HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-04-22 - Minutes - PC-HPCHISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION AND PLANNING COMMISSION
MEETING MINUTES
APRIL 22, 2020
A. Call to Order
The meeting of the Historic Presentation Commission and Planning Commission was held on April
22, 2020. The meeting was called to order my Chairman Guglielmo at 7:00pm.
Planning Commission present: Chairman Guglielmo, Vice Chair Oaxaca, Commissioner Dopp,
Commissioner Morales, and Commissioner Williams.
Staff Present: Nick Ghirelli, Assistant City Attorney; Anne McIntosh, Planning Director; Mike
Smith, Principal Planner; Elizabeth Thornhill, Executive Assistant; Tabe van der Zwaag,
Associate Planner; Brian Sandona, Sr. Civil Engineer; Mena Abdul-Ahad, Assistant Planner,
Dat Tran, Assistant Planner, David Eoff, Sr. Planner.
Chairman Guglielmo asked Director McIntosh to explain the structure and format of tonight's
meeting. Director McIntosh welcomed all to our first Zoom meeting. She took the time to explain
how we are integrating our legal requirements and quasi-judicial procedures into this Zoom format.
B. Public Communications
Zacher Samaan, resident and member of Church, prayed for the well-being for everyone due to the
difficult time we are all going through and prayed for commissioners to support this project. He spoke
that he is in favor of D1 that will be discussed later in the meeting.
Amber Desire Dandouch, resident and member of Church and expressed she is in favor of Church
project. Spoke regarding Item D1 that will be discussed later in the meeting.
Troy Hedger, residents, expressed his disappointment on the way notifications where sent out to the
neighbors. Stating they did not receive anything about the Zoom meeting tonight. The residents
deserve to be better notified.
Jennifer Salhad, Sunday School Teacher at the Church, spoke regarding Item D1 that will be
discussed later in the meeting. She will hold her comments until then.
Closed public communications.
C. Consent Calendar
C1. Consideration to adopt Regular Meeting Minutes of March 11, 2020
One correction noted by Commission Morales on Page 3. Change $30,000 per year household to
$30.00.
Motion by Commission Dopp, second by Commission Williams; to approve Item C1. Motion carried
unanimously, 5-0 vote, to adopt the amended minutes.
D. Public Hearings
D1. DESIGN REVIEW DRC2017-00193 AND CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT DRC2017-00194—
GEORGE BOTROS — A request for site plan and architectural review along with the
operation of a proposed 12,350 square foot church and 18,033 square foot social building
on a 3.28 acre (143,053 square foot) project site located at the southwest corner of East and
Wilson Avenues in the Very Low (VL) Residential District of the Etiwanda Specific Plan; APN:
0225-123-05. This item is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental
Quality Act (CEQA) and the City's CEQA guidelines under CEQA Section 15332 — Infill
Development.
Tabe van der Zwaag, Associate Planner, presented Commissioners with a Staff Report and
PowerPoint presentation (copy on file).
Commissioner Morales asked about the access gate and is curious what the design would
be because it is at the end of the residential street. Also, to make sure there will be a posted
sign on the gate "emergency access only". His questions for staff, later during construction,
the design of the gate will go to staff to approve.
Tabe van der Zwaag answer yes, and it will also be reviewed by the Fire Department to meet
their requirements.
Commissioner Williams asked about the fiscal impact for the project, she thought Churches
were exempt from property tax. Is that true.
Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney answered yes that is the law right now.
George Botros, Architect, mentioned his goal on this project was to come up with good,
attractive design, but very simple roof line. They like to work with surrounding area especially
with mountain on one side and residential on other and very sensitive to the neighbors.
Regarding the Social building is below any heights of custom house. No need to concern of
the noise, he assures there will be no noise but just in case, he stated they will place sound
barriers inside the walls.
Commissioner Morales asked Mr. Botros, since we received letters from concerning
residents of the project next to their neighborhood, during the gate design review, will they
keep in mind to prevent people from parking in residential street and then walking into the
Church property from the emergency access gate.
