[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] o [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'd rather try and accomplish something great and Fa than try to accomplish can fully succeed I'll St here all night [Music] [Music] try and accom something try to succeed all [Music] [Music] to and fully succeed [Music] fully succeed [Music] [Music] Welcome to the city of Bakersfield Planning Commission meeting this television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies the county of Kern and the City of Bakersfield you can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 700 p.m. and Sunday at 10:00 a.m. the agenda for this meeting can be downloaded at www. Bakersfield city. us priding over this evening's meeting chair Daniel Kar good evening it is my pleasure to call to order the August 15 2024 Planning Commission meeting Madame clerk would you please call the role chair Kar here Vice chair Strickland here commissioner Basher Tosh here commissioner Biddle here commissioner core here commissioner colan here commissioner Neil here Pledge of Allegiance please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance [Applause] Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all for attending tonight's Planning Commission meeting this commission provides an opportunity for public participation um throughout the city of Bakersfield the Planning Commission considers a wide variety of projects including subdivision Maps zone changes General plan amendments and much more when applications are received the city planning division analyzes the request planning staff will then present the facts about the project along with their recommendation to the commission who will approve an item or make a recommendation as appropriate Madame clerk next item please public statements please note in keeping with the city council's new resolution public statements are now received at different times depending on the item I will call Madam clerk to call for public statements at the appropriate time so please listen carefully for the correct time to speak agenda item 3A public statements does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items listed on tonight's agenda please note if you are here for consent public hearing items 5 a through 5c now is not the time to speak you will be given an opportunity to do so at a later time seeing no speakers Madame clerk item 3B please non-agenda item 3B public statement does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda if so please come forward and state your name seeing none Madam clerk next item please agenda item four consent calendar items please note all matters under the consent item do not require a public hearing and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of said items unless a staff member or commissioner request specific items be discussed and or removed for separate action may I get a motion approving consent items 4 a I'll make the motion thank thank you commissioner core I'll I'll second that commissioner Biddle Commissioners please cast your votes motion passes thank you Madame clerk next item please sorry can we just um go on the record and say who abstained yes I'm going to read the vote again motion passes with commissioner Basher TSH and commissioner Neil abstaining thank you Madame clerk next item please agenda item five consent public hearing items now is the time for consent public hearing items please note if the item is not removed by a commissioner staff or member of the public the commission will vote on all items in one motion without further comment if an item is removed it will be placed at the end of the non-consent public hearing items at this time I will open all of the consent public hearing items does anyone in the member of the public wish to remove a consent public hearing item seeing no uh members of the public does any commissioner or staff wish to remove a consent public hearing item seeing no Commissioners or staff um I'm sorry M Miss King it's been a while if I have a conflict on an item do I state that now or after the after I close the hearing you stated uh after you close the hearing and you you say which one you're recusing yourself from Fantastic it's it's been a it's been a bit thank you um so at this time the consent public hearing items not um removed or now closed um I will note I have a conflict of interest on item 5A due to source of income and will be abstaining from voting on item 5A with that being said um may I get a motion to adopt staff's recommendation on consent public hearing items 5A through 5 C with commissioner Kar abstaining from 5A incorporating all staff memoranda and revised staff recommendations so move commissioner Neil may I have a second second commissioner Bashir Tash Commissioners please cast your votes motion passes to approve um agenda items 5 a 5B and 5 C with chair CER recusing from agenda item 5A thank you Madame clerk next item please agenda item six there are no non-consent public hearing items thank you Madame clerk next item please agenda item seven reports um I would like to note that there was a late comment letter received for item 7A and a copy was provided at your seating area thank you Mr Johnson would you please provide us uh your brief report on item seven a yes thank you very much um I would ask that uh secretary put up the other slideshow that we have when you're ready no that's fine that's no problem so in the meantime though I would like to recognize we have Dela Costa and Bryce Haney here here from our ringcon team we have also members from ringcon team in the audience along with uh City staff who have been working on um these land use Alternatives you were provided some information to review uh we look forward to a a good healthy discussion and with that I will turn it over to Del um but first we may get a little tech services assistance do and I would I would note that you guys did receive um print outs of the slides for note taking if there's any questions on that to you can take notes as we go along okay thank you very much for having us here today to talk about the land use alternatives for the Bakersfield General Plan update I am going to start us off with just a quick reminder of the bigger picture we are currently in the midst of updating Bakersfield's General plan and a part of that process is assessing changes potential changes to the general plan land use map so the general plan lays out the big picture for what you are trying to achieve as a community in Bakersfield it serves as the road map for developers and for conservation in the city what to develop and what to conserve and it contains in addition to the maps sets of goals policies and implementation actions to guide future decision-making and ensure consistency with the Community Vision got to work two things here uh the general plan is Guided by state requirements and we have to address several topics within the general plan um ones pertinent to this update are housing and land use uh vehicle miles traveled so how trying to reduce vehicle miles traveled through land use and other uh strategies addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions addressing environmental justice concerns uh providing adaptation and resiliency strategies in response to climate change integrating complete streets where possible streamlining development approval and uh complying with the general plan guidelines we are currently wrapping up the L use Alternatives process as part of this project and have started work on potential strategies to include his policy I have seen a couple of you at a workshop we held on Saturday so thank you um and also have a just a note we have a survey up on the website now regarding the policy strategies so we are as we are wrapping up these land use Alternatives I do want to take a moment just to outline how this portion of the project responds relates to the housing element update that is also ongoing so the housing element is unique among the chapters of the general plan as you are probably aware um it is the only element that is required to be updated on a specific schedu and has to be certified by the state so that is being done as a separate project from the rest of the general Plan update we did however incorporate the information from the housing element into these land use Alternatives so the housing sites are shown on the maps that you have in front of you for informational purposes and we did integrate those sites into the growth projections that we included uh we did also add additional housing to these land use Alternatives because the general plan is a 20-year timeline whereas the housing element is an 8-year timeline so hopefully that will set you up nicely for future housing element updates quick uh overview of the process on updating the Lan use Alternatives um I will note we were not necessarily looking at wholesale transformation of Bakersfield so this was really an alignment with ongoing efforts and with the Community Vision and the city goals so the goal we were looking at here was to balance the Community Vision for the year 2045 which we did as part of the vision and guiding principles um that I'll go into a little more later we are providing opportunities for future quality jobs and housing and as I mentioned complying with state requirements around General plans we did this through in part we're updating the land use map that goes into the land use element and that reflects the community's vision for what they would like the city to be in the next 20 years and then we modeled the capacity for the resulting population housing and jobs that could occur under that land use map um we did incorporate Community input we did extensive Community engagement throughout this and Incorporated that input into these Alternatives we also um we we also look looked at the trade-offs of the different approaches so there are three options and each of these options kind of weighs the different tradeoffs for future growth as I mentioned a core foundation of the this process is aligning with the Community Vision so a reminder of that the vision and guiding principles were established at the beginning of the general plan process um we have a vision statement and guiding principles memo up on the web website and we aligned with the vision which was Bakersfield is a resilient and diverse City that cultivates collaboration in order to provide the highest quality of life for its people we celebrate our diversity and enjoy a deep sense of community that's fostered through the safe and affordable neighborhoods plentiful parks and vibrant cultural centers natural systems work K lands and urban life blend together for a thriving economy where high quality goods and services are accessible through multimodal means and active lifestyles are supported by Urban Greenery clean air and transformative planning there are guiding principles that go into more detail with that Vision sustainable living economic Vitality Equitable access to Ser quality services and infrastructure embracing Community diversity and identity purposeful and cohesive planning and health safety and quality of life and you can refer to the full memo on the website to get more information on each of those guiding principles so as I mentioned we did Community engagement to develop these Alternatives and Incorporated that input into the three options so there was an online mapping survey that was used to First vet the focus areas that we're dialing in on and then talk about what what the community would like to see in each of those Focus areas and their needs we did um two workshops one inperson workshop and one virtual Workshop to do uh the same same process we had nine pop-up booths at least one in each Ward that uh allowed the community to talk about what they would like to see in each of the focus areas for the Alternatives and then we held seven focus group meetings which um were organized by topic and were an opportunity to talk with key Community groups agencies and other departments on what their vision for the city is and the resulting of all of this is updating the L use map the L use map is the backbone of the L use element and its purpose is to categorize the types of allowed uses for each parcel um it sits above the zoning or the zoning map so the general plan Lan use designations are more General than the zoning the zoning gets more down into detail of what uses are allowed on each individual parcel and our goal in this process was to modernize and simplify the general plan land use map while accommodating this future change that could occur in Bakersfield the first step to doing this was we did a wholesale cleanup of the existing land use designations to better simplify and streamline land use this was really just about looking at what uses are allowed under the different designations and collapsing them so there's just not so many and making them a little more intuitive for anyone wanting to come in and build something in Bakersfield the updated designations will help provide more clarity and flexibility under each area under each land use and they align more effectively with the zoning ordinance I'm going to ask the City attorney can should I go in yes yes that's fine okay commissioner come thank you chair ker uh so um I'm I'm interested in what the uh process is going to be here and when we are going to have an opportunity to ask questions and I I I I'm asking that because I I I'm uncomfortable getting too far ahead and then going okay do you have any question after we reviewed 44 pages of documents uh I'd like to have an understanding of where we'll be able to have an opportunity to ask questions I know that you want some answers from us uh later on in the process but can you can you elaborate on that a little bit please yes and I apologize I should have mentioned that at the beginning so I have the kind of setup introductory information and then a break for clarifying questions then uh we go into the Alternatives themselves and a break between each alternative for more clarifying questions so we would do the introductory and then questions alternative one questions alternative two questions alternative three questions apologies all the way to correct to alter right before alternative one [Music] Comm I think it would be slide 23 is that right oh yeah if you have if you have questions why don't we just have a have a raise your hand question yeah that's fine we we'll answer it as we go Mr raise your hand I did have some questions about the uh the process and the uh and the uh assumptions that were made before you went into the land use plan so that's why I I wanted to stop before we get too far along if the question is around the process and assumptions for how we develop the land use Alternatives I will touch on that in a few slides all right you let me know when you're ready for question yeah can I make it sounds like the an overview prior to questions would be really helpful just so that we can understand the process I think there's a great time for clarifying questions before we jump into Alternatives is that what I'm hearing yes correct all right thank you so much uh if you could proceed that thank you Mr commissioner com thank you um so starting on what the process was for the land use Alternatives our first oh yeah so the first step was choosing Focus areas and the focus areas I'll talk about in more detail in a moment but this was essentially the areas that were expected to experience the most change over the next 20 years or the community expressed a desire for change once those Focus areas were defined and vetted through the community we created a set of alternatives on what changes may look like to provide options we are now in the stage where we are evaluating and comparing those Alternatives and moving towards choosing which preferred alternative to go forward with for the rest of the general Plan update there are a few key considerations when uh looking at these alternative options one is that part of this process was also to align the general plan boundary with the city limits your adopted General plan includes portions of current County jurisdiction and so part of this update is to align the planning boundary of the general plan with the city limit so it does not include that unincorporated land the other was to incorporate the site inventory and the housing unit projections from the ongoing housing element update to make sure we're aligning with what's going on in the housing element update we also evaluated the capacity of the different sites for development so looking at how much land is allocated for each land use and what that could potentially produce in the future regarding housing population and jobs and once we had those numbers we looked at how we might need to rebalance those metrics across the city to better serve the needs going forward and we also looked at desired Community enhancements so what areas would like to see more jobs more amenities what other things could be incorporated to actualize the city's Vision just yeah the three Citywide um alternatives are intended to be Citywide so the idea is to choose one of the three city-wide Alternatives and then we can make edits based on Council Direction within that chosen alternative um if there are strong ings for each Focus area in different directions however we can note that down and carry those comments forward to council uh I do want to mention just regarding the metrics provided for each alternative I really want to emphasize that these are estimates um we looked at a variety of different metrics to gauge capacity going into the future one was your 2020 existing on the ground numbers to serve as a baseline we looked at what the adopt General plan capacity allowed for and then what under each of these Alternatives the net new jobs population and housing would have the capacity for and then the total Citywide capacity um these are estimates provided by the amount of land identified for each use and the average person per household or employee per business type so it assumes housing and nonre residential buildout out at a realistic capacity but actual dep actual development will depend on a number of other factors like the market the developer will site cons site conditions things of that nature so it's a very theoretical exercise that's really intended to be a decision-making tool um and it's it's also a key data point to look at what the existing on the ground numbers are compared to the current adopted capacity because that helped us look at where we we could realign or what to plan for I think actually I have a couple more slides before stopping for questions but I think this would be a good spot to stop for questions regarding the process okay well the systems telling me that I'm currently the active speaker um that's cool all right so I I did have some questions um regarding the process for Community engagement I know we received a letter um from Community organization regarding um the lack of Engagement specific populations that actually happen to be in my ward and I'm looking at the overall participation um in in the process uh for engagement and I see 285 um responses to an online survey I um It's Curious for me just because we have just under 400,000 um residents in the city of Bakersfield and to only receive 285 U responses to an online survey that should really signal something to the city um and that is that that means is not necessarily um sufficient to get the level of Engagement that I would think would be necessary to really have a some real data points to work from and to really say that you really engage the community so that's just concerning for me 285 out of almost 400,000 people you know and I don't know what where where we are in the process and excuse me this is my first meeting I've been out on on medical leave um but um now uh to see this to come in in c285 it it it assumes number one that participants have access to technology and computers and internet or what have you and or transport to get to a public source of that and then number two the number is just so low um is concerning I I can answer some of that so those numbers and stuff also are for targeted surveys that we have online but if you go to our community outreach Hub through Bakersfield 24.com you can see we've hosted 42 events U we have almost 4,000 people that have responded to surveys which is