All right good evening and welcome to the Thursday, September 28th, 2023 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek Planning Commission
I'd like to welcome our new Commission secretary and ask him to please to call the roll
Commissioner Reiser
here
Commissioner Lezak here
Commissioner Anderson here and chair Ward here and for the record
Commissioners strongman pickett and nating are absent. Okay, but we do have a quorum. So we're going to proceed
All right next step on the agenda is the consent calendar, and I'd like to confirm that we have no items on the consent calendar
They're saying yes, we have nothing on the consent calendar great. Thank you
So that moves us on to item three public communication
The public communication portion of the meeting is reserved for comment about items that are not on the agenda means comments
Which are not about the East Bay Municipal Municipal Utilities District, CUP before us this evening
Under the Brown Act the Commission cannot act on items raised during public communications
But may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed request clarification or refer the item to staff
Additionally, I would like to remind everyone that not all speech is protected and that I will not tolerate or allow any type of hate
Speech during public comment at any meeting that I chair
Hate has no place in our community and our words must reflect our community commitment to equality and inclusion for all
So do we have any members of the public who are?
Yes, there's four people that are attending online and one person has their hand raised
Okay. Hello. Can you hello? Can you okay? You can hear me. Okay. Thank you
Hello. My name is Barbara Guinness. I've been a resident of Long Creek since 1996 and I wanted to talk to you today regarding
the planning for the increase in parking safety and
traffic issues at the following facilities. Arbalado Park, Boundary Oak Golf Course,
Carondelet High School sporting facility on Valley Vista. In addition to new sporting events,
new everyday Lime Ridge Open Space users are being encouraged to park at Arbalado Park
in Boundary Oak Golf Course. These everyday users will be members of the mountain biking community
which will be flocking to Lime Ridge Open Space for the new high-speed mountain bike flow trail
that city staffers are planning to build in May 2024. I wondered, before adding new sporting
events, other events, and new users to these facilities, please advise how the city plans
or studies the effect of these events, which it would bring to the surrounding communities,
like traffic congestion noise, that type of thing. Also advise if environmental reports that evaluate
and plan for the increase in traffic congestion, noise, safety issues are being prepared for
before moving forward with these new events and activities. The above facilities already have
parking traffic safety issues concerns and any new activities events planned by city staff just
pile on to the existing issues around these facilities. I've contacted the Transportation
Commission but they're not responding so I'm thinking possibly this is a planning concern or
issue so please advise what planning studies etc are completed before the
city approves adding new events to the above listed facilities thank you for
consideration of this item and for your service to the city of Walnut Creek okay
thank you very much for your comment we appreciate it do we have any other
members of the public who wish to comment at this time if there's anyone
else who would like to speak please raise your hand seeing no one else raise
their hand I think that would be it for a public comment from online and there
doesn't appear to be anyone in the public wishes to speak okay great thank
you very much so with that we'll move on to our next agenda item which is item
four public hearings and I'd like to start as we always do by asking if any
member of the Commission has had any ex-party communications related to
items on this evening's agenda answer is no a lot of shaking heads so we'll move
right along our first public hearing is with regard to the East Bay municipal
municipal utilities district maintenance facility upgrades and site
improvements conditional use permit and design review application number Y 20
dash oh five nine located at two six five eight North Main Street and we're
going to start with the staff presentation by Chip Griffin who's pinch
hitting for simmer this evening the hardest part is getting the the
powerpoint up that's after that it's like smooth sailing we do have a good
staff report from you so if you would like to just give your presentation we
can follow along with that report or we have our tech team here to save the day
excellent sorry I spoke too soon here no faith for me okay here we are thank
you chair ward my name is Chip Griffin I'm principal planner here with city of
Walnut Creek and I am here as as the chair said pinch hitting first simmer
for her project we're considering a use permit for the improvements that's why
I have notes, by the way, for improvements
to the East Bay Mudd facility at 2658 North Main Street.
The applicant, Najmi, is here.
Najmi Jalili is here tonight to make a short presentation
representing East Bay Mudd, and of course,
available to answer any questions afterwards.
The project site consists of two parcels
located along the north side of North Main Street.
You can see them here in yellow
with North Main Street here, running north.
And then the 680 Caltrans corridor to the east.
The site's currently developed
as a courtyard for East Bay Mud.
It has been a courtyard facility for many years,
going back to, I think, waste management.
It's not readily visible from North Main
as the site slopes downhill from North Main
down to the Caltrans right away.
Access to the site is provided
by Marby Lane and Service Road.
So as you can see at the top here,
Service Road provides the in access
and the circulation runs through here
for work to be done to the vehicles there,
fueling and then out Marby Lane.
And as you can see, the site is surrounded
by other service commercial uses,
there are no residences in the area.
A little background, the property was previously owned
by Waste Management and Recycling
and operated as a courtyard for years, as I mentioned.
East Bay MUD has been operating at the site since 2015.
In the service commercial zone,
a CUP is required for the operation of a maintenance facility.
However, there are no use permits on file for this one.