Mr. Botros answered, nobody will park there. There's plenty of parking on Sunday's.
Brian Sandona, Sr. Engineer spoke regarding Condition of Approval #3, would like to modify
to allow the in -lieu fee as imposed to construction of the improvements on Wilson.
Chairman Guglielmo opened public hearing:
Troy Penopolis, Civil Engineer for this project. Thanked everyone on this project.
Available to answer any questions Commissioners may have on this development.
No questions from Commissioners
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — April 22, 2020
Page 2 of 9
For the Record, Correspondences received by the following residents:
- Wayne & Karen Lee, residents, expressed their concerns regarding traffic and
parking. Requesting to restrict activities to the hours of 0800 to 2100 hours.
- Lisa and Jeff Unger, residents, expressed their concerns regarding traffic on
East avenue and request a stop light at corner of East avenue and Philly drive.
- Kunah Yoon, resident, expressed his concerns regarding the traffic and
congestion to the community.
Comments received during Public Communication:
Zacher Samaan, resident and member of Church, prayed for the well-being for
everyone due to the difficult time we are all going through and prayed for
commissioners to support this project. He spoke that he is in favor of project.
Amber Desire Dandouch, resident and member of Church and expressed she is in
favor of project.
Troy Hedger, resident, expressed his disappointment on the way notifications where
sent out to the neighbors. Stating they did not receive anything about the Zoom
meeting tonight. The residents deserve to be better notified.
Jennifer Salhad, Sunday School Teacher at the Church, expressed she is in favor of
the project.
Dial -in calls
** name unintelligible* * (#9846) asked if the project will have a Wilson address.
Tabe van der Zwaag answered, staff has determined that Wilson avenue would be the
best access point for the project. Brian Sandona would be the best person to answer
question related to the construction of Wilson avenue.
(#9846) continued, asked will the driveway be south of the roundabouts.
Tabe van der Zwaag stated, Rolling Avenue gate will prevent vehicles and pedestrian
access and only available to emergency vehicles.
(#9846) continued with concern due to possible congestion near roundabout.
Brian Sandona Sr. Engineer answered, it was studied by applicant and approved by
Traffic department and looking at no more than 27 peak hour trips during the week and
80 hours or so on Sunday. With current level, we would not see any adverse effects.
Wilson will not be constructed at this time.
Zoom participants:
Mr. & Mrs. Unger, Logan Berzins, Debbie Bledsoe, Elias Nemeh all objected because
of the traffic, safety and parking concerns of this project site.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — April 22, 2020
Page 3 of 9
Commissioner Oaxaca asked question for Staff regarding Horse Thief Place. It was
mentioned by Mr. Unger there is traffic coming in and out of Horse Thief Place. As he
is looking at map of the project site, it looks like a community trail but it dead ends at
portion of right away and past the north frontage of the project site. Not sure how traffic
is going in, other than south of House Thief and into neighborhood, unless off roading
up into the wilderness going north. At this point, he is not seeing a gate or some type
of structure at end of Horse Thief. Does not look like there is a gate there currently.
Not sure how it is related to this project.
Tabe van der Zwaag stated, he is looking at Google street viewing and there is a barrier
at the end of north side of Horse Thief. Currently, there should be no vehicles coming
through street. In the future, there will be once Wilson is pulled through.
Debbie Bledsoe, Troy Hedger, Edward Gutierrez all objected because of the Social
Hall events concern and overflow of parking on street.
Amber Deisie Dandouch, Jennifer Salhab, Wafaa Batech, Anouna John Saif, Tony
Salhab, Brandon Harawa, Lucy Nemeh, Stephanie Frank Salhab, Mathew Batech,
Elias Nemeh, Michael Tahan, Sandy Diab, Chris Salhab all are in favor of the project.