still for 400,000 not as many as we would like uh and there's a map that shows every event area that we've had um hosted events so we we're doing community outreach through social media through television spots um monthly if not bonly every two weeks um we're we're doing as much community outreach as we can we're going to the popup events um we're paying to go to certain events so we can have pop-up booths and just try to get as much um participation as we as we can but a lot of it is just limited to people want to volunteer that information so I I believe we're doing what we can but obviously we're open to other ideas on how we can do more I think we should look at the letter because I think there were some good suggestions in that letter um from the Leadership Council regarding actually in communities that are underrepresented specifically knocking on doors or sending mailers or something of that nature because obviously the survey process is not working and I know that you said for for you we received like 4,000 surveys but that is that on the general plan like generally or is that specifically on this land using because I think you have a very targeted and like B I guess dissected approach to putting together the pieces of the general plan and we can't just count the overall number and and we just recently also I'll add that we did an open call for um Community Based organizations to to uh partner with the city uh under a contract um where there's Financial um exchange um and that's how we get we're using those community- based organizations to go out and also help knock on doors and do everything like that take paper they take paper surveys with them let allow people to do the surveys on the spot right because they know their Community sometimes better than than City staff absolutely so we already we're already doing that already cont so those numbers the numbers that we see here should go up for these surveys and for the participation or is this hope that everything would go up number wise on participation yes so this process is not complete so we're in the process of getting these numbers real what to can I ask this director a question what what level of participation do you think would sufficiently represent you know our constituents you know I have a individual at the ringcon team a PhD on this type um maybe this individual can give me a number a little I would ask Miss Gail to come forward thank you good evening Commissioners Cassandra Gail with ringcon Consultants so the community engagement process is should be viewed more as something that's scaffolded throughout the entire general plan so what Dela was referring to um on that slide was yes very focused on the land use Alternatives process but the overall engagement programming for the general plan is something that is ongoing and meant to build on each phase while providing education points for different topics so for land use Alternatives those two Workshops the various pops up popups were intended to receive feedback but they're also intended to uh provide an education piece on what is land use right similar to how we're moving into the policy process now we have an education piece on what is policy and then we'll do additional surveys and qualitative data collection to uh triangulate that information so surveys work really well for Bakersfield in some parts of the community in other parts we've learned a lot since we've been at this a few years and that's why we brought on the cbos on board to help us get that more one-on-one conversation information to help us round out the rest of this process so it's something that builds on each phase sort of like an ongoing relationship that we have to continue to Foster and pivot so that we're reaching everybody the best we can thank you thank you commissioner NE thank you uh commissioner Coleman uh thank you chair keater um uh Miss Neil welcome back uh we missed your comments Miss Neil is much more eloquent than I am about it uh because I I looked at that slide too where you had two workshops and a and and an online survey that didn't seem to produce much and so it didn't seem to me that two workshops was enough and so I think there needs to be some you know updating to this presentation to show that you know you have had more Community engagement than than you do because the director was talking about all these other people that we talked to but it was didn't wasn't reflected in this presentation so I hope that there will be some revision to that my questions were had to do with this was early the reason I wanted to talk early was well I hear myself talk but besides that was uh uh when we talked on and I'm referring to this presentation that you all have it's on your desk there and this is what was sent to us in advance I noticed that you're not really following this exactly and so that's why I was confused because I was jumping around through here so your presentation kind of jumps around a little bit so in the on page two you talk about using this summary and you say because the city strives for a Citywide balance of Housing and jobs the 2045 PL total is only shown for the Citywide summaries while each Focus area illustrates how the breakdown of housing units population and jobs affects that particular Focus area and I was struggling a little bit with that trying to figure out what you're really saying there um uh because you talk about U moving some alignments that uh that confused me can you talk a little bit more about that please yeah so the goal here is to establish a Citywide vision for land use in Bakersfield what would you like to accomplish over the next 20 years Citywide and then we dial that into the focus areas and look at how that will reflect in each of the focus areas but you talk about in the next after that you talk about rebalancing the land use so you talked before about doing some realignment of things basically to suit the survey and so I'm all concerned with making the boundaries fit the survey rather than the boundaries fit what we actually do the way we actually live uh I'm unclear on having the boundaries fit the survey the focus areas were chosen because they were identified by the community and by staff as areas of change and some of those for instance there may be one area where housing is more of a focus and so we focus economic development in another area and making sure that Citywide there's a balance yeah I'm not finding my note regarding the real the alignment where you Chang is the alignment but okay I I'll I'll let that I'll let that uh go for nowt yeah that has to do with the what we're going to be considering tonight but yeah that helps a little bit but um what is the uh the plan for us tonight our plan for us tonight is to review these land use alternatives for each of the categories you have like three alternatives for each category and we're supposed to uh just tell you how we feel about them or what what do you want from us yes so I'm going I I'm going through the process and then we'll go through each alternative looking at the focus areas and how that reflect is reflected for that alternative and at the end I would anticipate comments Desir changes to the single alternative that you would like to move forward with and recommend to Council on page six of your your report here you talk about uh the adopted land use maps and you have your category residential commercial industrial and you have the percentages is that in each area or is that a Citywide kind of thing Citywide Citywide is there any uh any effort to balance those uses in in in the individual areas in other words to try to get get away from this core City thing that we do where you know all the commercials in one place and all the Industrials in another place and to build more uh more complete communities like we have all this land in this in the southwest that you know over the next 20 years going to blow up uh is it going to continue to be everybody's going to drive it down downtown uh you know truckton Street to you know do uh downtown business and then you know we're going to continue to drive out the weat patch Highway for industrial and then all the houses are going to be in the Southwest is there any e effort or intent to try to say let's try to consolidate some of this stuff in different areas yes so while we were looking at Citywide Alternatives within each area we did look at do they in order to balance the jobs and the housing and the amenities in that given area should something be shifted so yes it was the alternatives are Citywide but within each Focus area we also evaluated that okay but you also have the fancy words that I don't have so thank you very much for sharing that I I I'll I'll relinquish the floor at this time to anybody else would like to ask questions and I look forward to discussion about the actual uh areas that we're going to be talking about thank you commissioner Coleman um this is a new technology so I don't see any other Commissioners oh did I let me oh I have to activate it okay let's just say commissioner Strickland leave I'll leave it's not me it's technology I swear I'm dying to hear your comments please commissioner stri well like commissioner K and I also like to hear myself talk so uh I will say I just starting off I'm kind of in the same opinion I had notes on this that are going to throw me off the rest of the night cuz I don't know when to apply them here so I may jump back and forth um can we go back to slide six on the presentation oh my goodness that's what I look like huh all right just just for a base overview could you give an example of vehicle miles traveled climate change environmental justice and adaption and adoption and resiliency on how that applies in this can you just give a one or two examples of each yeah for the most part I'll say vehicle miles travel climate change are both pretty intertwined because they both involve reducing green ass gas emissions and so that was kind of what um sorry I'm trying to see the name tag and there's a the gentleman on the end there there's a there's a head in the way of the name tag um what he was alluding to is making sure that we're balancing uses within each Focus area and having more of a neighborhood approach rather than and like he said having all the houses in one location and all the jobs in another location so that will by default reduce greenhouse gas emissions regarding environmental justice this was looking at um what polluting land uses may be located near potential housing and seeing if we could buffer that or mitigate that or change that in some way and as far as adaptation and resiliency it was comparing with the uh maps of for instance flooding risk seismic risk and making sure that we're not putting critical uses in those areas cool thank you and and definitely getting before myself on this but what I would expect is if those are our eight things we're really kind of focusing on in one way or the other I would expect on each of these Alternatives kind of a check box to say or a measles chart yep we're hitting this we're not hitting this we're hitting this all the way through right and and I don't really see that so it was hard for me reading Alternatives one two3 to really relate them back to this unless I looked at it myself and said okay that's a green area so that must be these two items it'd be kind of nice to see that um going on to the workshops and calendars I'm not going to bemoan all the responses because I think that's already been done but I'll add that on there I will say I went to Saturday's event which I think was great and I appreciated staff for being there and you guys for hosting that I saw that on Kg maybe two weeks ago I didn't see it on the city's website I didn't see it on the Bakers 2045 it's not on the calendar there um upcoming the 20th I think there's a tentative I think there's a tentative uh virtual on the 20th that I haven't seen if that's confirmed it still says tenative on the news article I can see about it so my complaints not the engagement I consider myself a very online and always connected person and I saw it because I was reading a news article from two weeks ago I don't know if anybody else on the commission knew about it or saw it or was engaged and if that's a similar Community thing which I think goes back to miss Neil's kind of comment that maybe there's a way to do that I don't know if it's mailers or you know I think getting 4,000 people to respond to a online surveys and for City stuff most people don't care so I think that's probably I'm okay with those numbers it's just more of as Workshop to go forward if this is going to be that um ladder structure of constant conversation like we're talking about maybe a better way to post those on um and then I think my next question since we cut a little short are going to be into alternative view so I'll I'll yield back on that thank you thank you and um I'll just I still can't see a request to speak I don't know if that's the software or if there are nobody there are no requests to speak so I keep do you see it I I have to keep activating it you see it now did you just when I hit it it says it's submitted and then yeah there it is okay yeah it seems to be working don't press anything but I think what happens is the clerks manage it oh perfect I did not know that why was not clearing it either so this is fantastic all right then if there are no other question I just had two quick questions um as we move into Alternatives I was just hoping um that you could clarify um this idea of the focus areas being a microcosm to the city as a whole does that mean the land use policy is being updated throughout the city these are just kind of Representative areas that are being studied to sort of personify a larger effort or really concentrating on revising zoning in nine core areas and leaving the rest of the city as it currently is for the most part it was looking at those nine areas and adjusting the land use in those areas because those were the the ones with the most change okay I will say that as part of the housing element update there will be other changes throughout the city that are not included in those n areas and the zoning update would come after this process and so that's still an opportunity at that point cuz then you know I think um change is a very good word for our city you know if you look at a map at 1970 versus a map today um you wouldn't recognize the two and so I'm just curious how the policy um should there be a 10th neighborhood or an 11th neighborhood that really needs to be studied as well is this a model that then could be applied or do we have to wait wait for the you know 2045 for the next time to uh address the LGE you know cuz you our zoning hasn't changed for many many decades um and so I'm just wondering um it being so focused and limited I mean what are if other areas reap similar benefits but are just aren't identifi you know like the Brundage Corridor is a great example of there are many Brundage corridors in our city and I think we would all want to see Brundage success Ed but we also want to see northchester succeed which is the county but you know or see Oswell or you know there's there's and so to me um I'm just curious since a comprehensive zone change only happens you know we're talking 2045 is is this a tool that the city can use and adopt and expand out of these core areas without having to do a comprehensive Zone update 45 years later yeah yes so and I will say that these areas were chosen because they H they had the potential for the most changes regarding the overall General plan land use designation the general plan itself and any subsequent zoning updates will be Citywide we'll look at the entire city it's not just going to be focused in these areas right okay got it that was my question and then my second question is um there was a mention of the county and the city in creating a clear line delineation I think that was mentioned um Bakersville does have a unique Metro in that you could cross the street and be in the county um is there any partnership with the county this might be more of a City question as far as if we're moving towards resiliency sustainability um reduced greenhouse gases and then right across the street is businesses usual I mean does that is that kind of the process or is there some collaboration happening between the county and the city to create a more cohesive Urban Metro we we will have policies regarding development within the city's sphere um and obviously we would like collaboration with the county where they would like to collaborate yes and is that currently happening or that's planned to happen I don't know that's planned to happen okay just let it clarify okay oh commissioner NE one other question because I did have a question I know that um we were planning to Annex a lot of um um areas into the city are those incorporated into the general General plan to the boundaries in this General plan so some of those annexations are uh we're actually collaborating with the county right now on those annexations um some of those are included and some will be uh reserved for the county thank you I see no additional questions at this time so I think we can proceed with the next portion of the presentation yes it does um I I think this goes to uh uh Cher Ker's point is I was as I was looking over these these areas I was concerned of why they were so narrowly defined you know it's like you link Corridor it's very narrow section why it's not a a broader view of those communities can you address that a little bit yeah I mean again this update will incorporate and uh take a look at those areas outside of the focus areas it was just more that the areas within the boundaries were identified for more changes to the land use designations that is the next topic of discussion good okay so the focus areas were primarily chosen through engagement and input with City staff so these were areas where the community expressed a specific desire for change or change was expected because it was being driven through the housing element or other City development efforts um it was areas where undeveloped or underutilized land had been identified so there was a an ability to change uh areas where planned or existing Transit and infrastructure are present so there's a capability for that change and areas that were already experiencing change as well so a lot of this was uh in collaboration with the community with the as I mentioned the focus groups that we held to discuss my notes to discuss future Trends with development um Community organizations and then uh what the city is seeing as far as development applications coming in and I I also want to note that these Focus areas as I as I mentioned earlier will be these changes will be guided not just through these land use designation shifts but also through the policy of the general plan which will be looked at Citywide not just in these areas I have a question um thank you for allowing this to be interactive um I I really appreciate apprciate that um did we study the general plan amendments that were approved um over the course of the last you know 10 years 15 years and look at all the Amendments that we made and try to from that data anticipate you know what the community is actually wanting based on all of the requests that have come through yes that that's correct because when there's General plan amendments and zone changes we can we can see how um C that a trend thank you we can see how the trends are going for either residential or commercial dens or residential and such yes okay so this is just a map of where those Focus areas are located I'm sure you're familiar with them but just for a little bit of context questions I mean if there's any additional questions at this point this was one of the like spots we had assigned for questions but I think we can just keep going if all the questions have been answered oh commissioner cirin can we go back to the map oh y can we go back to the map does rencon have somewhere in the data set if I look at like Oldtown Kern or greater City in the Hills those Focus areas are driven I'm assuming off the 285 responses plus staff design right is is that what decided these Focus areas as well as any existing plans is that data publicly available as to what drove like City in the Hills to be one of the focus areas instead of like Polo Community right is there is that data