Okay, good evening and welcome to the April 9th planning commission meeting with the secretary. Please call the roll
Yes
Commissioner Anderson here. Commissioner Moran here Commissioner count here Commissioner strongman here
Commissioner Kwok here vice chair clock here and Commissioner needing here
Thank you, and looking at the staff report the agenda. I don't believe so
But just to be clear, do we have anything on the consent calendar?
There's nothing on the consent calendar perfect now
There are two opportunities for the public to provide comment
The first is during each of the item as it pertains to the item and the second is that if it's a comment
That's not on the agenda, but is within the purview of the Planning Commission
So are there any public comments for items not on the agenda?
Seeing none, okay
Perfect
So I'd like to ask the commissioners if anyone's had any ex parte communication
None. Okay, then with that, let's move on to item number four
Public hearing which is Ignacio Center Foods truck special use permit application. I believe that we have a staff report
Yeah, and I actually wanted to just for the record state that Curtis is our new associate planner and this is his first
Hearing or presentation before this Commission tonight, and we're very happy to have him as part of our team. I agree. Welcome Curtis. Thank you. You do great
Appreciate it. Let's see if I can get the slides working and we're talking food truck. So I hope we don't get too hungry
All right
Well, good evening chair and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Curtis Sawyer associate planner with the community development division
Now, Before You Tonight is an application for a special use permit for food truck operations
at 1990 North California Boulevard, more commonly known as the Ignacio Center.
The project is located at the Ignacio Center within an existing pedestrian courtyard.
The subject parcel is zoned to office with a general plan land use designation of office
commercial.
As seen on the screen, the red arrow indicates where the project will be located and even
a little bit more refined if I can get our laser pointer to work right in there.
As proposed, and identified in the applicant's business plan, the goal of the project is
to enhance the workplace experience for the Ignacio Center tenants and to provide high
quality diverse lunch options for the local community.
Food truck operations will occur twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays between the hours
of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
will be made available to employees and to the general public.
As identified in the applicant's application materials, a maximum of four food trucks will
be on site during designated days.
The sales, service, and consumption of alcohol is not allowed as a part of this application.
And again, if you could direct your attention to the screen, the star here indicates the
existing courtyard location, and then as you can see on the site plan, we have a representation
of four food trucks to be located within the courtyard at any given time.
The site will be accessed from North California Boulevard.
City divisions such as traffic engineering, police, and county fire have reviewed the
project to ensure compliance with local code requirements and to ensure that the public
right of way will not be impacted and of course to ensure public safety.
Here is a view to the west in which you can see the removable parking bollards from where
the service area will be accessed. Making our way along, here's a view of the
existing courtyard. And again continuing along we see a view of some of the
existing seating within the courtyard area. And this is an image actually of
one of the indoor seating options that will be made to available to the public
as well. Alright getting into the meat and potatoes of the staff report. As
highlighted in your staff report, a request for a special use permit has
been made pursuant to section 10-2.4.701 of the zoning ordinance, which states that the
Planning Commission may approve a special use permit for uses that are not classified
in the zoning ordinance and can be approved by the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission
must also find that the use provides a necessary service to the community. As highlighted in
your staff report, staff supports this application and has made the required findings as identified
in the draft resolution. Furthermore, the project is consistent with the General Plan
by supporting a vital and diverse economy, which fosters entrepreneurship, economic opportunity,
and a healthy mix of employment opportunities. The proposal supports the city's economic
vitality goals and supports the city's role as a regional destination. Additionally, the
proposed use of an eating and drinking establishment is permitted within the core area on the ground
floor of a multi-story building. With that it was short. That concludes my
presentation. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt the
categorical exemption and approve the special use permit as conditioned. I'm
here to answer any questions that you might have and we also have two
representatives of the applicant team if we need to dive into anything further.
Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so much. Does anyone have any questions for Kurt?
yes my button assuming for a moment that everything it starts working out
wonderfully and they decide there's demand for we wanted more days per week
what is the process for modifying this as currently proposed the allowance would
be for two days weekly any additional days or hours of operation it's my
understanding would need to come back before the Planning Commission to modify
anything that we're authorizing today. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any other
questions? All right, thank you. It was a good presentation, good to learn about this
application before us. And so one question I had was when I was reviewing
the staff report initially, I was came away with the understanding that this
was a temporary use for two years, but it looks like there's been an amendment
since then. So is this a permit with an indefinite time? I'm actually glad you
raised that. There was a strikeout on my end, staff error on my end when I had
initially drafted the staff report, there was not supposed to be a time frame
highlighted. Thank you. Apologies. Thank you, Commissioner Kwok. Anyone
else? I couldn't tell. Is there a loop around the building that you can
and drive around or do you have to,
these trucks don't have to come in
and then go out the same way.
Let's go to this slide here.
So directing your attention to North California,
this is the existing entrance and making our way down.
This provides a good representation
of that entry location.
So trucks will kind of be parked tandem.
And as you can see here,
the parking bollards will then be removed.
So this will act almost as a staging area
for a matter of minutes until these are removed,
and then trucks will enter the courtyard area.
Okay, what I'm wondering about is, once they're done.
Yes.
Do they pry through still, or do they have to back out?
They'll have to back out and then exit
the same way they came in.
Okay, and the fire marshal's okay with that?
Yes.
Any other questions?
My question is, at first I thought I was from employees only.
And then as you read it, it says the public.
As it talks about this particular site
being next to the existing tenants,
other commercial vendors, and also housing,
was there something that came about where folks were coming
into the center kind of looking for it?
And so it just organically created a venue for this?
I'll let the applicant dive into kind
the inception of the project but as we've worked together to you know deem
the application complete and bring it before you all today really it was a
ideal location it also serves as a great opportunity for employees as it relates
to almost kind of travel and what's realistic on somebody's baby lunch break
or break having options that are just right there but with the special use
permit process, the applicant also came forward with that public benefit component, so it's
not just employee-centric, if you will. It's available to the general public. So I think
having the space, also the existing courtyard and seating area, but if the applicant would
like to dive in a little bit more of that, they can respond.
I can definitely open up the public comment now, if you would like to come up. It was
a quick question but perhaps the commissioners would also...
Good evening, my name is Brandon Farrell with Hall Equities Group and this is Diane over
here she's the property manager.
We've been working on this for a while.
We acquired the Ignacio Center last May and we did a tenant survey of things that they
they wanted at this project.
And for years, the project did have restaurants
at the ground floor.
There was a bistro on the corner of Ignacio in North Main.
And there is still a restaurant, Sweet Affairs, in our project.
But what was really clear is that the tenants in our building
lack food options without having to get in their car
and drive somewhere.
You'd think it's kind of close to downtown,
but they have to cross Ignacio and go across the target
and then downtown.
and people are like, no, we're not doing that.
So really this was a reaction towards providing a service
to our tenants, but also for the neighborhood
if they wanna come over.
We want the food trucks to be successful.
So if it was just limited to the project,
I don't know that they would be enough.
So we're trying to make sure
that the food trucks are successful,
but also our tenants get that
and hopefully other people can come over and check it out.
Long-term, we'd like to see this actually turn into
of a permanent food operation, that's our goal.
There is spaces on the ground floor of this building and a couple of the buildings
and we're hoping that this food truck program might lead into actual permanent tenants.
So that's hopefully the plan.
But for now, really it was to get an existing service to the existing tenants, yeah.
Perfect, but we don't run away yet. Yeah. Okay, go for it
Thank you, yeah, if it is sort of open to the general public have you guys thought about signage?
or a promotion or anything like that and I say that because
If as the flying overhead, you might see the food trucks. Yeah, wouldn't be readily apparent if you're driving on, California
Yeah, I correct me if I'm wrong Diane, but we have two we're gonna every
every Monday and Thursday, we're going to put sandwich board
signs out on the street.
And then we're going to promote it locally.
And then I think word of mouth will get out.
There's quite a few office buildings
around our neighborhood, and there's quite a few apartments
right around our neighborhood.
And so we're just hoping that people learn
that there's food trucks there.
Right.