George Botros, Architect, responded to some of the residents' concerns: Parking —
Family two or three people go in one car. Number of people by 3 will give you the
number cf parking. Not everyone goes single, they go as family together. School —
It's a Sunday school and only happens on Sunday, children go with parents. Social
Hall Events — limited only for church members only. Events happen only once or twice
a month. Walls with sound barriers. Neighbors will not hear anything. South Gate —
will be used for fire exit only. No access at all from this gate.
Chairman Guglielmo closed the public hearing.
Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney, explained general background on the city's land use control
when it comes to religious organization/denominations. There is a scheduled law
known as Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. What that does it
says when the city makes an individualized assessment on a religious land use that is
going to be operated by a religious organization and CUP qualifies for that, then the
city is subject to three limitations.
First, it cannot impose a land use regulation that would impose a substantial burden
on the organizations exercise of its religion unless the city has a compelling
government interest and that condition is least restricted means of addressing the city's
concern. Second, the city cannot treat a religious institution on a less than equal term
than a non -religious institution.
If were to adopt a condition applicable to a church hall that holds 200 people, we want
to make sure we are not discriminating against them and other halls that hold roughly
same number of people are not subject to a different set of conditions. Third, city
cannot adopt land use regulations that discriminate against a religious organization in
any way. That is the background sort of the framework on what you will make your
decision. You still need to make all the findings for CUP and Design Review as you
would for any other project. Keep in mind, we cannot impose substantial burdens on
the exercise of the churches practice and we cannot discriminate in any way.
Commissioner Dopp, asked would it be fair to say placing restrictive hours on operation
would be a violation on the free exercise clause under that provision.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes —April 22, 2020
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Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney responded he is not prepared to conclude one way or the
other. These cases are very fact sensitive. It's difficult to decide in advance how a
court might come out on whether a condition is acceptable or not. His suggestion
would be if the majority of the commission is interested in exploring a condition that
would limit the hours of operation for the assembly room for social gatherings,
weddings, etc. His recommendation would be to continue this item so he can work with
staff to provide the commission a better answer to that question. Not prepared to
provide an opinion tonight.
Vice Chair Oaxaca asked if Staff has any precedent, they would be able to provide
because one of the consistent concerns raised by residents is there being no restriction
on the hours of the Social events. Looking at the Staff Report Exhibit C, which provides
more detail about what the Church anticipates the uses of the both the Church building
Social hall will be and when those will take place and it does specify certain hours. Is
there any practice that we can point to that might give us an example of how churches
are managing the situation in other parts of the city.
Director McIntosh answered, that would be one of the things we would do is we could
inventory the other use permits that we approved and in cases where some of the
churches have pre -dated a requirement for a use permit, we could look to see what
kind of precedent we set.
Vice Chair Oaxaca mentioned there was a concern raised about alcohol consumption
and he does not know if any of our existing regulations around events in the City, an
event at a social hall at a church would not involve pulling a City permit but would that
be the case here if there would not be a City review or permit required for any events
held on the church property at the social hall.
Director McIntosh answered for individual events for institutional use, they could get
one day ABC special event license.
Vice Chair Oaxaca asked would that be required where they would have alcohol
served.
Director McIntosh answered it is a requirement of the State.
Vice Chair Oaxaca asked, the square footage of the Social hall would probably have a
maximum capacity. Do we have that information of how many people can occupy that
space for a particular event.
Tabe van der Zwaag, answered currently it does not list it in the plans. Although, the
Church capacity is 416. The Social hall is a little bit larger because it also has some
offices, storage areas and a kitchen. That is why square footage is larger than the
Church. If it does get continued, we can address that issue regarding social hall
capacity.
Vice Chair Oaxaca asked will street parking be allowed on the frontage on East Avenue
when the project is completed.
Tabe van der Zwaag answered does not have the answer. If it does get continued, will
address it at that time.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — April 22, 2020
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Commissioner Williams stated she agrees with doing an inventory on CLIP's on some
of the churches previously approved to see what we have done to give us direction on
which way to go. Regarding street parking, it does happen occasionally with grand
opening and such. In this case, they do have enough parking. As for alcohol, we
should check with other churches to see what we have done. It will give us some solid
information.
Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney, shared information regarding parking on public streets and
mentioned the City Council last year adopted an ordinance to streamline the process
for creating preferential parking districts. Now the City Council by resolution can create
preferential parking districts and it was done because of overflow parking from
apartment buildings into neighboring singly family communities. The threshold is 75%
of the residents for proposed districts. The City Council does have the discretion to
create a preferential parking district that will restrict others from parking at certain hours
or certain days of the week.
Commissioner Morales stated he did get a chance to visit the site. He noticed it is a
higher elevation lot and eventually it will be developed either as residential or the
church. Views are going to change for the neighborhood below it once it's developed
one way or the other. He did notice on the site plan of the project the two buildings,
church and social hall, are separated by a courtyard that is at the north end of Rolling
Pasture Place, and believes a nice rod iron gate will allow a view from the street looking
north and the buildings will not be blocking from the street.
Also, in the packet the applicant said there would be 200 people attending the Church,
not 200 families. He heard one resident concerned there would be 200 families and
they would not find any parking spaces. There will be extra parking spaces left over.
Lastly, regarding the ABC alcohol permit application process, when applicant wants to
have an event where they will have alcohol or sell alcohol the application requires them
to list the hours of the event they will have. Maybe get City approval, different steps,
including the Police department so that is where the opportunity to control it.
Commissioner Dopp, stated there seems to be some consensus to hold off on a vote
for two weeks because of some more research that needs to be done. He thanks both
residents and various church members for coming out, it's important to hear each
perspective. He is starting to question how restricted a permit can and should be on a
religious institution. It starts to run into a situation where basically we are asking the
church to anticipate their attendance on a weekly basis. We would not ask most
businesses to outline a schedule on a year-to-year basis. He does have concerns
about diving so deep into a conditional use permit and forcing religious institutions to
outline their service specifically, how their services are going to impact residents.
Brian Sandona, Sr. Civil Engineer, clarified information regarding parking on East.
They do have a condition to require sign and stripping as required and it gets approved
by City Engineering at time of plan check and permits.
Tabe van der Zwaag, Associate Planner mentioned looking at google street view, it
looks like there is no parking North of Philly Court and restricted parking at South of
Philly Court based on school days.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes —April 22, 2020
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Commissioner Dopp mentioned there is a park on the other side of the street as well.
It is open parking. There is still parking available by that park. We could also see a
situation the church contract with Summit School as an option to take away overflow
parking at the church on a Sunday. Those are just other options in that neighborhood.
Chairman Guglielmo thanked all the participants. This way of technology and making
a meeting effective and bringing to our attention a lot of the concerns of the community
in a format that has never been used before. None of these comments get overlooked.
It sounds like it's a complicated one that needs to be looked at further. Maybe
Engineering can look into traffic control measures to limit the speed gain. Recommend
bringing this project back. Comments from the Commissioners.
Commissioner Dopp, stated he would not be opposed to pushing it out a few weeks.
Vice Chairman Oaxaca agreed, it's an opportunity to create transparency for the
residents in the area and also to give the supporters of the church project a chance to
provide transparency about how they might address some of these concerns. He's
not opposed to this project, but it would be helpful to fill in some of these blanks.
Commissioner Williams mentioned regarding the notice to the neighborhood, we did
have a neighborhood meeting in January or February. She feels comfortable the city
made every effort to notify residents there was a project of a church coming in.
Although, it will need to be decided by next meeting and make sure the public know
how the they can participate if it is going to be another teleconference meeting. She
is supportive of the church. It will be a very nice addition to the neighborhood.
Although, we need more clarity on some of the questions that were asked.
Director McIntosh discussed the preferred date of continuance. We will have to go to
the second meeting in May. We would have to turn the packet around quickly to meet
the next meeting date. She recommends continuing the item to go to May 27th. She
explained how the mailing notice went out. The notice still had the location of City Hall.