set available showing like oh we got 10 respondents for this area we got one respondent for this so it became a focus area is that an available data point we did not post that on the city website but we can sure that'd be great I I think just in data transparency right but anyway that that was it chair cater after after questions from the Das it may be appropriate also to take public comment at this time or when you're done he I was going to ask you how workshops and public comments work CU most uh public members don't wait for the workshop yeah typically it's after the presentation but since we're being interactive we would allow the public to comment at the same time sounds good well we're in a question period now right um so should we can we start with uh members of the public if you have questions you can ask yes just uh I think it would just be about what we've seen so not about something we haven't and if more questions come along as we as we move along with the presentation you can ask questions at at a later time as well fantastic thank you and if you state your name yeah my name is uh Wendell Wesley Jr Community residents uh at California senior housing where uh we have a lot of uh residents that are senior uh disable and uh um uh financially um disadvantaged energy disadvantage uh the question is um I haven't heard anything to about a plan for light rail uh Light Rail would meet a lot of these uh criterias um it would get um some people order their car for entertainment purposes which would improve the quality of life um it would also serve as a backup if your vehicle breaks down it would also serve people that don't have vehicles or maybe someone that just got their first DUI and need to get to work so um you're talking about um sustainable housing that way someone to be able to get to work so they can keep their housing so um that's just a short list that a light will will bring to the community thank you thank [Music] you hello uh my name is Sandra melosa Placencia and I am a current policy advocate of Leadership Council um we submitted a letter and I know y'all have read it so I won't read through the whole letter but um I I first wanted to say I really like this interactive experience I think it's great we should do this for every meeting um and second of all um in relation to community engagement um Leadership Council does work primarily in southeast East and Central Bakersfield that is where the majority of our base is um and we the first thing I wanted to bring up and I know we haven't talked about Alternatives yet but under the brage lane um Corridor or or Focus area there was hardly any information on the Alternatives I believe it was just like one bullet point for alternative 1 and three and then two bullet points for alternative 2 um I really suggest to the city to do stronger Community engagement we thank y'all for partnering with cbos um to kind of get out there but also wanted to stress concerns over the city partnering with the downtown Business Association um as one of the nonprofits or entities that they partnered with for engagement on the general plan um we we really would like to see the city um continue partnering with other nonprofits who are present in the MLK area the Brun Lane area and hopefully expand to other areas because we are very disappointed that it is a very narrow area for both MLK and bring which are very predominantly uh disadvantaged communities that face a bunch of environmental burdens and environmental racism right um in our letter we did highlight that um we do believe alternative to aligns the most with Community as of bringing Parks but there's also way more that has to be done to ensure that these communities aren't contined to be burdened and that they can actually adapt and be resilient when it comes to climate change um and with that I will adjourn my comments thank you thank you court and then commission um before we jump into Al Al Alternatives uh what is going to be our goal um are we going to pick one uh better alternative and then pick that at the end of the day and that will be presented to the city council we'll present all three alternatives to the city council but yes the the hope is that there is one alternative that really stands out to you is saying this is Bakersfield's vision and we can make edits within that one and um carry that forward but we will be presenting all three to the council as well commissioner Neil I'm I'm having a hard time um with uh where we are in the process considering the level of Engagement because I don't I'm not sure that we can say this is Bakersfield Vision without doing more Community engagement first this may be City staff's Vision right and the people who've showed up the few so far and and those Mo a lot of those people have you know horse in the race you know so but as far as the people the constituents of the city I'm I'm personally not comfortable making a recommendation to city council I don't know if we have to tonight or what the timeline is without seeing a more robust report on on community engagement um so that's just where I sit on it um the other thing I want to point out is um if you go back to slide 22 when we're talking about the Dr Martin Luther King Boulevard Corridor um I'm I'm very grateful to the city for naming it that um on commission I've had um some debates about whether or not this portion of what used to be called Cottonwood Road um was actually renamed by the city and it looks like the city is actually adapting the new name and something has happened that I didn't I'm not privy to where the city is actually adopting that so I just want to say thank you to to the city staff for actually recognizing that area as the Dr MLK instead of Cottonwood so thank you okay the Alternatives c yeah I was just going to follow up on the question of when we select one of three Alternatives is that per area we're not picking alternative one for the entire city we have the flexibility and it's not though is it it's alternative one all the way through alternative two all the way through or alternative three all the way through that was the way that we said up the discussion um I do I do want to emphasize that if there is a strong feeling to do it another way we're flexible got it yeah thank you commissioner com yeah thank you chair keer um I I just want to expand expand on Mr Wesley's Junior's comment uh Wendell uh regarding because that was an observation I had too is that you know we developed this land use plan but you know nowhere in there that I see that I saw was any provision for uh a potential light rail system a uh a a circular freeway or you know none of that was in there so I don't know how you can make a land use decision on these areas without considering uh how people and commodities are going to get in and out of those areas I would note on that that the general plan also has a circulation element um which where is where a lot of that will be looked at um so I mean is this the cart before the horse I would say not because we need to start somewhere and if we don't start somewhere we're not going to go anywhere so I would say that like the FL rail uh and the movement of traffic will be evaluated in the circulation element which we just barely started touching on with public works and there'll be more obviously in community engagement with that too overl that about how you can how you can decide how you're going to lose the land if you haven't talked about how you're going to get to it so I I feel like it should be like you know an overlay play one way or the other so I think that to reverse that question it would be saying is how am I going to put in light rail if I don't know what type of land uses are going to be there so I I again I think this is a good starting point at least let's let's discuss this let's get through this report um and then we can this information again as it was noted it builds upon everything and we'll take this and build upon um the circulation element and then if if we need to come back and revise we come back and Reis so will we be having an input to the circulation element or are we just doing the land use are we going to have input to all those all the elements ultimately will you'll have input on yes absolutely and just to clarify the um the housing element runs at a different cycle than the rest of the general plan but the rest of the general plan will be adopted together right so we are doing these different exercises but it will all be a single document so there will be yeah cohes and then just to I mean I'm sorry I feel like we've all asked this question then re asked it but the zoning maps that we are looking at in small images tonight are indicative of a strategy that will then use to adopt land use these are not the literal zone changes that will be in the final report right this is a land use exercise to create a philosophy behind how we zone or is this actually resoning property at this time yes no you're correct it's a philosophy behind how you rezone so this is not the zoning map this is the L use l use General plan map which is a higher level I like the philosophical but this is the the final this is going to council to become the land use map right this is not these aren't academic exercises these are actual right making it through the yeah okay I just think contextualizing everything because it's it's a little complicated so I appreciate it okay oh are there oh um there's another Mr Mr Wesley has another comment I just want to say I like what you said there about how do we know um but I I also want to say that we need to be mindful uh because I've seen night RS be built I was in one of those cities where they came in and it disrupted a lot of businesses so um in situations like that if we're looking to grow a business district or section in that area it might be better to have the light R First Once you have the design because this we've all seen what disrupting business can do during Co um and in that particular City and others um some cities uh some businesses weren't able to survive during that process because people didn't want to drive and be around all that construction clog traffic and in the long run it was great but some businesses Thrive through it and some also failed so just want to be mindful of that thank you yeah yeah and just to clarify this is a a 20-year Vision document not necessarily and I appreciate the comments but it's not getting down to the detail of what do we construct first the building or the light rail so again this is a vision U which will build upon what we're discussing but thank you for those comments thank you any other thank you I think uh that answers uh the next of questions so should we move on to the alternative one yes thank you and thank you for all of the questions so alternative one is uh the goal here was primarily around preserving existing industry and employment generating land uses revitalizing Urban cores and looking at Transit oriented employment centers now there's themes across all three of these but what we were prioritizing for an alternative one were these things um we have some numbers here as I mentioned earlier uh these numbers are theoretical exercises on what the capacity would be for this alternative regarding housing units population and jobs and we can go into each my thought here originally was to go through Al Citywide information and then each Focus area and then take questions but as as needed let me know if you have questions so under alternative one the downtown downtown core transitions some of the Industrial in the downtown to Commercial and mixed use it provides for some mixed use along Chester Boulevard around the highspeed rail station and mixed use south of Tron Avenue near mil Creek Park Oldtown Kar largely preserves the existing land uses for alternative one um it does add some mixed use near Baker and Montgomery and some other key sites identified in the housing element and has a commercial Corridor along East truckton to connect to the downtown greater City in the Hills um the housing element is driving a lot of medium and high density housing in this area so we have some mixed use replac Regional commercial to offer additional amenities and jobs at Kern Canyon and Highway 178 and to better enable Transit and a large commercial center at morning drive and Highway 178 for the rosale corridor this alternative adds a large area of regional commercial South of rosale Highway that is currently on existing utility property it allows increased intensity of the commercial west of Callaway Drive and cleaned up some of the light industrial area just to allow for consistency with the existing uses east of Callaway Drive uh housing element also has driven some transition in the CSU Bakersfield area of the office Bas to mixed use for alternative one and we looked at an opportunity to adapt commercial centers to mixed use as the demand for that allows and Brundage Lane essentially increases intensity of the commercial along the south side of Brundage Lane Gosford Southwest the wests side light industrial for this area changes to General commercial and office to help buffer those uh housing uses there and then the East Side Auto dealership along wble um we formally designated that to Regional commercial just aligning with what the underlying zoning is or what the existing use is so that was more of a cleanup and then there's a potential for mixed use development at Pacho and acres and then Dr Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard area the northern stretch of this area allows mixed use um changes along the corridor to implement the housing element this was an area that had some housing driven changes some Regional commercial that replaces the industrial that's adjacent to Highway 58 lowering the intensity or lower intensity industrial uh next to the neighborhoods at Wilson Road and Union Avenue and then transitions industrial at Fair View and South Union to mixed use and don't pause there for any clarifying questions on the first alternative I would love some clarity on the um I think it's called public utility or public benefit like the blue zoning seems to be a lot of different things like a a pg& substation uh Cal State Bakersfield um K county music it seems very hard to analyze a land use map when it could be either a power plant or a university or a pseudo Regional Park is that just to allow flexibility or I just it kind of threw me on some of the graphics because it was they're so centrally located in some of these core areas but one is a university that's achieving one means one is a power plant that nobody can get Within 50 ft of you know and so one is really bringing people together one is really disconnecting people and so is there a reason like why like the kind of catch all bag of can you explain that land use a little bit more yeah it's really intended to capture government uses Civic uses utility uses okay and to me like the utility is where it gets a little hard because public and Civic there's this let's open a business next to City Hall let let walk to the let's have a dense housing next to the university a PG transform station is like a chain link fence don't cross don't landscape you know the way they interact with their neighbors is completely different so to me it's kind of weird to have a utility use put into a Civic use other than the fact that they're owned by a public entity I don't know how the request to speak works I've lost my mind it seems like last time it worked well and now I just click the button and it goes away immediately before it would say like oh you're in the queue we'll get you and now it just goes away so I'm I'm just going to throw out commissioner Strickland is the only commissioner that pops up as well so either um he is winning the uh participation award or something's not working I'm break I'm breaking Corum now I'm just going to start talking uh coughs I'm okay with that just just for a general comment can we go to like 25 just any of them that have a map on it so going back to the legend from I'm going to pull this document there are colors on there that are not on the land use designation Legend provided with it can you speak to why some areas are shaded and some aren't but the Legend doesn't have the shaded areas I'll give an example on the Northern piece of that they're shaded purple there's no shaded purple in The Legend So I was having trouble kind of figuring out some of these zones is that saying that it's a new Zone type and old and it it's it's on all the maps oh okay so it looks like our it looks like we so we have the housing sites that are included in the housing element as a blue hatchwork and when you put that over other colors it may muddle the colors a bit this is a blue and gold dress thing all over again so that's site included in 2024 housing element everywhere we see that specific color when it's on purple when it's not on purple it's a different color again right is that the case so if you go to like 35 I feel like purple wasn't the only color I saw but maybe it is no maybe yeah like there I've got you've got like yellow and green black and is that all blue is that what's going on there like everything at the bottom of C Dr Martin Luther King Boulevard is like black and yellow and blue is that just the site included or the research [Music] overly it's the housing site those are the housing sites okay do we have any RTE that's not CSUB just level no okay so I'll ignore that color Al together um the other one that I just kind of struggled with on alternative one and general I think the high level summary of that is business focused right I think would be the way to put it if we're picking only alternative one or only alternative two or only alternative three I'd find it difficult to get anyone in the town to the city sorry the city to back any other alternative when your summary shows if you go with alternative one you gain jobs and if you go with alternative two you lose 10,000 jobs and if you go with alternative three you lose marginal jobs so I guess I'm struggling with that as a as a whole um it it seems like a a Citywide commitment to either going fully green or fully I don't know what color for industrial so I I guess I'm having a little trouble rationalizing each area cuz if you go to CSUB there's job losses right because it's housing for students if you go to Greater City in the Hills it's job losses because it's very low residential housing and no density if you go um but they also get more Greenery right so I'm having trouble kind of correlating if I go back to those eight items we talked about on the first part of the presentation the resiliency climate change things like that are each of these nine Focus zones checking those boxes too each or is it a wide or Citywide there were I I feel like there were a few questions in there so let me unpack it a little bit follow if I'm missing something so to to answer the last question yes each of these three Alternatives accomplishes all of the necessary goals of the general plan sure the alternative one is more about kind of preserving the existing type of Industry that's already present in baker's field whereas the other Al natives might look at shifts right and part of that is maybe less office and more retail which may change how many how those numbers played out as far as the multiplication of people per square foot for those jobs um and again this is where I would kind of refer back to what I said earlier about these are theoretical exercises on the potential overall capacity and if you compare your 2020 existing numbers what you actually had in jobs and housing compared to what your adopted General plan had the capacity for Bakersfield has more than enough capacity for anything that could that you could want sure so you're not really losing jobs per se you're lowering the capacity so that you can adjust to other things the city needs because you have more than enough already yeah and I think I just meant from a public perception right at some point this table goes I'm a consultant in private practice so I'm very careful with how things are phrased and that's one of them right no matter if I were rate payer who didn't care if I looked at I see that as loss of jobs it may be reduction in capacity but it's loss of jobs so I'm I'm just nervous that alternative one is the only one that really looks good to the average resident