication and also during our Zoom meeting with the Garden folks. I forwarded there, so you. The main concern is a proposed 75 foot height allowed in the Downton mixed-use district. The concern is that Butte Street properties and some of the other ones along E St., would allow for some of these tall, looming buildings that they were built to the maximum backing into single-family residences and their concerns were regarding cut through traffic through a residential neighborhood. I will address the 75 foot high. As you know traffic increases in cities cause people to find alternative routes particularly in the air in a hurry or to get home so there has been a lot of cut through traffic through South Street and as you know if you have driven there in the past year or two they have put in some traffic calming devices. I don't use South Street anymore. I drive a really low car so those things work in the trust petition department is going to review of the park arena downtown corridor area looking for funding to look at doing some traffic calming and things like that through the program as well and so we are addressing the cutter traffic through that garden neighborhood in different ways. This project will probably if this is approved will add a little bit to that but we hope to really preserve our mature neighborhoods. Let's go into some of the zoning differences. Before that let me focus on the building height issue. I did want to highlight the properties that will be subject on the alternatives in the staff report. Listening to the Garden folks, some of these properties do back to the single-family so a 75 foot height is probably not appropriate. We are recommending that we would still allow a two-story structure, which is actually required under the mixed-use district. 35 feet would be allowed for two-story structure with a very pitched roof. They want to go with the steeper roof allows him another 10-15ft. on the two-story structure. So this property subject to the 35 foot height is recommended of these properties along Butte here and along -- -- In this properties that run along South Street, Gold St., and E Street so there's of the properties recommended to the 35ft. height. What are the major differences as far as general office and the mixed-use district and the RM-10 mixed-use? The setback for GO particular those on Butte will go down from 10 ft. to 0. The building height would be increased to 75 but with the alternative particularly on properties adjacent to single-family would be 35. And the increased density from 10 units per acre to 30 units per acre and it would allow mixed-use, Again residential use in commercial type uses. And there is also reduce parking under the mixed-use district. For the RM-10 the setback will be reduced to 0 from 15. Building height up to 75. An increased density again 10 to 30. And the same as GO, allows for mixed-use and the reduced parking standards. I want to go to this other slide. Land-use differences. I want to talk about this. I pulled out the main differences in the land uses. Under the general office, I've gone through commercial uses on the left. I pulled out what is currently allowed under the general office and the mixed-use proposed specific plan and what it is in the GCBR. For retail sales right now in the general office is permitted but it is very limited, limited to pharmacies only, 5000sq.ft. If you want to general office to a mixed-use this would really allow for retail sales, for convenience stores for some of the residences nearby, building more retail to service the community better adjacent to those residential areas in downtown. In general office drive-through restaurant is not permitted versus downtown mixed-use it is a use permit and the GCBR is a director level permit. And Parks and Recreation still allowed, but outright permitted downtown. Community centers would allow under the GO. Not permitted in the downtown specific plan. Hospital's same thing still permitted but in downtown that would be required to get a use permit and residential care lastly after permitted in general office and would require a direct level permit under the mixed-use. So this is some of the main differences as far as land-use impacts to what they are today and what will be allowed under the mixed-use district. So, so with that I want to conclude and make a recommendation action that you conduct a public hearing and then forward the recommendation to city Council is this is a legislative act which involved rezoning in general plan with the following alternatives: You can recommend that the Council adopt the proposed amendments and rezoning. 2. You can recommend to council adopt the proposed amendments and rezoning with alternative height restriction. And 3. You can direct staff to modify the proposed amended Sparta consideration by the Council Or you can amend the proposed amendments and bring it back to the planning commission as well. I will glad to answer any questions at this time. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you for the very thorough presentation. With that let's start with questions from Commissioner Montgomery. >> Thank you. I don't pretend to be the smartest person in the world. Tammy looked like expansions going east, is that correct? >> Yes East of E Street. >> How far West? >> It is not going any further west than existing, all the way up to Court St. it extends out. >> COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: One of the things I saw when I looked through this was that there was cannabis retail as well as massage parlors. Can you give me an idea as to where in your planning those would fall? We had already approved the cultivation of cannabis before and not looks like they are in the downtown area, and I see that mixed-use as being a part of that. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that; however it does beg the question as to whether we are producing the cannabis recreationally are medically. I don't see any medical facilities or pharmacies For that purpose. >> We are not changing anything related to cannabis; any type of cannabis business or any business that is predominantly cannabis is outright not permitted in the downtown area. At all. We do allow-- because there is residential in downtown-- we allow them under the indoor cannabis grow under the RC code we have a small note in the downtown plan and that has not changed. >> And with regard to the indoor cannabis cultivation that is a state law; the state requires all counties and cities to permit indoor cultivation. At a residence. Only other residents of six plants or fewer and subject very limited ability to regulate that. That is why it is permitted. >> I do want to address your question about massage. We have changed it slightly. Under personal services in the core and in the downtown mixed-use, there is a small note. Businesses whose primary use consist of massage services are permitted with the approval of the use permit. So previously it was outright prohibited. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Commissioner Montgomery, further questions? >> COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: No. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Commissioner Miner? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: I will have questions, but I would like to hear the public comment. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Very well. Commissioner Benner? >> COMMISSIONER BENNER: You have done a great job putting this together and I like the part about the 35 foot. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Okay and as with Commissioner Miner, I will hold any questions I have until after public comment. So, with that, seeing no further questions for staff will open the public comment portion of the hearing. It appears we have a total of 5 speakers. This is written correspondence to go along with one as well. With that, First if we may Susan Murray. State your name and address at the podium. And we will have a three minute time limit today on individual public comments. >> Hello, my name is Susan Murray. And I live in Lincoln Street in the Garden tract and I appreciate being allowed to speak today in appreciate city staff especially Lilly Toy (approximate sound). I was happy to see that the city is recommending an affirmative to reduce the building height on the properties located to the residential single family districts and that refers to as an alternate number 2 page 7, with the word "adjacent" to be clarified to as with regards to the garden track. And maybe her presentation maybe she has gone ahead and clarified for most of us. The garden track is an old track, I have lived there for 30 years and it is one of the more affordable areas to live in the City of Redding and thus zone changes should protect the residential areas and I welcome the zone changes along the commercial corridor such as E St., Continental Street and Butte Street as the staff regulations and Athens St. to promote small business development in that area but the zoning changes to not need to include the residential streets. The plan does not mention zoning changes in the Athens Street area were about half of the retail area is currently vacant. I urged the planning commissions as the city for more justification for including the residential area in the 2021 proposed specific plan expansion area and more focus on the Athens Street/Butte Street/Continental Street corridor. We have two schools and many children's walk by themselves or with parent or parents to drive to/from school every day and it was only goes through and some of the many buildings are built up to 75 feet approximate this is stories it will adversely affect the traffic through the garden track. People who drive through the track are in a hurry or on their phones or texting and they're not looking for the children or adults let alone people in wheelchairs cats or dogs crossing the road. I know of residents who live on Garden Street who feel they have to put up signs and they are so slow down speeders. (indiscernible) -- on Locust St. they put in speed back for the residents and got the input which appears to have worked out for them which is slow down. Thank you for your time. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you very much Ms. Murray, well done. With that, Catherine McDonald. And Brooke McDonald can go next. >> This is a family affair. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: I had a feeling that would be the case. Ma'am a vision you can use the one there. >> I am already here, Catherine McDonald I live at 84 E. St., that is one block south of Butte St. which is an area that is proposed to be pretty heavily developed as far as I can tell. I wrote a letter, and you all have copies of it I believe. I will just raise my main issues. First, before I talk about the specific plan itself, I would like to express my distress at the notice of public hearing that we received. It is attached to the letter. You can see what Garden Track residents received. It's not comprehensible to the average person. I talked to people in the neighborhood who threw it away Because it was meaningless to them and it was accompanied by a map of which I have a copy here with no street names on it. So, I urge you in the future, if you're not communicating with planning professionals, developers or attorneys, if you are trying to communicate with average residence, that you send them something that makes sense. Because I think this did a disservice to Garden Track residents. Another issue. People who, for instance developers people can come to a meeting at 4 o'clock Because as part of their jobs. But the residence who have jobs it may be impossible for them so I think special scheduling such instances is a good idea. I do have a question about this 75 foot height adjacent to residences. I understand that behind my house on -- street, a 75 foot high building would not be allowed across the street. I think you need to do a new document. I think the -- Documents referenced in what is on the website or is out of date and I consulted with the -- Expert and I believe that in right of the riverfront specific plan that you need to consider (indiscernible) Impacts and I outlined my objections in this letter. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you very much Ms. McDonald. I want to verify. You are in (indiscernible) and Berta? >> Yes. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Brooke Mac Donald. >> Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I'm personally kind of excited about seeing new business, new development, etc. in the Garden Track. I live on -- St. however with the Zoom meeting with Ms. Toy, we received different ideas of what is considered for development on Butte Street behind our house. Secondly the cumulative effects as my mother said with the development on Park Marina, and the proposed development at turtle Bay, I feel like these three things need to be considered in conjunction with one another especially when it comes to things like traffic impacts and the flow of the neighborhood. Thirdly, I don't think your traffic study was adequate based on what we've heard. And I would be interested in knowing when particularly like what times of day, what months, what year the traffic study was done. Whether Bethel school of supernatural ministry was in session at the time whether there were in class meetings at the middle school. I find the building height appalling; I don't think this is adequate mitigation for that. I don't know if everybody's familiar with where the Aramar (approximate sound) property is, off the tip of that yellow area. Under this proposal, is 75 foot building would be allowed on the property which is really inappropriate for the character of the neighborhood. Today I looked up what the height of the new courthouse is downtown that they're planning on completing, 73 foot building. And that building is in a neighborhood with other very tall building so it doesn't seem wildly out of place. But having something 75 feet, even one lot away from single-family residences seems appalling and Ms. Toy we raised our concerns about that she was like well, nobody would ever build a 75 foot building there but why is this being considered is the height limit? I mean, if I said I want to make a law that we can run over pedestrians but nobody will ever do it, why would you make such a law if nobody would do it. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you very much. Monique Gado (approximate sound). >>Monique Gado and I live on Olivet 3279 mystique glen drive. Thank you to the city staff of this opportunity. I lived in Garden Track, and I shared the neighborhood area and I care very much about this area The community feeling and at first I misunderstood on page 5 in the document of the packet there were boundaries that said you were extending east Park Marina which now I see is just that eastern tip. I thought the whole East, Paula Park Marina covered the whole residential area. But then the report did not talk about the residential area at all. So my question was if you could clarify what that means for the residential zoning but now we know that's not changing. I do have questions about what Ms. Toy said. Reduced parking and no setbacks. What does that mean? Does that mean the 75 foot building goes right up to the property line? Setbacks are there for a reason usually. But I do have the same concerns that were voiced earlier about buildings of that height. We don't have to be like -- I think you're setting the 75 foot height so it is consistent with other parts or other zones. It does not need -- Does it have to be 75 feet? I want to commend the city staff for listening to Garden Track neighbors and their concerns and recommending this alternative with the reduced height adjacent to the residential zoned areas. I believe that we need to preserve the environment because that is what makes our community livable and walkable and so community-oriented. Thank you >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you very much. Next we have Richard Cohen. (approximate sound). >> My name is Richard Cohen, I live that 1135 Gold St. The only thing I want to bring up is that the location where we live, there are several single level rental apartments. Will live at the end of Gold Street that touches up to E Street and there is only one two-story apartment building next to us which borders our property, so close they literally can step off their balcony onto our roof. The idea of increasing the height of that is very upsetting. We have seen a lot in the years that we have lived there. And I don't think it is appropriate to build any buildings -- That being the only two-story building there has been a big problem for the past 26 years for me. And I think the Garden Track in itself, you were talking earlier about not covering up historical sites. I think the Garden Track is a historical site in itself which does not take away from that appeal for the sake of two- three- four-story buildings. Definitely they would be out of place there. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Excuse me Mr. Cohen, is at the house or structure behind you that is the two-story? >>Now the structure right next to us it sits in the corner. We are the next house down. And I won't go through all the problems we've had with their deck meeting our property line there, but it is definitely a problem and I can't even comprehend seeing a three-story, four-story building there and what it would be like, looking right down on our place. And some of those single level rentals are rentals. We own five separate parcels right on the corner with that two-story building sitting we met in the middle. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: I see what you mean. I appreciate what you're saying. John Wilson? >> Good afternoon commissioners, city staff. Just took a quick look at this yesterday. I so it was happening and I thought well I need to look at that. A couple of real concerns of mine. We know what is going down at turtle Bay and the changes it may happen down there therefore I think it is really too early to be doing any changing around the corner on Butte St. And the line, the 35-ft. height limit line if anything should be extended to all of those parcels because all of those parcels block the view of all of those residential units looking to the Northeast, actually straight north. So that 35 limit, you must include that around the corner. If you should even include I think not include the properties around the corner on Butte St., until we know what is going to happen at turtle Bay. I have always been not a fan of eliminating all the parking that we have done in downtown. I don't know what the net loss is but it is getting up there. So we are parking farther and farther away and I am part of the aging population that I never thought I would be. I think I need a parking place. And the mixed-use designation that you put on the new blue area is a little much for some of those larger properties. Because normally, maybe I am behind a little , planning rules; normally if you wanted to do something special down there on those bigger parcels you will be coming in and doing a traffic study; you will be doing some sort of study to get that use through. And if you do bitter bunch here without mixed-use here those larger parcels are exempt from that. You have a specific plan. They are following this mixed-use plan and do whatever they want. Believing some of the partial owner down there are capable of building a 75 foot building. Thank you. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Thank you Mr. Wilson. Okay. Seeing as we have no other speaker cards I will close the public hearing. And bring this back to the commission. Having gone to this and I appreciate the public comment on this. Certainly a handful of issues here to go through and examine. Personally having gone through these, I see we have kind of a handful of points here. First one, one of the easy ones, are the monument signs. Personally I don't have an issue with the addition or permitting of monument signs within downtown we really have a new one that was recently put up new the entrance of downtown. Whether it is Corvette foundry Square, and several that are existing they could use some updating and we are stuck with the initial guidelines and so it would be sufficient. Looking at the newly permitted uses, personally I don't see any issues with the newly permitted uses that are being brought up. I think personally the two primary issues that I have are one, the downgrade on some of the approval downgrade of some of the approval thresholds. We have the site development permit that can be approved by the director; Site development permitted us to go to at least a public hearing and a board review and a use permit the ghost of the full commission. I don't know that all of the downgrades need to still come to the full commission. In the majority if not all of these I do believe with downtime being is important as it is that we still have a public and on these uses and the people can come forward and express any concerns or go over any issues they may have with some of these types of proposed uses. With that, I don't know that they need full use permit but I think that at least doing it at a site development permit level that at least requires board of administrators review approval would be acceptable to me. I think the other part too is the addition and the change of boundary. I understand down to liberty even down to Continental be considered downtown. And if we look at the Continental road stretch we have Shasta community health, that has always been like a medical corner. You have Shasta community health and to the northwest it is been required commercial use. The eastern offshoot is one question having go that far out. It is not what I would consider downtown. I do understand as well the general office may not be the appropriate zoning for that stretch of Butte St., I am not having trouble with gvcr, general retail, tourist to the Far East in the eastern portion but I would be willing to look at the change from general office. And certainly support the height restrictions that are on there for the neighborhood as well. It is a single-family neighborhood and we have to look at that compatibility and stretching it Around downtown creates a futures and the others parking requirement and having an applicant before and being on the inside of the fence I know that sometimes hearing parking requirements is difficult at the same time as a developer and at the same time our parking requirements are therefore a purpose not to worry about the lack of parking, especially to the east. We have lost parking downtown; we have replaced it and added to it is certain locations with no start to the north and northwest not so much the East inside to worry about pushing that parking restriction further down to the East to the border of the neighborhood but with that I would like to get other Commissioner comments, And see what we want to do moving forward. Commissioner Montgomery, any comments? >> COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I concur with a lot of things at her this evening. Your points are well taken, and I don't think we need those height requirements in there. I do believe that there should be hearing of some kind. I don't think it is okay for them to do as they choose. Ultimately there needs to be hearing and it may not need the entire planning commission but it does need a hearing. >> COMMISSIONER MIDDLETON: Commissioner Miner? >> COMMISSIONER MINER: Thank you. By the way Lily, great job tonight. Th