My other question is, is there a pool of food trucks
that you can call?
Or how does that work?
They call it the food truck mafia?
Yeah.
Food truck mafia?
Really, is there like a database or something like that?
Yeah, there is.
I think it's called the Food Truck Mafia.
I thought you were joking.
And you call them, and it's a service, and they set it up,
and you work through them, and they've got a list of vendors.
We have set vendors for the next two months, I think, so.
Rossmore uses the Food Truck Mafia, too,
to have once a week food truck at Rossmore.
So there is a business of coordinating that they come
and that they're good, and yeah.
I just learned so much.
Thank you.
It's art.
Our company also is the owner and operator of the sports mall.
I don't know if everyone knows that.
And we have food trucks out there quite a bit.
So we kind of leaned on that experience, what
we're doing out there.
And we're trying to get activated down here.
Yeah, thank you.
It's a bit of a food desert.
It is.
Shout out to Kevin's Pho.
But other than that, I will leave the questions,
I'm supportive. Yeah, great. Thank you. Any other comments from folks? Because I have one very, very good question about this mafia. Yeah. When I was reading some of the names, it almost seemed like there was also some local folks here, which I thought was great to be able to bring back some economy back to Walnut Creek. Is that correct? I think so.
Grand, you know, yeah, the vendors the vendors a lot of them are local. Yeah
I know that I know a couple of them than I saw on our list are ones
We've had a sports mall and I'm pretty sure they're Walnut Creek residents or at least local. Yeah
Yeah, so we definitely want to support local business. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you
If there's no other questions, I would entertain a motion. Oh, I'm so sorry. I have to close the public hearing
Thank you. Thank you. It's closed. I don't see anyone in the audience
to come up and give public comment.
So I'm officially closing it.
Now. I'm sorry to interrupt you before you make a motion. We wanted to point out a correction in the resolution tonight.
So the last page which is page 4 says this resolution shall take effect on April 9th.
So I believe today is April 9th,
and that's not taking effect today.
Takes 10 days, take 10 days effect
after the mailing of tonight's decision,
which would be April 19th, would be the effective date.
So just for clarifying that.
That was on the rezo?
Last page of the resolution.
I see it now, okay, section four effective date.
Okay, thank you.
So now I would like to move that we pass the resolution
special use permit application number Y25094,
Ignacio Center food trucks as amended.
Second.
Okay, Vice Chair Klop.
Yes.
Commissioner Strongman.
Yes.
Commissioner Anderson.
Yes.
Commissioner Moran.
Yes.
Commissioner Calland.
Yes.
Commissioner quack yes and vice-chair needing. Yes. Thank you motion passes
perfect
Thank you
So now on to item number five for commission considerations
I have a quick update from Transpac which is the
central Contra Costa group under the Contra Contra Contra Costa
Contra Costa Transportation Authority.
As I mentioned last month,
Transpac is in the process of evaluating applicants
for funding.
We have twice as many dollars requested
as we have available.
But today we heard presentations from applicants.
The city of Walnut Creek, Vanessa was there
and presented the city of Walnut Creek project.
The city of Concord was there.
Choice in Aging was there and Rossmore was there.
So all presenting their transportation projects aimed
at improving transportation access to those
with limited access disabilities and et cetera.
So it's very good to hear what people are doing.
Perfect, thank you, Vice Chair.
Any other commission considerations?
Any staff reports or announcements?
Yes, I do.
So the update I have is on Tuesday of this week,
City Council did consider the two appeals
that were filed on Planning Commission's February 12th,
2026 decision on the Mitchell Town Homes Project.
And the council did uphold Planning Commission's decision
and approved the project, certified the EIR
and denied both appeals.
And upcoming April 23rd,
the meeting will be canceled for Planning Commission,
but May 14th we do have several items.
Like a list is the short-term rental Galpogacho appeal,
which is Curtis' second project
he'll be presenting before you,
and the restoration hardware.
So those are the three items on May 14th
and we hope to have a quorum.
Thank you.
Perfect.
No one will go on vacation, don't worry.
With that, it is 6.19 and we'll adjourn, thank you.
Oh.