so I don't know if there's a better way to clarify that or later on if there's a better way to show that so that it's we're not losing jobs right because people already concerned about that um and then I have one more question and it was for alternative to but we're on it we're looking at it for greater City in the Hills that light green right there in the center that says uh it's an open space right that's a parking lot with a little tiny dog park on it what is the definition of open space is a parking lot in open space I think that's the parking lot for the ballpark right that's correct it and trust me they won't let you just drink beer out there in the parking lot so it ain't an open space to me that's correct that is the uh parking lot for the uh Rec Center uh and sports Fields next door um so technically because it is a Parks use that could be updated to the open space Parks designation um currently it is as open space but uh I tend to agree that it is uh that it is not currently an open space per se as you would find next to Kern River or something like that right and then and then I just get concerned looking at some of these maps on like the the next open space for greater City the hills alternative one is there at the northern tip behind what would eventually be housing developments I guess it's an open space but it's really a area for that development it's not really a city of bakersfi open space that's a that development will eventually consider that their space same with the park right there the I think that's greater than City in the Hills Park or whatever it's called it's in the middle of a Housing Development Community I I guess I'm having trouble rationalizing when we talk about resiliency and Open Spaces are these truly Open Spaces you know and then we had another one if you go to uh Ward 4 where the Rosell is the the Walmart I think the only thing that's covered in Ward 4 uh there's a park there that's on a utility easement and it only shows up in it only shows up as a park for alternative 2 feels like to me if it's a utility easement what what else you going to build there isn't it always going to be a park why is it only an alternative to is it a park why couldn't you yeah that's a great question so the uh utility easement on that parcel is for the PG power lines from the Transformer station just to the north of it um the original land use for that current sorry the current land use is is the mixed use um on you know large scale commercial and mixed use uh developments you tend to see um parking or other uh other potential uses for for that area so in the in the economic development uh you know alternative one which is focused on economic development um we looked to provide a lot of flexibility for that particular uh land owner to to develop that um you know with or without open space extending across the entire easement yeah I just I I guess I assumed if it's the PG utility there's not a lot you can build on it anyway right I would assume right is a PG utility uh you know parking or other non you know parking or storage or that type of thing non uh nonoccupied uses so it's parking it can be an open space instead I I want to clarify on that parking with the open space Park we're not saying that parking is a is designated as open space it's because that particular parking lot is a associated with the open space it's the parking lot for that open space so it's just looped into that designation is it it's the parking lot for the ballpark or the parking lot for the dog park that's in it is is it is the is it consider one in the great greater City in the house yeah sorry now we've jumped around is it do we consider that the open space because it connects to a dog park or because it's the parking for the ball park or the sports field it's Sports field it's a sports Field Sports field for the sports field but I will say just kind of again thinking of this as like a highlevel vision document even if it was for the dog park it would still be considered an ancel use for the dog park and so we would have still included that okay cool thank you so much yeah commissioner Neil just a quick comment on slide 32 I think I thank the city too soon about Cottonwood Road and I just want to just see if someone can get clear on this but we're doing the same thing where it's marked Cottonwood Road but we're calling it MLK Boulevard are we going to have like a consistency we we can take Cottonwood Road off but it truly is named Cottonwood Road okay that portion that portion of the road is so why aren't we calling it The Cottonwood Road Corridor yeah because we like to call it the Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard Corridor perfect but so I don't do anything and it's understanding that you were working with your council member to potentially rename that street yeah so we have to fix that because I thought it I assumed it was fixed because it's appearing this way but what what I'm what I'm hearing is not so okay no that that request needs to be placed to rename a street okay okay thanks commissioner core did you have a comment where you're just helping me speak okay thank you thanks for the help um I did have one on alternative one so a question I had and it sort of proliferates throughout the different Alternatives looking at um the downtown core Oldtown Kern uh the Brundage Lane um Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard the the focus areas that can that are more Central City in nature um as was curious The Limited adoption of a mixed use flexible Zone within an urban neighborhood it feels like um in our last Zone the CC Zone which encompasses most of the downtown core has been most the most successful at allowing different uses and different businesses to kind of populate along relatively small geographic area which gives you the mixed use the different businesses that support each other and so it's you know and looking at um like the downtown map for example everything west of f is still proposed to be this weird uh I live in that neighborhood and you may be on a single family home but it may be Z zoned R4 or your neighbor maybe a C2 or the coffee shop maybe an R1 because the zoning was just kind of laid off and with no Rhyme or Reason to what the use was and so I was curious you know as we look at encouraging active Brundage Lane active MLK um the downtown core growing to uh receive the highspeed rail station Oldtown Kern looking more like downtown why a mixed use zoning isn't we ar a little bit more prolific in in just allowing mixed juice over a larger geographic area it seems like we're still kind of holding tight to well this intersection can be mixed juuse but after that it goes back to traditional zoning I I just wonder what the what what what the reasoning was to sort of limit that use I wouldn't say necessarily we're trying to limit that use there are different amounts of mixed use proposed in each of the three Alternatives so some of them will have more than others and it was also looking at what ex what existing uses are on the ground and making sure we're not going to cause future problems for those uses if we change their zoning on them okay so you think so mixed use would would provide a hardship on current land owners is that it depends on what the it wouldn't necessarily charge it no I don't want to I don't want to um give that impression but for instance if we make a use a non-conforming use it can it can limit what they can do in the future whereas BX use it is a pretty flexible Zone commercial is a pretty flexible Zone um so we used those a little more in areas where that would be appropriate yeah typically when something is rezoned some when something is rezoned it's typically grandfa the existing use is grandfathered typically right but we have animal in animals in the city legal non-conforming yes from existing use if it goes into a zoning that no longer allows it yes right because to me I think it just I mean my comment on on it would just be it seems like holding that flexible zoning too tight is basically limiting our ability to realize the vision of these corridors as being these vibrant corridors because anyone outside of a few privileged sites would have to go through a zone change process and you know it's expensive it's timely it's not guaranteed it's not it just seems a little bit contrary to this idea of creating active zones what be want call oh yeah just be curious uh the city's comment on that yeah thank you can you repeat the question maybe summarize your question of uh you know it's like um looking at Oldtown Kern for example there's about eight blocks of Oldtown Kern that are mixed use in a neighborhood that's about you know 100 block right and so 26 you know oh it's right yeah so I just curious in um the even just the existing land patterns of Oldtown Kar are more mixed use than what we're seeing on this slide and so my question would be why and then the slides that the ones that are proposed for mixed juice are pretty much already built out with housing authority projects and um you know Heritage buildings and so why are we so limited on applying mixed use to areas that we've expressed wanting to be mixed use neighborhoods well I would say that the purpose of this is to get to Garner your feedback we'll look at all three Alternatives and we'll identify the best alternative um for Old Town Kern and if if we think it needs to change to more mixed use then that's what we'll take forward okay so I just clarify and the new mixed use it doesn't require mixed use it just allows mixed use is that right can exclusively residential project still be built that's correct and an exclusively commercial project that's correct mixed use allows for mixed use but but that's correct so to me that that feels like a pretty safe um you know I don't know that's just my my my comments that you are soliciting tonight so thank you solicited all right I see no additional comments and I am now a master at the request to speak tab on escribe so shall we proceed did you want to proceed or would you like to take a break it is up to oh yeah it is 7 o'cl do need a break I know we've only been here an hour and a half isn't that long proceed sure let's proceed we'll see alternative to might be a good uh recollect ourselves to okay so alternative two looks at adding additional Park and Recreation space throughout the focus areas looking at more compact design and development more mixed use um Transit accessibility um higher density development and mixed use development in key areas alternative TW downtown core looks to transition IND the industrial area South of Highway 178 to professional office um formally designate Civic and governmental offices as public facilities more commercial Focus along the Union Avenue south of the tracks and more mixed use near the garcy circle near highspeed Rail and Columbus Street Oldtown Kern for alternative 2 has an emphasis on mixed use along Baker Street and Kentucky Street maintains the industrial along truckton and has pocket parks along Baker truckton and Niles um and then also has additional mixed use to implement the housing element cycle greater City in the Hills has more emphasis on mixed use centers at Morning Drive Highway 178 and Kern Canyon Road rosale Corridor adds opportunities for mixed use throughout the corridor and adds potential park space along that utility right away that we've already discussed um at the Northwest prominade Center and south of Langley Road CSU Bakersfield transitions as much of the office space to mixed use as is feasible brage Lane emphasizes mixed use along the north side of Brundage and at the P Street intersection and has a potential Park adjacent to the curent island Canal Gosford Southwest has Westside light industrial um that changes to General commercial and office to ease that transition to the residential neighborhood surrounding again we formally designated the auto dealerships to Regional commercial to align that use and has potential park at acres in Pacho and Dr Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard aligns with a lot of this aligns with the housing element changes um there is less emphasis on expanding commercial in the northern portion and more emphasis on mixed use and a potential park at Panama Lane adjacent to Crescent Cemetery and I will pause there commissioner Neil has the um City staff um taken into account any of the recommendations in the letter that we receiv received um today from the uh Community Based organization Leadership Council for justice and accountability we've listened to every letter that the lcga in the pilp have responded to whether it's with the housing element or with the with the rezoning or even this but this letter just came in yeah um just this afternoon so this presentation is not built around that letter no but do you have comments regarding issues raised in the letter uh which which issue would you like for staff to address I just I just want staff to resp if staff has any response to the letter uh my response to the letter would be we will continue to work with lcga we met with them and Jr earlier this week um on some other items so we'll continue to work with them to address their comments in their letter okay okay I mean I if you you want to take a break I can go through and pinpoint everything but it'll take me a little bit we can the letter came in before the meeting I know it was late but considering the level of participation that's displayed in the presentation I personally would like some feedback from the city on the suggestions whether they're uh feasible or not um but I I don't want to hold up everybody for that I do it does make you want to hold up the process but um I just wanted to understand you know if if staff had some comments regarding the letter that besides that it came in today I can generally say that a lot of the flipping through this a lot of the recommendations in this letter regarding more more parks and green spaces and facilitating healthy food access healthy food access would be accommodated under the land use for the commercial mixed use and so that would be more of a zoning and program level um that would be addressed in the policy which is the next phase of the general plan as far as parks and green spaces um I do want to say we we've identified areas that that look like an easy place to put in in Parks but that does not mean those are the only places that Parks can go in so that's another thing we can address with the policy in the next phase of helping to facilitate I know the city's also in the process of updating the recreation and parks plan making sure we're aligning with that and facilitating that development and maintenance of parks thank you I just wanted some sort of feedback from the city uh commissioner Strickland just two questions the the first one being uh is pocket park just a phrase or is that a is that a a technical term uh some cities have definitions specifically around what is defined as a parket place a parket sorry pocket park that's a bit of a tongue alation yeah um I don't believe Bakersfield has a definition for that so for this case we're just using it to mean a a small scale Park okay yeah I I think it was uh I took my notes on the other one and now it's a I told you it's a mess old ker I noticed that alternative to which I saw is generally the more green space alternative um has less Parks than alternative 3 and they both call out additional pocket parks and the only one I can see is I don't know the cross street well enough uh Niles and I guess I don't know the difference but the the purple one there on alternative three flips to a park and on this one it STS so I I didn't know if pocket park was a defin size and then why alternative 3 is more Parks than alternative two if that was intended so so that was it and then um regarding City business or city buildings we we kind of hit on it for the downtown core is there any benefit to the city when you change it to a public facility right for zoning how does that change the population and jobs number on the calculations cuz are they the same my analyst here is telling me it does not change the calculations same okay yeah that's it then thank you thank you uh commissioner core actually my my question was based on the number of jobs so in alternative two we're going into negative 9,000 jobs uh I didn't see the big difference between alternative one and alternative two why did we had the significant number of loss and jobs in number two it's just a second to look was it we believe it's uh a lot of it is related to switching office uses um the ones around csb and when you switch things from so the way we do these calculations we explained it briefly in the memo but um is using industry standards on how many employees per square foot each type of business estimates that they use and so office uses you have more employees per square foot than you do things like industrial and Retail so again you're not necessarily losing jobs it's just that you're switching uses to one that has fewer people per square foot I'm very curious with that metric um because is there any study on what we need as a city because I noticed alternative 2 and three has more housing units lesser jobs and we're not really creating jobs we're not really creating housing units we're creating space for jobs we're creating space for housing units has there been an analysis on you know looking at the land we have these Nine area studies do we need to provide better or more housing units or because we could Zone everything professional office and have a killer job number but I don't see a lot of professional offices looking to expand right now that is a fantastic question and the answer is yes so the housing units are mostly driven by the housing element and what we expect in the future from those housing Cycles the jobs are aligned with a an economic Market study that the nalon Dale group did as part of this project okay and then can I ask um ringcon you you get to see a lot of cities we're we're somewhat uh we have uh focused goggles as a commission to the city of bakersfi are you seeing um As Cities look to the Future that the the professional office dedicated work in a professional setting cities allocating less space for those uses as they move into the future I will give the caveat that I am not an economist I'm a planner um but I can generally say across the cities and counties that I work with yes that has been a trend M okay thank you and then are you seeing um similarly um light industrial I know particularly in a city of our demographic there are some very exciting job opportunities and less polluting industries that fit under the context of light manufacturing um are you seeing that being reconsidered in how cities think about it with regards to adjacencies and decent housing next to cleaner industry yes I think that highly depends on what a given jurisdiction classifies as light industrial okay but there is definitely an ongoing conversation as far as the compatibility of surrounding uses thank you um and then I commissioner Strickland had asked about open space and I was curious I mean I think this um I mean when I think of open space I think of the protection of natural lands and there's really only one Corridor where the city has aggressively tried to do that as we look to 2045 is there and this is maybe a question for staff because open space is its own element of the general plan uh is the city investigating kind of expanding the ability for citizens to experience natural land beyond the Kern River corridor Soo City in the Hills had talked about that back in 20 2008 when it was you know when zoning was laid over there is actually a new requirement sb1 1425 that does have us looking at what they call rewilding opportunities okay now we didn't identify those specifically through this process because sometimes it's going to be a little more specific than what we would look at here but it is just identifying areas where we might in the future consider transitioning to open space and allowing that access testing thank you commissioner Neil looking at the um city in the Hills Focus area I'm looking at Alternatives 1 two and three and um believe the purple area is it purple that can you can we find it yeah there it is the purple or the kind of like in a triangle there is that where 178 meets um morning uh Drive is that what that purple area is