So with this project that they wanted to do,
we will memorialize their use with a conditional use permit.
And we'll take a quick look at the site improvements.
On July 5, the Design Review Commission
took a quick look at this as a study session.
They really had no comments, appreciated the work,
and made a positive recommendation
to the Planning Commission, of course, in regards to the CUP.
Taking a look at the site top left
is what you see from North Main,
the site is behind the businesses you see on the frontage,
and then down service lane to the photo on the bottom left,
that would be at the actual entrance to the facility.
Up top is the entrance to service road from Main,
and then bottom left is what it looks like
once you get to the facility.
And the bottom right is,
and you can barely see the shaded box there,
right in this area that is that is where the the large the large building would
go and as you can see it's screened by existing trees and shrubs. Here's the
existing the existing site right now this there's there's a few structures on
site the first one would be the fuel station which was approved not that long
ago and I think is still under construction yeah the existing tire
repair shop right next to it, the fleet base here, and then the admin building there.
That's the current condition, of course, and as you can see, the covered storage area.
And you've got photos here of all these facilities, namely this one right here.
That's the existing admin buildings.
You can see they're aged and the placement is probably not optimum.
So here's what they want to do.
With the existing site plan up top that you've just seen and the proposed site plan here,
you can see that the admin building would be moved from there to there.
So it would be demolition of that building and then demolition of the 19 foot tall bays
up here at the bottom left of the existing, where is my cursor?
Right there anyway.
So the new ones would go there.
That building, by the way, goes from 19 feet to 30 feet in that portion.
The project also includes a new trash enclosure that would be down in this area here, kind
of where the old admin building was, or is, I should say.
New landscaping, bioretention basins, site lighting, security perimeter fencing, and
motorized sliding gates with security card readers.
Those are located along Service Road and Marby Lane.
There's no increase in existing floor area on site, just a demo and replace with new
modern facilities.
And you can see here as a couple of existing and proposed, so the existing admin building
which we saw earlier, that's it there.
And then in its new location, and it's even a little smaller, over on the south end of
the site.
So it'll be moved.
And then here's the existing fleet bays, those are at 19 feet, and you can see at the bottom
at 30 feet.
All the new improvements, by the way, meet all the development standards for this service
commercial area.
They're not asking for anything out of the normal.
Here's a view of the site with some of the proposed changes, and you can see here that
fleet building.
This is looking towards the south.
You can see if you'd see way down there, that's where the new admin building would be.
This is as you get more into the site.
can see that's the same if you're down on the ground there. This is I think I
believe this is looking back at service road and then here is from behind the
new admin building looking to the north. The facility is found to be compatible
with the surrounding uses. There are no residential uses in the vicinity and
access to the access and circulation on the on the facility remains the same.
Required CUP findings, these are discussed in your staff report and and
explained or found in the draft resolution. With that, staff would make a
recommendation to the Planning Commission to make a motion to adopt
the draft resolution approving a conditional use permit for the East Bay
Mud Maintenance Service Facility project subject to the conditions of approval
they're in. Are there any questions of staff? If not East Bay Mudd is here to
give a short presentation. Okay thank you very much for that. Any commissioner
questions? No seeing none I guess it's time for the applicant presentation and
just to keep in mind we have read carefully all the materials we've been
given and listen to this presentation so we're ready for you when we can get
the slides up yeah I told you this was the hardest part improve these things
to make them easier right I hope we haven't hit your record yet for having
to come out here to help us I don't want to know that what that number is but I
hope it's more than two. Good evening commissioners. Thank you for the
opportunity to present our improvements project at our fleet maintenance
facility in Walnut Creek to you. My name is Najmeh Jaloli, I'm the project
manager for this project and we are excited to discuss with you our
proposed improvements at this site and believe that this project will support
EBMOD to meet our operational needs as well as enhance the area around the
And finally, we would like to request approval for our conditional use permit application from the commissioners
I'm gonna keep my presentation short because most of it was already covered
I just wanted to point out some
points to you
I'll go over the reasons we are doing the project the location of the facility the existing conditions at the site
I'll skip over the repeating parts and
What the improvements we are planning to do are and I'll review the site plan and some
Aerial views with you to point out some specific elements of the project
The purpose of our project is
to help EBMOD improve our operational reliability and ability to respond to emergencies by providing a
Fully functional fleet maintenance facility for our vehicles in the east of hills portion of our service area
The proposed improvements will also help us cut down on the number of vehicle trips to our fleet maintenance facility in Oakland
Which will reduce greenhouse emission and the fuel costs the project will also enhance
The staffs our staff safety and security at the site
The project location was already reviewed just want to point out again that
It's really
Not visible to the public view the area slopes down
Downhill from a main street toward the site
So the site is really at a low point that not and lower elevation from North Main Street and on the east side is
Screed from 680 by the large trees and vegetations
Again, the existing site condition was pointed out
The only added comment I want to make is that the existing number of parking stalls is about 33 and our
project will not change the number. We'll just reconfigure them. And again, the existing
condition of our fleet base was shown. I just want to point out that on the southern portion,
fleet base one and two was already improved in recent years, and that's operational. It's
just the northern portion, base three, four, and five that need to be modernized for our
and vehicle repairs.