We did receive inquiries from people who asked and when we posted the official
agenda, it had the Zoom language on it as well.
We did have a couple of people that came to the City Hall today to respond to the
notice and we let them know how they could join the meeting via Zoom app or dial -in.
We feel that anybody that was interested in participating did find a way to this meeting
and that was adequate. Based on Commissioner Williams comment about that
neighborhood meeting, if we continue this item if you decide to do, we can go back and
find that list of people that attended that meeting and do a separate notification to them
and let them know that this will be heard again.
Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney stated the public hearing had been closed but if planning to
allow additional round of comments , item will be continued and are planning to allow
additional round of public comments, you will need to open public hearing to the second
meeting in May.
Chairman Guglielmo asked staff for more clarity at the next meeting, if it will be
continued, regarding landscaping on the greenbelt North side of project. What will be
done there.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — April 22, 2020
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Motion by Commissioner Dopp, second by Vice Chair Oaxaca; Motion carried
unanimously, 5-0 vote, to reopen the public hearing and continue Item D1 to May 2711
2020, HPC/PC meeting.
Chairman Guglielmo announced a five-minute recess @ 9:30 PM.
Chairman Guglielmo re -opened the meeting @ 9:35 PM.
D2. TIME EXTENSION DRC2020-00120 — SUSAN ETCHEBERRIA —A request to allow for a one
(1) year time extension of a previously approved 7 lot Tentative Tract Map (SUBTT18210) on
4.89 acres of land in the Very Low (VL) District (1-2 dwelling units per acre) of the Etiwanda
Specific Plan and the Equestrian Overlay District on the south side of Banyan Street between
Greenwood Place and Laurel Blossom Place; APN: 0225-171-04. On March 28, 2007, a
Mitigated Negative Declaration of environmental impacts was adopted by the Planning
Commission for Tentative Tract Map SUBTT18210. The California Environmental Quality Act
provides that no further environmental review or Negative Declaration is required for
subsequent projects or minor revisions to the projects within the scope of the previous
Mitigated Negative Declaration.
Tabe van der Zwaag, Associate Planner, presented Commissioners with a Staff Report and
PowerPoint presentation (copy on file).
No public comments.
Motion by Commissioner Morales, second by Commissioner Williams to approve Item
D2. Motion carried unanimously, 5-0 vote, staff recommendation to approve Time
Extension DRC2020-00120.
D3. TIME EXTENSION DRC2020-00095 — W&W LAND DESIGN CONSULTANTS — A request
to allow for the first one (1) year time extension of a previously approved three (3) lot Tentative
Parcel Map (SUBTPM19557) on 0.98 acre acres of land within the Low (L) Residential District
located at 9757 Liberty Street —APN: 0201-251-56. This item is exempt from the requirements
of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the City's CEQA guidelines under
CEQA Section 15315 - Minor Land Divisions.
Mena Abdul-Ahad, Assistant Planner, presented Commissioners with a Staff Report and oral
presentation (copy on file).
No public comments.
Motion by Vice Chair Oaxaca, second by Commissioner Williams to approve Item D3.
Motion carried unanimously, 5-0 vote, staff recommendation to approve Time Extension
DRC2020-00095.
E. Commission Business
DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS: Director McIntosh asked the Commissioners how they felt the meeting went.
All agreed it went well, considering the amount of attendees/comments received. It was handled
professionally and congratulated Staff for doing a great job!
COMMISSION ANNOUNCEMENTS: None.
HPC/PC Meeting Minutes —April 22, 2020
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F. Adjournment
Motion by Commissioner Morales, second by Commissioner Williams, to adjourn the meeting; motion
carried unanimously, 5-0 vote. Meeting was adjourned at 9:45pm.
Respectfully submitted,
liz eth Thornhill
Executive Assistant, Planning Department
Approved: May 27, 2020 — Regular Meeting
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