does the purple represent commercial excuse the purple is mixed use mixed use um and where's the large commercial center at morning drive at highway 178 which one is is that on there believe that's the one on the West Side the red okay there's mixed use and Commercial got it okay um Can does does the commission remember we had an application from um because on all three of these Alternatives that area it looks like it's being designated as commercial currently it's residential I'm sorry I missed the question currently that that area is zoned R1 right and we're now in this new plan all three versions designating that as commercial space in the general plan was it our one street apologies we're conferring with our Maps Okay yeah to all three versions so they my question is why why does that appear the same that a on the presentation is morning drive okay this yeah here yeah apologies I think we got a little confused on which intersection we were looking at but the existing use currently is a mixture of office and Commercial oh it is yes okay um I'm just curious if staff recalls we had an application from Daryl's Mini Storage the community showed up for that um and ultimately that did not pass um that application I'm just trying to understand where on the map that was on this map you you see the um towards the Northeast you see that the arc and the road there right it's it's in that area Half Moon the half yeah the half moon so you see the purple yes area that's Masterson on the east side of that and then that Arc area with inside that Arc area or half moon Area that's the area that was proposed to be uh rezoned from residential to commercial to Commercial and here in all three versions we still have that as residential it currently is residential okay okay just just wondering because that's something that we've heard and people showed up for that and I just I see it reflected here um but we are now providing um a des this commercial spaces or mix space is in purple that's already Comm Zone commercial that's already commercial that's correct okay okay okay good thank you I I would note and not to get too far off topic though uh that project is not dead uh they're actually looking for a non net loss property to to make up for changing this while we're at this site the planned there's the plan to redo the alignment of 178 and take it into the mountain that I think that came up with the darl mini as well this kind of uh this curve up you know 178 is doing this dramatic Spike that it doesn't do right now is that still going to be preserved as future freeway space or is that getting resolved with calr right now it's going to be preserved as future freeway space although the likelihood in speaking with calr is no or at least not in the next 50 years but that will pre be preserved okay and then it'll stop at Masterson and then no it's it's to go all the way um there's actually on the east side of Masterson they've already reserved some of that alignment also interesting yeah that was just an interesting part of that hearing as well okay um my uh request to speak is cleared so unless there's any other questions let's proceed to Alternative three okay so alternative three um really focuses here on alignment with existing and ongoing efforts Transit accessibility flexibility to development and includes the research and development area around CSUB and we do pull we pull some Concepts from the other two alternatives for this one as well so the downtown core for alternative three maximizes the mixed use along High-Speed Rail Chester and the industrial area South of Highway 178 it again formally designates Civic and governmental offices as public facilities has residential infill North of Highway 178 and east of Chester and replaces industrial with office and mixed use Oldtown Kern uh alternative 3 is similar to Alternative 2 but we've expanded mixed use along truckton Avenue formalized the public facilities designations for public facilities uses and included some pocket Parks greater City in the Hills um I do want to note there was a a typo here on the slide it is generally aligned with alternative 2 but we did add two acres of General commercial and some more mixed use in the morning drive Center rosale Corridor generally also aligns with alternative 2 but with some additional park space along that utility RightWay at the Northwest prominade Center and allows for mixed use west of Callaway Drive CSU Bakersfield maintains the underlying land use designation of office um on the areas adjacent to the campus but then also allows for an overlay to create an area plan that facilitates research and Technology uses that's a typo Brundage Lane alternative three that should say alternative three um we directly combines alternative one and alternative to Gosford Southwest is similar to Alternative one but includes additional mixed use and park designations near Acres and Dr Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard is similar to Alternative 1 but includes additional mixed use North of Highway 58 cleans up some of the designations on vacant Parcels on the northern part portion of the boulevard to allow for more streamlined law consolidations and development and aligns the designations with the housing element update I see no commissioner questions um just to clarify on the Gosford Southwest for alternative 3 can you highlight where the mixed juice is being proposed because I just see Park open space Oh is the next it's a mistake on the presentation apologies it's correct on the memo however so it looks like it is where is that here east of Acres east of Acres okay yeah east of acres is the mixed use and west of acres is open space a open space and then okay thank you for clarifying commissioner Strickland thank you I'm going back to paper after this uh I just had a question on alternative to and alternative three for uh uh Gosford and coffee so that's the uh I guess that's Gosford area right what was that what rosale I'm sorry rosale rosale and coffee so alternative two and alternative three are they're like they're insignificantly different I think I feel like I don't see much beneficial difference between the two um in the Northwest section of that mapping there's a little bit of Zone differences there's a very small sliver Park but they're almost identical what is the key difference between those two right what is the why would we pick two over three or 3 over two for that specific map I yeah I think generally it's important to remember that the the way that this was structured initially is to pick one city-wide alternative and so there may not be significant differences between a specific Focus area between two and three but since we had intended for one alternative City Wide to be chosen there are differences in the other Focus areas for that alternative right yeah I guess then it brings at the point if there's no real significant difference and it's pick all of one then you could flip two and three on that one if you wanted to and then it doesn't matter for your M cuz I mean it's and I think there was another one that was like that there were two I guess the restate overall concern there were a couple areas that seemed like we were just making a second or a third option for the sake of making an option and that's one of them it really feels like there's not a second or third option but I think that was more the statement so yeah in some areas we did have clearer like there was clearer Community Direction so sure and I think that was kind of indic indicative of the letter too is that some areas have lots of Direction and lots of notes and some have a line but that makes sense so thank you so much so my question I I was just wondering if um you could elaborate on the research and development areas kind of the planned um goal of of that new land use designation yeah that was in response to to a lot of feedback that we got requesting a research an area to have incubator spaces for research and development that really um really helps with connectivity between the city's economy and CSUB and so as far as what would go in that it's again it's designed to be sort of an incubator space for research and Technology but that would be to to be determined with the development of that overlay and I guess because to me um the challenge with the CSU area in particular that between area 2 and three is I think um a vibrant mixed juuse Community adjacent to a university is always a great win for um the city for the for the university for students um but I think research and development associated with the University is also a good win for a university and so in talking through a pref preferred alternative to me especially with the CSUB area study I feel like two and three both present strong visions and it would be great to see kind of this equal pairing of mixed juice in research and devel like kind of I feel like there's a false choice being made between one good idea and another good idea and I would love to see it more integrated as this mixed use vibrant and research centered Community as a vision just because they're both really I think strong ideas and then similarly alternative three references um building off existing strengths and I know um there was a visioning uh done for making downtown Bakersfield in conjunction with the high-speed rail and similar um open space ideas and um research and development ideas were incorporated as potentially near the highspeed rail site as well and in alternative three are there any opportunities for you know there was the idea of the downtown open space ring there was the idea of um this the highs speed rail being a great cont it to bring ideas and Research into our downtown of incorporating and I I feel like the the site that was selected just has so much undefined land around it that I think the success is really what we allow and encourage to go there and so I was just curious if some of those ideas for making downtown making downtown Bakersfield I think that's what it's called yeah could be more present in the zoning update we did uh we did reference that plan and we aligned it pretty uh pretty well considering the time scale of the general plan right looking at a 20year timeline for the general plan but we did do um open to suggestions on if there's something specific that we missed that you would like to see there but the intent was to align it pretty closely with that Vision well my my uh yeah I guess my suggestion would just be I think this idea of um research and development areas I feel like um the university is one kind of node where that could happen I think the highspeed rail site is another because we can bring people into the community from a greater distance and that was mentioned in the plan um so I don't know if that because that zone is sort of an overlay zone right it's not a specific Zone itself so and I do recall we had some discussion on where to put that research and development area and so I mean it it could be either or or it could potentially be both it's I always like both both but yeah I think that um and then I would just say I I I like your nod to pocket Parks I one of my first projects uh I'm an architect here um was a pocket park for a nonprofit and at that time uh the city wouldn't allow it to be called the park because they didn't recognize anything smaller than 5 acres and so it's very exciting to see um the acknowledgement in the shift towards um green spaces at a micro scale that could really impact Central neighborhoods that don't have access to the 5 acre Tot Lot soccer field parks of the suburbs and so I I I appreciate that aspect of both alternative two and three thank you it has been a while since public comments and um I would like to extend to the public you were always welcome during questions and answers so please or not answers questions uh we have not come to answers yet please uh state your name and proceed hi Sandra M um current policy Advocate Leadership Council um not really a comment but more of a clarifying question um I believe under brich Lane it said that they were going to go under intensity commercial for alternative one I was just wondering what that looked like or what type of businesses intensity commercial would bring in it it would be more it it's really it would be going from our our General commercial neighborhood commercial to more Regional commercial to which would allow um a little bit more intense commercial type uses such as um restaurants with drive-throughs are allowed in in that type of Zone and uh such sorry can I follow up is that okay yes please do okay um I guess then my biggest concern that I've heard from residents and I know it came up in the general plan workshop on Saturday is that we don't want more fast food restaurants in southeast Bakersfield it is just Jack in the Box Wendy's We Want A diversity of different restaurants that aren't too expensive but are also healthy right so we can go out um with our family and not be forced to eat mcdonal McDonald's right so um if it is going to come with the drive-thru I am a little concerned about that and restaurants serving alcohol is allowed so maybe the drive-through wasn't a good example thank you thank you you are sorry uh two comments and then uh yeah uh same but similar concern uh traffic on Brundage is already at a peak and uh adding those type of business is going to add to the traffic and um that's why light rails are really good in cities they're high tensely traffic already um and you probably wouldn't want to put uh light rail on Brundage because if you look at the street it's very narrow it's already two lanes you know you would have to do what they did at uh uh over there in your area sir uh where they extended the 24 Corridor pissed a lot of people off but it it was it was a good thing cost a lot of money but I don't think the city wants to really go through that again and so um I would suggest small light um uh businesses office complexes you know because they're close to downtown and downtown is going to cost you a lot more money so smaller businesses um you know like that and maybe some parks um where people say yeah you know what I can't afford downtown but I could afford to have my business here uh with would be beneficial and also add growth to the community thank you thank you and Mr colan or commissioner colan I did that twice tonight uh you are the next speaker okay thank you Cher kater I appreciate it so I'm still a little troubled by the notion that well let me let me get back to CSUB uh alternative three because it seems to uh not consider thank you the uh residential we've already approved there we have a a mixed you well I guess it's mixed use residential uh right next to the college that was approved uh two years ago if that was for some tow houses that we had already approved so what's the option there it will just be grandfathered in or what's the Thought on that or is that a dead deal okay okay and the other so that leads me into the the the question I'm still troubled a little bit by uh having to pick one alternative for the whole city and why we can't uh be a little because I think our needs are different downtown and our need you know if we want to have a research facilities that Cal State uh you know why we can't pick different alternatives for different areas and uh so can you talk about that a little bit please yeah again the intent was to have a Citywide Vision that kind of carried Bakersfield forward into the future Citywide and having all of these Focus areas aligned with that Vision but if the if the commission feels really strongly about one Focus area from a different alternative then we can swap we can take down those comments to swap them or make change um or go or go through Focus area by Focus to me some of the things feel natural it feels natural to have you know research facilities around a a college right and and maybe we shouldn't look at you know what we're doing around BC if there's any properties there that uh could maybe be designated for that but it just seems natural to me uh and I don't know why we have to be exclusive like if we pick one alternative that goes away or I I just don't I'm just struggling with that a little bit I I mean I appreciate all the work you've done on this and trying to I guess there is a PL you got to start right uh but uh you know to say okay well if we pick alternative two we're giv and Mr Strickland talked about oh we're going to give up jobs uh and that's the way it appears here and that's the way the Press is going to print it right we picked that alternative and we gave up a bunch of jobs and and that's really not our intent so does that prohibit us from picking one alternative over another and so I I I'm a little concerned about that I don't know if there was a question in there more of a comment so com really yeah thank you your comment was appreciated uh commissioner sticklin I I had a specific question but we actually we talked about this over the weekend but from here we pick a alternative path right let's say we pick one that shows pocket Parks or Parks um in general will rencon as a further part of this process help identify funding sources to pay for those because we do have a problem that sometimes we don't actually build the parks that we zone for we talked about this the other day though is that something that can be added into this is there already going to be included that rencon will help identify funding sources for that type of stuff or climate resiliency or so the ne as I've mentioned the next phase of the of this project is to develop the policies so the strategy IES that will go into implementing this vision and as part of that we do look at what funding is available and we make suggestions and help line the city up for getting that I will again remind the commission that this is a 20-year document and so those funding sources may change over the course of 20 years but we generally try to identify the ones that are present now in the short term um such as grants or development you know opportunities and what potentially might be coming in the future that you could be prepared for taking advantage of okay but funding sources whether it's now or 20 years it is at least included in some way in the future phases of this task we make recommendations on what would be good to use yes okay thank you thank you uh commissioner Neil I have some comments regarding the three alternatives for the um MLK um Boulevard area um specifically I want to know why why there's still so much designated um industrial uses in that area on all three Maps some of that was uh in speaking with with the council members vision for this area um just to the east of here is a good industrial uh sites so for good I mean you have good access on and off 58 uh and and some of the industrial you see right now is actually heavy industrial and we that would be down downgraded to a um little bit lighter industrial and it seems like there's a plan to include a lot of housing um on these three Maps what's the plan um and timeline to fully build out the roadways so that um there aren't circulation issues again some of that will come with our circulation element when we're reviewing that um on on building out roadways and everything I know like utilities right now we're we're looking at new sewer lines to support those housing projects that are coming in um but I I don't have a timeline for the roads no and um thank you for that I I'll look at that when we get there I guess um and then for the uh pieces of industrial um designated industrial here um it looks like they face the streetcape and um how will these be you know accessible is it possible to make these um accessible or visible um from only the mount ver Vernon side um can you can you kind of direct me on the map of where you're looking so the industrial spaces that face like for instance um look at alternative three well all of them if you look at um the top kind of box with the light gray and dark gray there and that that that it's right down the middle of MLK Boulevard right and so that would face the streetcape right so is there a way to basically um Fortress put it in the plan to Fortress that so that the people in that Community are not looking since there'll be so much housing around there are not looking at those industrial spaces no I understand and the question thank you for the clarification so some of that comes with our