And again, that existing admin building
that is non-code compliant and really not safe for a staff.
So we are planning to replace it
and also move it to the southern end of the site,
which will improve the site layout
and the traffic circulation at the site.
This existing covered storage, again, is also deteriorated
and also from operational standpoint,
It doesn't really serve any purposes for our facilities,
so we are gonna be demolishing it with no replacement,
and the area underneath it
is going to be repaved for parking.
The fencing at the site is not in good shape
and also insufficient from our security standards,
and the entire fence will be replaced
by Spamot's standard security fencing.
you've already went over our proposed improvements
at the site.
This is just pointing out that we
are improving pretty much every corner of the site
to make the site more safe, to make the traffic circulation
better, to modernize our facility,
improve the aesthetics and safety at the site,
and also add features like new EV charging stations,
landscaping, bioretensions, to vote for our own goals to cut on greenhouse emission, for
example, and also meet cities' requirements.
And also, as part of improving our security at the site, we'll be installing new electronically
operated gates at both entrances with card readers, so to increase safety at the site
with better controlled access to the site.
Again, the number of new parking stalls at the site will stay at 33 which will meet both
our needs at the site and also meets the city's requirements.
As I mentioned, we'll have new landscaping and storm water management system that will
be designed based on city standard details and as well as the Contra Costa County Clean
water program, C3 guidelines, and also the landscaping with also mid-city
standards as well as the green building code requirements. And here are some
examples of the trees, grasses, shrubs, and ground covers that we are planning to
install at the site. There are some aerial photos of the site from Northeast
view and also from Southwest view. You can see also the landscaping schematic
view of them that we are planning around the site. Closer up look at the admin
building which will serve our field staff, interior layout which will provide
office space, break room, meeting room and restrooms for the staff and again the
fleet base and this is an example picture of our standard security fence
that will ensure safety of our staff and equipment and assets at the site. This
is the standard fence that we install at our facilities and the Design Review
Commission already gave us a preliminary approval for this fence during the July
5th hearing and I believe it's said to be approved during their final design
review approval. And some final notes is that the normal hours of operation at
this site is between 6 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. and of course because we are 24-7 up
as a district we are all our facilities can be accessed at any time
for any emergency need for any resources inside the site from the fuel station or
any vehicle equipment they can be also accessed during non-business hours and
and also we don't anticipate any increase in noise and traffic
created by our proposed improvements at the site.
Again, thank you for the opportunity and we are here to respond to any of your questions and hope to get approval for our
CUP application.
Great. Thank you. That was a very informative. We appreciate it.
Do we have any questions from commissioners for the applicant?
Okay, seeing none. It's time for public comment.
So are there any members of the public who would like to provide public comment on this item at this time?
If you'd like to comment, please raise your hand. I
See none raising their hand chairboard. Okay. Great. I don't see anybody in the chambers who is interested in speaking. So
There's nothing to respond to so I guess you can sit down if you would like unless there any final questions, I think not
so at this time I'm
Bringing it back to us for comments questions deliberations and maybe a motion even
I'd like to motion to approve
conditional use permit application number y 20-0 5 9 East Bay Municipal Utility District maintenance facility
upgrades and site improvements at 2658 North Main Street
All second
Okay, we have a motion in a second Commission secretary. Can you please call the roll and record the vote?
Commissioner Reiser
Yes
Commissioner Lee Zach. Yes
Commissioner Anderson. Yes chair Ward. Yes, the motion passes 4-0. Okay, great. Thank you very much for coming and
That's great. So that's it for our public hearings
We'll close those and move on to I agenda item number five, which is Commission considerations
Do we have anything?
To consider other than what we have before us
None at this time
Okay, great that brings us to number six commission member and staff reports or announcements
Just want to let you know that starting January staff will be bringing action minutes for
The Commission for approval as part of the consent calendar
Okay, excellent
Any commissioner have any other comments or announcements you'd like to make?
All right. I just like to recognize Brian Hickey here on my left
who claims again that this is his last meeting and
I'll believe it when I see it because I know how awesome it is to attend our Planning Commission meetings
but I did want to thank you for your many years of service to the Commission and tell you how much I've enjoyed working
with you and I'm really gonna miss you even though I know you have a tremendous opportunity coming and
Congratulations on that and best of luck and we really do appreciate everything you've done for us. Thank you. Thank you very much Commissioner Ward
I'd be remiss if I didn't say thanks to this Commission. I've
I truly enjoyed serving alongside you,
and I do enjoy coming to these meetings.
So anyway, appreciate all the friendships,
and I don't plan to be a stranger, so thanks.
Great, glad to hear that.
All right, any other announcements
except for people announcing they're leaving
because we're not doing that anymore?
Okay, not today.
All right, seeing none, we'll adjourn the meeting at 6.27.
All right, thanks very much, everybody.