zoning and the requirements for those zones so uh like right now we have a requirement that uh if you're in industrial Zone and you're storing material it cannot be higher than the fence um which would therefore require a higher fence to block anything that's being stored at a greater height um we also have if you're if you're near residential or a budding residential that um masonry walls are required um but a lot of that detail comes down to the zoning and not necessarily the general plan that we're here looking at now right um last question there are areas designated in in these three Maps um which seem to be very similar um as are they not identical um I think they are um on these three maps are are they not identical can you tell me the distinctions between them CU they're looking pretty identical to me but there are areas designated with an overlay that that I think that's called site included in the two 2024 housing element with that with the blue lines overlay and it looks like those are residential areas that have the blue lines overlaying it so those were included in our 2024 housing element okay so then there's residential areas here that have not been included in the housing element the residential areas that were not included in the housing element are already existing residential uses so we just carried that over in those cases so none of the housing the residential areas that are not overlaid with blue all of the none of those are vacant I'm just it it may be vacant but the existing land use in your current General plan has it as residential already so why would it not be included in the housing element I'm I'm going to defer to my colleague here who is working on the housing element it may be included toward our capacity in the site's inventory um but it's by default so the ones that are lined are new sites that we've identified to include in this housing element that distinct are distinct from previous Cycles got it okay all right thank you for that [Applause] all right so um I need to acknowledge I don't know how the transition Works between asking questions and starting to give you all of our opinions about the preferred alternative um I was trying to be smooth about it and I just thought I'd come out and ask you do we just start talking or what do you uh so we we we have a slide um that has our key questions for discussion okay so there we go that's good I think these questions are helpful I think we're providing as much feedback as we can I I always say our role as a commission is to ask questions to be present to be a member of the public that agrees to show up and talk about issues so talk about what any any questions you have um I think I'll start one thing that I thought was really uh impactful and thank you um M mosa Placencia I think this uh Brenda Jen is a fantastic example of needing to see and I may harp on this a lot so I apologize to my Commissioners um these these Central District corridors as being more than just a C2 or a C1 designation brunda Jillian does not have the car capacity to be a major retail Northwest prominade competitor where people from all over the city are coming it would it would overwhelm infrastructure and so what's left are these exclusively commercial zones that really only work for a fast food restaurant to pop up because this the the law is too small to be the market the neighborhood doesn't have the right uh household median income and so I think to me it's these zoning conversations become very personal to Urban neighborhoods because what the land that's left really does only work for a Jack and the Box drive-thru because it's easy to build it's quick to erect it can close and become an arbz the next day and and so to me you know this tool of zoning and creating mixed use along these corridors becomes um a way of just future guarding our Central neighborhoods that to allow uses like small scale Grocers thoughtful housing projects be them affordable be the market rate um to really Infuse life into these corridors because I think the the 5 acre exclusively commercial property that's not in the hottest submarket of our city is really destined to be a use that maybe uh creat some shortcomings for these neighborhoods and so I think allowing more Innovative use more creative use to be easily accessible and the norm instead of the exception that has to come before us and then go before a a hearing and another hearing to me feels like a um a very confident step in uh one part of a very complex puzzle about how our city casts a vision of how we move forward now I'll say secondly um I just really appreciate when we get into the rosale highway the city in the Hills um the acres and um Pacho intersections is because I think we're a city that has grown to where as commissioner Coleman mentioned it isn't feasible that every resident is going to come downtown and do their business and then go back to their neighbor the city is too large and so I think as we think about rosale as we think about um South Bakersfield around the Auto Mall City in the Hills these communities are becoming neighborhoods in themselves and they need a place where they can Center where they can gather that isn't just a restaurant or a Jack In The Box or an arer you know and so I think to me the starting to um provide the opportunity for the a density adjacent to an open space that you can imagine becomes kind of the deao Town Center for acres in poo to me is a really exciting again nod in this idea that we want to be a city that moves forward and provides um opportunities for our residents to experience the city in our true size you know we're half a million people these amenities these places for social interaction um these densities you know residents of Bakersfield should be able to feel those and experience those not just in the downtown core but in their neighborhoods so I appreciate those two elements of um alternative two and three I kind of have in my mind where I'm going but again I just think this idea of um adapting to make uses that will achieve what we want for our city more easily achievable is a positive move forward so thank you for your presentation and uh commissioner stricklin I I'm going to Echo a lot of that I appreciate the presentation I like I I really enjoyed Saturday the workshop I really think what ringcon is doing is great very well structured very informative when I bemoon the lack of Engagement from the community it's more of a community loss kind of deal right you really can learn a lot by going to those and you really get a good chance to see the dedication and passion that you guys have for this so very appreciative uh going back to the Alternatives as Cher ker said I I'm the same way I live in northwest Bakersfield I shop across the street from my house I have dinner within the same shopping area um I don't come downtown much except for to go to Casey stick house or uh no shout out or um or to come here right I really try and stay to my area I go to the park I have friends in that area and then I look at like the Brun Lane Corridor as as mentioned on the alternative Maps just in this small strip section two and three really seem like the best way to give that kind of community right one really just looks like it's focused on another Jack in the Box or another commercial two and three start putting parks in the areas and and those would be the ones I would lean towards if we're kind of making decisions but I would struggle on making blanket decisions right so kind of hope when we get to the selection process or however the city wants to do it um maybe we could talk about going through each one one at a time approving what we think and then as a consultant myself no offense giving you that data and you guys figure it out from there right instead of making us pick one two or three my suggestion would be let us pick one or two or three maybe it comes out that it's it's all twos right who knows but just a suggestion so that was it and thank you so much for your time do we want to just go through each Focus area and pick one would that be helpful I think that sounds like a great um gr guiding principle I'm up for that yeah it's a good logical way all right you're not uh activated de let's see you're up commissioner Coleman you're up thank you so I know all right so um I I like what uh uh chair ker was talking about um you know we talked about that we're you know a community of 500,000 people but you know the rate we're growing by the 2045 will be a million people I I don't think that's unreasonable to expect we're going to double in that 20e period of time this is still the most inexpensive place to have a house in in Southern California so I think we're going to continue to grow so it's important that we address this but uh to uh Miss Pena's point about you know the neighbors not wanting the fast food not any more of the fast food restaurants I I agree with you to some degree you know we see these uh commercial plans that we're seeing and you know the the first thing they do is they line up six uh fast food restaurants along the major thoroughfare and then they throw in some shopping center behind it uh but uh thing we have to remember is that all of this is still Market driven and there is no market for sit down restaurants right now and nobody very few people are building fast food or sit down restaurants uh there seems to be this emphasis on these uh drivethru restaurants I don't like it but that's just the way it is and as long as uh you know we're a market driven Society it's going to continue to be that way um but I like the I like the developing the parcels so that we have the flexibility this is kind of what you were talking about is it gives them the flexibility to build a uh you know a sit down restaurant uh next to some other use that maybe we didn't see before uh so uh I think it's important to include these mixed use uh Alternatives as far as you know which alternative uh is better I I don't I don't know that I can say one or three one two or three is better for the whole Community I I think that we need to have discussion about each particular one um you asked about changes to make within that preferred alternative you know for me the research you know uh uh facilities uh need to be considered where they're where they're important and and um and you talk about other considerations it's just how it how it remains flexible so that we can uh adapt as the markets change over the next 20 years so so yeah from this point I would like to go into talking about each one I would really like to be able to see them on the screen the three options and and we didn't get it presented that way you got one option and then weed talk about it then we go to the other option it'd be really nice to see those presented in some way maybe that's not possible tonight but I don't know that we're going to be able to resolve any of this tonight either so has the report are you available to present the report because I think that was how it was organized in the you have to actually open the report in the agenda yeah if you go if you go to the uh 7A impress it's or it's organized by strategy area or uh Focus area I don't know if that's opening or not it go to the land use alternative summary yeah that's what the so if you look at the key changes to make that yeah that's the goal right yeah all right so if we uh if we look at each Alterna or each Focus area uh we'll do the three Alternatives discuss Pros cons and then um hope that it creates a very neat co co cohesive uh list for and and you know it's not like we're necessarily voting so a consensus would be nice but it's not required we can say for instance all the wards except for Ward s preferred alternative one W seven preferred alternative two okay I think so too I think the best way is uh let's let's uh just dive in and see what happens with uh number one I agree so we'll start with uh Focus area one yes that sounds fantastic all right are you going to pull it up or are you are you able to pull up the maps I I can pull up one of the Alternatives okay yeah let's start with alternative one and then we'll just kind of go from there downtown is identified as St study area one so we'll start there so the map is only up just for reference I'll just leave it on alternative three so if you look excuse me if you look at what was given on your screens as they attachment you should be able to compare your one two three Commissioners don't be biased by the clearly selected alternative by Mr Johnson yeah um please remain objective in your comments and response yeah all right um who would like to start us off with thoughts and comments I can oh oh commissioner core um for the downtown core I'm more leaning towards alternative three in addition to more mixed use along um north of Gara Circle where the highspeed uh uh train station is going to be is it alternative three alternative three yes in addition uh of more mixed use along uh garus Circle commissioner P three and and mine two and three yeah more mix thank you okay any other comments on okay I would generally agree um I think alternative three um I like the idea of um to me I feel like a one thing I would I think to commissioner Kors um where the mixed juice is applied north of Gara Circle um it seems tied a little close to highspeed rail you know looking at the um 34 Street stretch that leads between the hospital and the high speed rail feels like that could be a more activated mixed use core as well as as you go North to the open space uh of the current Riv it feels like a more mixed use neighborhood adjacent to Chester seems appropriate um and so yeah but but to me I would also Advocate I like the inclusion of um it's very subtle but there's a little open space provided at the northeastern edge of downtown that's not currently there and I think that's a nice strategy and um yeah and then I would just say I think research and development that highspeed rail I think is going to provide um the ability for us to connect to larger regions in California in a way that we never could and I think having um Innovation and research at at the Nexus of that would allow us to be to really grow from that connection I have like eight screens up I have no sympathy for you I have seven screens sorry all right to push it again uh commissioner ble commissioner Strickland is out I defer to commissioner bidd it's her that's her award yeah I was just going to mirror everybody else I was I was happy with three I think that anytime that we get more of the mixed use in these areas we're really opening it up to the community to decide what they need in the future so mixed use is my favorite and I think that seeing all purple on here makes me very happy so I go with number three too fantastic commissioner St Glen sure I'm I'm three as well um director Johnson are we able to pull up the other report the the summary one instead of the presentation or are you stuck in the PowerPoint only I I'm stuck in the PowerPoint no worries no worries um so I like alternative three best and I will say the reason is on kind of the East Side around 178 there's almost an implicit natural connection there's a park on the south side of 178 on the East and then above that there's that larger Green Space sorry I think I the mic there's a larger Green Space like it almost gives like a pseudo connection between the two sides with green and open space so that specifically is why I like I think mixed use is kind of on all of them you know this one's pretty consistent for open space and mixed but I really like that kind of connection through downtown it almost makes me think that if you you can't because one 78 are but you're almost on both sides it's like you're joining the two parts of the area so I really like that I think that's a great kind of use of the map and whoever put that one together good job I like it for the most the high-speed rail for the most part follows 204 um but it does really what we're concerned about let's just say is up to F Street so just the the northern part um highspeed rail state from Bakersfield down to Lancaster Palmdale area is still um being evaluated so but isn't isn't the highspeed rail come in at like 48 feet 98 96 just just a slight higher okay so how does that affect those other mixed use properties there at uh what is that that well the G of circle basically well I would say right now the Gara circle is not going to really be impacted too much by the high-speed rail although we would like to we are reevaluating the traffic flow in this area um as part of the highspeed rail station but um right now again that section of the of the line is is still being considered all right to me I would say one so I think so in considering key changes that would um that would make the preferred alternative stronger is um the high speed rail currently or recently held an a station area plan meeting and one of the challenges of the site is it's very far away from everything else in downtown and if you look at a 15minute Walk Circle from the station Chester like where Gara circle is is about a 15-minute walk from the highspeed rail station itself um F Street is a much more walkable connection to the highspeed rail station and what I see on this map is F Street being the very edge of the mixed use Zone to me I think where the highs speed rail was decided to go is that that F Street Corridor needs to become more of a main street because it is a more realistic walkable connection to the highspeed rail station Chester is actually pretty far um and so I mean it plays an important part because it is the Civic Boulevard of our city but I think you know up Street being um you know and yeah because yeah I think that would strengthen the map if we're putting in those recommendations um so we've heard are there any other Commissioners wishing to speak on this alternative so it seems like we've reached a consensus on what each commission preferred uh are there any other key changes that you'd like to see made I'm just going to look back and forth we're going to keep it informal it's working better than this um and then are there any considerations or concerns which take into account other than what's listed oh yeah I think I mentioned yeah I think 34th Street there is a vision plan in place to connect connect the hospital to the to Chester and that also seems like an area that where this mixed use in this neighborhood idea wasn't really translated as well so thank you okay with that being said um I'll uh let the downtown guy get off downtown and move on to other parts of the city um so we should move to um Oldtown Kern this is study area two there was a cons yes that's absolutely fine we're again we're not looking for a response from everyone um it's it's okay taking your feedback forward I feel like organizing via these questions seems really helpful to me so I think maybe for the future studies just if we could just say what our best alter is and then we can go into changes and concerns that way we can kind of talk about it quickly and then we can go into yep does that work for everyone all right so who wants to start us off on Oldtown Cur in a preferred alternative commissioner cin uh thank you yeah you called my name and I didn't hear it somehow um yeah so to me it's it's two or three still right I really like the mixed use and I especially like the pairing and mixed use with public facility I'd probably go with three what I would kind of ask is you know this seems like a good use for pocket parks and and I think it's probably three just because of that um I don't know if there's any I guess this is back to a question is there any key advantages between two and three that are easy to overlook that we should be considering right other than there's a little bit more mixed use on the southwest side is there anything else that's kind of key difference for two and three it's it's really just the additional mixed use okay alternative to then my opinion would be three for the additional mixed use and again I like how if you go from the southwest side up the mixed use seems to connect the zones within the uh Focus area so it looks like they're connected area so three for me all right any other Commissioners yeah I I I see a trend and a preference for as much mixed use as possible because we want to be flexible uh for however the markets develop you know this area here uh represents uh some very blighted areas um and then we need but the industrial that we have is also blighted so uh we need to be able to have the the flexibility to do whatever you know a developer chooses to want to do there and so I guess I I agree I would like to see more park in that area certainly and I guess alternative three gives you the most amount of Park so but uh but when we when we get down to the actual zoning and actually reserving some of this land I think I'd like to see more green space in this area especially because there is none now and it's very dense with housing so uh we need to find a way I think the pocket parks are perfect um you know uh even uh you know where you have an abandoned house and maybe it's been torn down and it's made into a little green space maybe it's not big enough to play baseball on but it might be big enough to have little uh you know little sitting area or something I don't know uh what that is exactly but am I rambling now okay I agree with commissioner Coman um an alternative three is for me as well commissioner do you want to okay um yeah I think three is for me as well um I guess just one thing that I would note is um the mixed juuse Zone translates into a regional Comm a General commercial Zone along Niles and along Baker and the current character of both of those streets is a combination of retail and residential and so to me it's a little concerning Translating that to straight commercial because there'll be a lot of non-conforming uses and I think in a neighborhood that is where we want to encourage economic activity someone coming in and a building a for Flex should be celebrated not out of compliance with zoning and so to me keeping Niles and Baker as kind of a mixed juuse Corridor because that's how they currently are built feel like again it gives the neighborhood more resiliency in the future because it gives them more flexibility on how to grow any more comments on map or study area I've called it like 800 things tonight I apologize study area two seeing none uh let's move to area three City and Hills I uh prefer alternative three uh for City in the Hills because there's more parks and green spaces and additionally um some of the Des currently designated uh commercial space is now um designated for mixed use so I like that thank you commissioner Strickland for option two you've got uh what is the resource or Urban Reserve at the North portion near the park towards what what is what is that physically the light blue it printed weird I guess is that professional office is that it's like a cyan instead yeah that is currently designated as an oil and petroleum use and so we did not well but on the other map you marked it as an open space so so options alternative one and three it's an open space and alternative I guess I don't know I'm color blind well that's alternative what's alternative to oh wait sorry are you referring to the one at the far north far north yeah just below the Green Park I was looking at the wrong one I because you alternative to it changes color and I don't know what color that's a that's a housing site it's the housing overlay so that's housing overlay the blue hashed one on top of what a great question you and you're talking on the northeast I should have brought my porner from home but yeah the very North very North dead north of the map you've got a horizontal Green Park and then just to the southwest of that you've got a light cyan and or teal or chanta clear yeah we'll look into that a little further we have a we have a couple of thoughts but um without having our like extensive notes and spreadsheets in front of us we're not quite certain on that if you have a preference for that I would love to hear it though well if it's oil I don't want to put a park on it and if it's housing I probably don't want to put a park on it um I I will say I don't like the commercial to the north I think I'm assuming I'm a regional commercial to the north so it's down to two and three I thought three had an overlay for housing so if three is a park in that North section and it's more green in open space then I'll go with three under duress my decision is three can I ask a question about uh this particular this particular Zone uh in all that housing was there no uh other commercial planned inside any of that housing because uh if that's the case then I prefer uh plan two or Plan Three because we need the flexibility uh to have some more uh Commercial Business options and know that that was always been a challenge for the people that were the first people to live out in that Canyon area that you know if you forgot to get you know milk on your way home it was you know an hour journey by the time you drove back into town and got to the store and came came back and so uh I'm I'm a little surprised that there wasn't more commercial planned considering the density of the housing I mean there's there are a lot of houses in that area there there's like from my recollection there's 12,000 houses out there that were planned so so I think I've stuck a question in the middle of that comment so which was was there no other commercial planned out in this yeah a lot of this area was based around what we already know the trend will be for the 20 for the next 20 years and the areas that we identified are the ones where we most see it likely that those would go in based on developer interest and existing development imagery store something correct right well those would be the areas where that would be most concentrated if that's the case then i' prefer option uh two or three because you have a little bit of that mixed use uh to the uh to the West that you don't have on alternative one yeah and I I want to piggyback on um commissioner colan's comments we do prefer mixed use but I it was clarified earlier that um for this area in particular we had the community show up um on a particular agenda item that I mentioned earlier and they said we need commercial space we need grocery stores we need this and that and because we clarified earlier that these mixed use areas don't have to be both residential and Commercial someone could potentially I don't know why they would come in here and build just all housing and that would basically you know make it expensive for a commercial developer in the area to want to come in and now have to get a general plan change for already demarked residential area so we might want to consider um even though alternative three to me looks the best maybe um deciding whether we want to lock in some commercial space in that big purple um triangle and also I did say that I prefer area three and I typically will um prefer green spaces however considering the density of residential H like the amount of residential housing here that upper North Green Box which is currently per our current current plan commercial space we might want to consider leaving that as commercial space so that there could be convenience stores or drugstore or something of that nature where the residents in that area don't have to come all the way down um to um so for like neighbor Hood Stores um for for instance so just something for us to consider and I would note as commissioner Coman said earlier a lot of this is driven by the market the city has approached for years now to get a major Supermarket out in this area and there's just not enough rooftops to to get the interest of uh of major supermarkets so then the city's um philosophy behind creating a mixed use Zone would be to add rooftops for the commercial uses how can we protect those spaces from becoming just residential uses if we go with this mixed use um plant can we can is can we can we make an overlay zone for this area specifically that would limit um that would require that if you do build in this area under the mixed use plan you have to also have a commercial use I don't know we can but if that's something that we can do or put in some sort of measure like that to make sure this area um the objective that we have behind marking this mixed use in the first place is actually you know realized I mean we we can look at that I mean the mixed use is really I mean ideally we want a true mixed use but the fact is is it it may work in certain areas and it may not work in in other areas so we we can take your feedback we can go with that um but I'm not sure how we would Zone something mixed use but then limit or require a certain um portion of that mixed use be either commercial or residential and I think that's what our problem is right now is that we're we're using this mixed mixed use term as open right and what we really need is truly mixed use we need you know a parcel that has uh a commercial element uh and maybe a residential element or temporary housing element or something that are using that space so we're I think we're using this mixed term mixed use term a little broader than we'd really like it to be because we can't make somebody you know uh commissioner Biddle and I met with developers at the East Hills uh City and lights and uh they just don't want to do mixed use that's don't want to do it and I think it's because developers are here these developers aren't used to doing that uh you know if you were in the Bay Area they'd be like yeah we got to build a commercial we need to put some apartments up above or we need to have a little motel hotel on the site but our developers right now aren't thinking that I don't know how we make them think that other than you know having these discussions every time they come along but so I don't know if maybe we're using this mixed use term too broadly and and that's a good point cuz I I would note that mixed use has a minimum density um which which is um 20.1 Acres or 20.1 dwelling units an acre minimum for the mx1 so it's not like you can put a fourplex and a gas station that's not mixed use um in that case the residential wouldn't be allowed because it's not enough density so again the mixed juuse is intended more I mean ideally you would have Office Space on the bottom coffee shops or stuff like that and then you would have more apartment style going up above um so I would I would caution that mixed use is not small homes well I would uh so I think there's this property and then just that conversation in general like I think to me um like a neighborhood mixed juice it feels like those are all like we created a problem right is that we've created a zone that doesn't pan out with what we need it to do and so I would say if the density is too high to make it successful in neighborhoods then we maybe we need a neighborhood mixed juice that is scaled to what would happen you know that that would just be my case on because I feel like we've created the mixed juice and if it's not meeting our needs then we didn't create it very well you know it's like you know and and that unless yeah but then I would say on this site to me um listening to the other Commissioners I feel like the mixed zoning at that intersection was overlaid at two zoomed out of a view because basically we've created the look of a town center with no possible way for a pedestrian to cross safely to get to these different sites because we have a freeway meeting a highway meeting a loop around with a Chevron gas station in the middle and we called at a mixed use Center and that is the scariest place to walk across you know it's scary to drive well even worse CU this is you know these are these are regulated roads where you cannot have interchanges at a pedestrian walking scale so to me I'd be curious on this map if that denser housing project that's adjacent to the largest mixed use site and there was sort of an actual Center that was not cut off by highways and roads where you couldn't just saunter across the road to go to a wine bar you know without dying um just because to me like that that Island especially like nobody is going to be able to get to that in a human scale complete streets way because the roads are regulated by calr not the city of Bakersfield and so to me I think a clustered Community Center at that location is fantastic it just feels like splitting it by a highway and a freeway and a loop around feels um shortsighted keep people yeah whereas if everything was to the north you have that City in the hill development that has some green space and some permeability and you really could build a like yeah like if that was the green space and then these two were not you know and then maybe those become True commercial you know as I thought yeah there's a so the alternative preferred is three or three I think it was three but with his comments heavily bolded because they do make sense right and also I made the comment about the commercial space up top for the neighborhood y yeah right we're already through three Maps we'll be home by midnight let's goak oh yeah oh yes we promised a break I'm so sorry to everyone uh five minute break promise that when does that promise well actually Mr Johnson kind of like teased it and then I said oh we'll get to that all right five minute break can we do 825 reconvene 5 minute break yeah yeah five minutes is is oh yeah I thought you were going to say 25 minute break I say it's a little extensive I'm g go eat dinner I'll come right back yeah 5 minutes five minutes five minutes thank you Mr Johnson we'll reconvene at 8:26 [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right I think we are uh the five minute time is eclipsed if we can gather our only 20 more maps to go noack for you oh you're going to get snacks go get snacks e shall we proceed I think we were talking we've moved on to the rosale corridor which is map or study area four who wants to kick us off our resident Northwest resident uh commissioner Strickland so just so just so I'm aware with staff I think they're already planning on rosale and coffee that the big blue spot is that already planned to be something is that's that's not the now right that's the current old PG substation that's going to stay that way forever right a portion of it yes um but around rosale highway I I'll say South Rosedale highway west of coffee um we're we're doing an environmental document for some commercial and that's that big purported planned shopping center right alternative I'm sorry is that's that big uh reported Shopping Center the yeah where the where the green open space is is uh Bakersfield common site got it got it um I am either or on two or three I will go three again just because just on the north side of Rosell uh west of coffee there's a little more green space at the back side I like it and I do like compared to one that we mix a mix Zone with some uh Light commercial so we kind of or heavy commercial so I like the mixing within those as well so I'm going to go three again um but I picked two on the next one whatever it is we have a second all right are there any I think uh yeah three seems to be the murmur of the Das with no adjustments any adjustments that conflict with the current plan for that that area salt of the Sal of the railroad tracks and guess to brim Hall it's probably going to die anyway that's uh the area south of the railroad tracks you're talking the Bakersfield Commons they actually have some plans in to um modify to add some residential my one comment on the rosale is I think the um so there is that shopping center plan on the southwest corner of C but I think there's sort of this mixed juuse Zone emerging but the path between the two is not very well connected right now so I do think as we look into the circulation element um creating better linkages across the the railroad track and around the um PG need substation Transformer to create like more thoughtful linkage between the two zones would be something I think the circulation element would benefit from then Al an additional comment um right now between the PG substation and the residential um area to the right um to the um there on on alternative to there's a green space there as a buffer that we don't see on alternative three can you can we add that green space um to Alternative three so alter if you look at alternative two there's a buffer Green Space Between the P substation and the residential can we add that to Alternative three m i uh good catch I didn't see that at all didn't even see it a nice little uh paintbrush kind of a high Lev question a sliver of Park like that what would you Invision or what would I guess rencon what would you typically see be built there is that I I can tell you this that that the road alignment there is uh calls for a freeway C or a railroad crossing um in no over but again that will be further evaluated at at um the circulation element and whether or not that's something we want for this area but that's been part of the constraints of of some of the developers to include bakersfi Commons because they' have to go over the tracks and so that green space right now is really for what's the correct term cherer an easan no not the easement but because they have to go wider oh like yeah like it's for the right away right away yeah yeah but separation separation grade it's keep yes thank you director burns my development Bingo is not I'm not on my game right now yeah all right so I heard a um three three three all right with no additional comments shall we move to map five um I really like alternative to to kind of throw us off the chasing threes for this one I like having more mixed use uh right there in that area I think there's uh a decent amount of professional office space already going especially with major corporate businesses lead leaving professional office spaces I don't think that uh isolating it and keeping it that would be beneficial I think having mixed use would be most beneficial for that area um so that's my two cents on that one great I think uh I'm sorry to jump on anybody else there I kind of prefer uh alternative three Believe It or Not uh which gives us a little which kind of designat some of that uh space around the campus to be there research and development kind of stuff it allows for use of some of the existing facilities that are already constructed and does leave some options to add some more in the future and and just because you mentioned it earlier when we talking about these specific Maps could we not make the comment that we could do mixed juice and I don't know if there's an overlay you could put but you can see both benefits of it'd be really nice if CSUB got research facilities in right and we we talk about all the time is how do we increase education and making a research area within Bakersfield but also mixed use is probably more likely to be developed is there a way to do one with an overlay so that you're really making two and three could we do two but with a three overlay so you could do mixed use or research in those specific areas well don't they both have the exact same amount of research and development two and three the only difference between the two is the fact that one is more designated office space and one has more mixed you space am I on the wrong color again I mean am I reading this wrong we had only put the overlay on alternative three and then the specifics of that one were to be defined through the policy and further zoning updates but there is not any reason why your recommendation cannot be to do alternative two with the mixed use with the overlay the overlay could go under go over any use that's suitable then I agree and just to clarify he's right there's the same amount of research I'm going to go home and throw away my printer is no good if anyone has a if anyone like a printer you let me know I got a free one for you printers are getting broken uh office space yeah yeah I just think this is a really strong idea I again I'm deferring to the circulation element too much but I've always thought communal media could be a really effective Main Street for University you know just this not campus book Campus Life space um I was curious um I know when Cal State did their master plan the parcels of Cal State are like directly adjacent to communal media were sort of preserved for public private Partnerships of research style it was like complimentary campus uses it's like an office building that served as a Southwest Campus for BC as an example there's a museum planned is there any working with CSUB to for them to sort of engage this Vision on on that side of their their property as well still that was oh we are in communic we have been talking to CSUB and have had a few meetings with them on what their plan is and the uh the feedback that we've gotten from the university is that they believe our process will be ahead of theirs and so we're just kind of collaborating to make sure we're mutually incorporating that Vision cool um that was so I think it was two with the three overlay right and then do you want to make your green space question okay all right BR Lane so two with an overlay next we're on brage Lane and I guess my my original question on this one was why it was limited to you know basically two blocks uh north south and only from 99 to Union when that whole Brundage Corridor goes all the way out to at least Mount Vernon or Beyond and whether we shouldn't be looking at it in a larger scale a weird um is it possible to expand that area at this point if you have if there are specific recommendations on what you would like to see change in that added area then we can consider that well part of the problem is that on this this area that you have highlighted in Brundage we have some lot con con constrictions is that the word yeah that's the word you got yeah okay uh whereas once you get uh east of Union Avenue you start to get a little larger Parcels of land to work with and so uh in order to meet some of these other things that people say they want we we probably should incorporate that before it gets you know because you already have I think once you get past Union Avenue you have a Recycling yard and then even be on that there's the BR Lan navigation Center I just think it should all be kind of thought about in one uh in one plan yeah the Recycling yard is there it's unsightly but it's there and uh uh you know how do you incorporate that into other things you want to do there well how about if you make uh an alternative selection and then we can look at expanding that area and then adjust accordingly so can we can we say we like alternative two or three or whatever but uh want a this number five so the 5A is you know the rest of the street how how far east are you looking to go to Mount Vernon how far can you [Laughter] go okay now that makes a little bit of sense right because MLK has been a an island right and essentially essentially the that area it would tie those two Focus areas together I like that a lot and when you were saying that my it thought I thought about the MLK map because it has that same density at the top as you're in central Bakersfield and it moves out to how it becomes a neighborhood and it becomes uh smaller scale houses you know it has a similar Vibe get whatever you don't get into the recycle or anything you get to keep it somewhat clear so would that be Al look for an alternative alternative three three with an extension down to MLK because three combines one and two Ju Just on a discussion point now it may be the color so that printer yeah and and I hate that our our public left but they had good points that that area is regional commercial Regional commercial Regional commercial and I don't see any of these options that aren't Regional commercial right unless again colors could be wrong but all three options are pretty heavy looking at the entrance onto the 99 from the 58 I wouldn't think you'd want one or three to have Regional commercial right there I'd want that to be lighter I would think I'm almost I don't like either map in that regard i' I'd like two I guess two to reduce the regional commercial right there at the freeway but I'd almost like to protect that area a little bit more and not have as much Regional commercial I'd really like to just extend the lighter shaded commercial throughout this whole section well to me the plan feels a little lopsided CU it we have a like a reimagined zoning to the North and then businesses usual to the South and it just feels like that's a very weird Urban form because you you can't really have great placemaking on one side and then the wiener Cil the swap meat the kind of existing land pattern to the South there's not a great example of that Urban form being like a vital so to me there's like a you start with this Oleander adjacent density of mixed juice I just don't understand why it doesn't cross Brundage Street cuz it like a streetscape project that's only one-sided is it's just a weird it's kind of weird to me you mean the mix like yeah if this is like this vibrant core yeah then why doesn't it cross the street yeah the8 well just just be like here you know okay got it why isn't this commercial yeah there should like if we're going to make it um more neighborhood serving space It should just be combatible does that address your concern I if I had a concern it'd be more towards two then three or one because of this versus because of this versus this right I don't want and I think they both have the same comment as your fronted Street if I go look at it I think there's a Taco Bell there now I've never eaten there but there's a Taco Bell right there there's a Carls right before it I guess the other alternative too does address that you know there aren't just fast food or fast food adjacent type businesses um does um chers comment to make um those uh designations south of Brundage in this Focus area to mix use address your concern I think so yeah I think that would address it yeah so the areas that are currently marked on alternative three or two three three three as um Regional commercial the red zones that are south of Brundage to make those purple zones yeah um all the way down because it stops here at uh South H yeah I don't want to speak too far into that if we're going to ask them to expand the zone and stuff like that I think that would change anyway but yeah regionally I just want to make sure I'm not I'm not picking mixed use for what commissioner Coman said earlier it's not just because it's easier to deal with there's a specific reason why I don't want Regional commercial in that area and it just seems like mixed use would be the better solution to that so alternative three with the mixed use I'm sorry the regional commercial red zones from um Oak down to South H changing all the red zones south of brage in that area to purple zones mix youth zones yes I would like that well I think that speaks to the um you know one of the goals of being Transit connected or more Transit ready is I think to create a Transit cord or you need customers that are within a walking zone of the transit stops and I feel like so we have to create the right land pattern before we can get I like yeah like as long as they want to do and I guess yeah just kind of depends on their Vision you know you just think about how it is now which is how it's own here but this is painting is this kind of end of a neighborhood you know only under these houses and then this like little shops and restaurants and apartments yeah just like like two or three floor Apartments corner store you know right yeah like any of like the main so I mean we heard your comments was there more I'm sorry oh we're trying okay I just we're just drawing some Street sections talking about density yeah and I would note that this slide is mislabeled so this is actually alternative three for brage Lane if if you're looking at this slide what we're trying to look at is to see what whether that um recommendation for mixed use in the regional commercial zones should extend down past South h on both sides of Brundage or not because I guess my question is the city's investing significant resources to create a complete Street on H Street in Chester um that will take people from 58 into downtown and so that to me feels like a confident nod towards like a walkable mixed use character but then as you get to those two prime streets the land use goes back to a more Suburban style because I know there is an Albertson there right now which is a great resource we wouldn't want to lose that but it it's just a more Suburban zoning pattern but at the same time we're spending $20 million to make a street that is walkable and bikable so to me it feels like this Corridor the nod of studying it the nod of making it more Community serving is to make it more active and so to me it feels like this whole Zone would want to be more kind of like what MLK is showing where MLK has confidently mixed juice in its Urban core and then as it moves into a more Suburban context it becomes a little bit more um low scale yeah I think that would that would be my comment which was rambling at best so I apologize for that it's also 848 I know it's yeah BR Brundage and a yes yeah uh I don't want Regional commercial but tonight do as we say not as we do yeah okay so we is it was was that rambling enough to be kind of cohesive all right the Chester yeah okay so I think the consensus is um alternative three um again with the area on the south side of Brundage from Oak to South H that is currently Regional commercial changing those to um mix use did we agree to have an option that connected the rest yeah yes and then just an expansion of this Focus area expansion of the focus area down to MLK to see what the city has a vision for for that area a small addendum of a mile yeah now do you need to change order from us or is that we understand your comments let address it to Paul Johnson at this end all right moving right along Gosford Southwest I live in this area drive this area a thousand times a year have business and property in this area I firmly am in love with alternative three for this area I think it's going to bring what's been missing to this area um especially along Pacho and what's occurring there I I really like alternative three for that a lot might I ask a question on alternative three the two blue I'm given up at this point if my color's right or not but what I think is public facilities what are those on alternative three cuz I see they're common for the lower one but the northern one is only on alternative three now that would be the northern triangle I believe is a federal office building and then I'm not quite sure what the bottom uh the bottom is we would have to look that up is is it a mistake that it's not a blue triangle on the north on all three or is that intentional to turn a federal building into light industrial although depending on who you ask they probably already are the the existing uh land use currently is light industrial and alternative three we formalized that designation okay yeah then then I I concur I agree with commissioner bashirtash I think it's a great addition to that mixed juice Park adjacency is a great addition to the neighborhood yeah does that area need some love just to clarify is that where they put like a bike path next to irrigation canal or they're talking about like a walking path it's been it's been there for a few years now but uh because Union Pacific doesn't regulate their railroads it's become a transient pathway that nobody really wants to frequent at all okay yeah that was I think we're all yeah we can move on alternative three let's move on MLK CH do you want to pick us up so for this um for this area I like alternative to um but adopting some of the mix use spaces from um the other Alternatives specifically um the mix use spaces um let's see here that on alternative three that the little I guess top part there's a triangle on the bottom left of that little stick part up top making that little triangle a mix use um Zone and also um also down um MLK Boulevard there is a on option three was it option three that I like option three there's a um that little blue square right next to the word Cottonwood um that parcel there to the right with um a mix use Zone there adopting adopting that and then also I'm sorry I think I like number three okay than what's wrong with it it's great yeah just while you're looking at that just a quick question is the assumption that all the blue buildings on here um need to be formalized as public facilities and if they're blue on here you're just doing what you should be doing yes that's correct we're just realigning the land use of what's already there so if we have something that's blue is it not advisable to change it to mixed use or something else because it's a public facility today or we just if it's a federal building today and we CH say hey we'll make it mixed use instead it's not mixed use right it's a federal building correct it's it's not something that we would expect the use to change within the lifespan of this plan okay right so that may just be something to look at because there's a lot of federal buildings in that area and I'm worried that if we make mixed use because it would be better for the area if they're not truly able to become mixed use then it doesn't solve the problem I think you're trying to fix which is putting mixed use in the area right yeah I I would like to see all of the mix use spaces in number two adopting three but moving all the mixu spaces from number two into number three what's the what's the story on that panh handle that you have there what's on the east side of that uh uh that little dotted line you have is a big looks like empty Parcels does anybody know I'm just not sure why we narrowed it out right there I get it why you don't have it to the left it's all residential you can't do anything about it anyway but to the east I'm not sure why we can't incorporate that in our plan are you talking just north of 58 just north of 58 right there there on the uh east side of that that's the blnc and all the um warehousing north of 58 east of there correct yes so uh so we don't want to influence how that's developed in the future but it's all run down if I remember right we have a lot we have a lot of interest in um redeveloping that industrial portion taking some of those older warehouses out plus again that's where our um brage Lane navigation Center is and the city's doing some work in there that's where the navigation Center is at I didn't realize it was the navigation Center is just east of MLK okay west of Washington Street okay well I think that makes the point though we really like to see that Brundage Lane tied into the MLK here I mean we're talking about not that far Map size it's this much but uh I think that we should be looking at how it all how it all works together [Music] that's all I have to say about it otherwise I like uh I like I like this alternative three uh if if I had comments on any of this for alternative three looking at it the park due south I think is that's MLK Park right at the bottom of the map no here oh I'm sorry I'm you know they let you just bring alcohol in here so I um so okay I guess my only comment then and that's less of a comment is I was thinking wow I'm way off uh I would like to see a little bit more green space if we're taking in community comments so the community and the um Council I'm assuming put MLK Boulevard on here to be intentional about directing the effort to improve the area that's just an assumption no answer on that one I I would like to just keep that in mind that maybe a little more green space um where feasible if we go with three we've got the existing down south towards Panama we've got the smaller SE up top and it looks like there's one that's overlaid potentially in the center I don't know if there's a place to fit it and I don't think I have the um required brain power uh to say where I'd like it but that would just be my commented I also like three but I would like just a little more either green or open space um and then the only other question I had was Urban Reserve I think on the bottom South the uh CH I think I called it chanta clear earlier today um Urban Reserve what is the intention of an urban Reserve area I think I think one's resource and one's Urban Reserve or so uh throughout the uh land use uh designation consolidation process the feedback that we received from City staff was that um the resource intensive agriculture uh designation was going to be Consolidated into an urban Reserve just as a more um generalized terminology for land that would eventually be developed into uh Urban you know Urban Development so so like a is that a farm a small right currently used either active in agriculture or its last active use was agriculture it's a horse farm right now okay it's a horse farm thank you yeah horse farm yeah I I vote to keep the horse farm then thank you I just want to agree with commissioner Strickland's um that is a large mass of lend that does not have any green spaces so I would agree on taking a look and seeing where we can fit that I would note towards that southern end um there's a local developer and this area is kind of becoming known as the the new communities of deloro or the communities of the new deloro um there's some pretty impressive housing going to be put in here and those those housing developments will have parks within those developments and not necessarily set aside what you see here so is the intent that now that you have these zones that that will drive uh uh streetscape improvements and other plans the city has because you know quite frankly MLK Boulevard really needs to be redone I know you're doing some of it in the current budget year but the rest of it all needs to be done so is the idea that these little zones are going to drive future Planning by the city as far as uh as far as acquiring properties uh imminent domain if necessary uh Street improvements that kind of thing is that the idea it's a combination of so we have again the land use map and then the policies that will come in the next phase that we'll be developing and so this land use map represents the vision for what the city would like to accomplish and um we will the policies will then kind of lay out how to accomplish that some of that may be acquisition of land some of it may be development agreements there's a variety of ways that can be accomplished can can I ask a broader question because everybody talks about master planed communities and and we have a lot of cities in California that are master plann and you know the buildings are similar and you know they have certain architectural Styles and you know it's really nice you a lot of landscaping stuff uh how does that differ from what we're doing I mean it's very similar process we're doing it on a Citywide level and driven by Community you know Community input and you know everything that we heard from the community but it is a very similar a master plan is sort of a developer driven more localized version thank you so I think the um consensus was map three with what with with yeah with two with the mixed juice components of two incorporating it C can I add the comment the green spaces that we're probably looking for because I see some on the top and the bottom of this Focus area but in the Middle where we have some more dense residential area um I mean we're going to have more bodies and no parks there that's where we're looking I don't know what the distance between brage Lane and Panama Lane is but um if we could focus on trying to add the green spaces in in the middle of that zone where we have the orange which are the head more dense um presidential all right I think uh with that dare we give a confident what our preferred alternative is Citywide or will we just take do you think those comments give you what you need to go to council okay fantastic good job everyone uh Mr Johnson you want to thank everybody for their input we appreciate that and um we have what we need and if you're ready you can move on to the next item fantastic uh Madam CL oh thank you again for your presentation thank you for um bearing with us with our comments and thank you for working to make a better bers Bakers field with that Madame clerk next item please agenda item eight Communications does staff have any uh more Communications yeah just uh again I would like to thank ring con um the being they've been great working with us for the last few years um and few more years ahead hopefully not that long that we so we can finish up is what I mean till 20 till 2045 is that the uh maybe uh other than that we do have our next meeting on September 5th thank you Madame clerk next item please agenda item nine commission comments any commissioner have any comments if not on behalf of the commission I will just say thank you so much ringcon Consulting thank you for all your work and for the conversation tonight and good luck Council U Madam clerk next item please agenda item 10 adjournment this meeting is adjourned at 9:04 have a great evening [Music] he [Music] [Music]