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 7 pm and Sunday at 10 A.M the agenda for this meeting can be downloaded at www.bakersfieldcity.us presiding over this evening's meeting chair Daniel cater good evening it is my pleasure to call to order the September 1st 2022 Planning Commission meeting Madam clerk would you please call the roll chair cater here Vice chair Bashir Tash here commissioner Wade here commissioner Lomas here commissioner Neal commissioner Biddle here commissioner Komen here please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under 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 in the development process 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 the applications are received the city planning division analyzes the request planning staff will present the facts about the project along with their recommendation to the Planning Commission who will approve the item or make a recommendation as appropriate Madam clerk next item please agenda item 3A agenda item public statements does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items listed on tonight's agenda seeing no public statements on items on tonight's agenda does anyone in the audience wish to 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 number four consent calendar items all matters listed under the consent items do not require public hearing and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of said item unless staff or commissioner requests specific items be discussed and or removed for separate action may I get a motion to adopt or may emotion approving the consent items I'll make a motion to approve the consent items commissioner Biddle do I have a second a second commissioner Tash Commissioners please cast your votes digitally I believe motion is approved with commissioner Neil absent thank you madam clerk next item please agenda item number five consent public hearings now is the time for consent public hearings 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 any member of the public wish to remove a consent public hearing item seeing no members of the public wishing to move a consent public hearing item for separate consideration does any commissioner or staff wish to remove a consent public hearing item okay seeing no staff or commissioner wishing to remove an item at this time the consent public hearing items not removed which are all items tonight items five A through five E are now closed may get a motion to adopt staff's recommendation on the consent public hearing items 5A through 5e incorporating all staff memoranda and revised staff recommendations I'd like to make a motion to approve what you said thank you uh commissioner Coleman may have a second commissioner bashutash Commissioners please cast your votes motion is approved with commissioner Neil absent thank you madam clerk next item please there are no non-consent public hearing items thank you Madam clerk next item please agenda item number seven workshops Mr Johnson would you please provide us with the workshop item yes good evening Commissioners members of the audience this is going to be a high level workshop on our online permitting process or e-permits um this was a something that's been in the works for about three years now as we go through how it incorporates into our existing systems and it actually went Live one month ago from today August 1st you can't go forward until you know how or where you come from so let me explain a little bit how we used to process projects when an application was submitted over the counter it was all digital copies large sheets of paper usually two foot by three foot plans were submitted uh and the fees were paid it then went to the our one of our clerks who established a case File and then that was put on the supervisor's desk for an initial review for completeness and that would take two to three days depending on on you know the workload and everything if it was incomplete the applicant would be advised what was needed to make the necessary Corrections those revisions would be made and then the applicant would resubmit it once it was deemed complete the supervisor would assign it to a planner and the planner would then consolidate all the documents and make all the necessary stamps and send it to our site plan review committee which consists of the seven or eight different departments that you see on the right hand side there once those departments each looked at the comments and again since these were paper copies they would have to come to the planning department and so sometimes they come once a week or twice a week they make their comments and then that would go back to the planner who would consolidate those comments repair a letter that letter would then go back to the clerk who would correct it for grammatics and then it would go to the supervisor for review it would then come to the planning director for Signature and then it would be sent to the applicant and the goal for that time frame was about 30 days and depending on workload or the complexity of the project oftentimes that took a little bit longer so to meet County's goal of Expediting projects and streamlining the process again about three years ago 2019 late 2019 we went under contract with evolve and from their website they are a proven e-plan review for the building planning engineering basically our site plan review committee uh some of the key features that they offer are file and makeup management so files are uploaded online and once they're uploaded online then everything is digital once that comes through City staff what we do is we can assign it to certain site plan review committee members that need to review it we'll assign it to planners and then we assign dates with that and you'll receive Auto emails or they will receive automatic emails saying look you have two weeks to complete this you have one more day to complete this it's due today and then it's past due and again with that applicant we'll also receive emails if there was something missing though so if they submit uh and they didn't pay the fees they'll get automatically email saying you need to pay fees or if there's something missing in the document the planner will make a comment and they'll get that almost instantaneous it'll provide faster feedback to the applicants as I mentioned because it's all digital now we don't have to you know write a letter or email a letter uh the review status everybody will know where it's at from any City staff that's involved or the applicant all they have to do is pull up their project number online and they'll find out where the project is in the review status they'll find out who has reviewed who has not reviewed and again that kind of comes into the full accountability will know where our potential challenges may be of where we need to focus some efforts to to speed up review process with that also oftentimes we'll get uh you know an applicant or developer that will say well you know I submitted the plan six months ago when in reality you know we've reviewed those plans and it's been with the applicant for changes for four of those six months so it's not a fair accurate assessment however again this will allow us to see where the city may be falling short and then we can make those Corrections two of the main positives for this and I'm just going to really focus on one is a quick step through way to zoom to and compare the prior markup versions of new corrected drawings and so when drawings are submitted what you what what you they'll get back the applicant will get back are changes that are done in PDF uh initially in under the old way changes were handwritten hopefully they were legible there was markings all over the plans and now everything and I'll show you a photo here in a moment everything is going to be all digital um so everything's typed in and once changes are resubmitted what this system allows it to do is take the original plan along with the corrections and overlay it and we can see what changes were made but what it also does we can see if any additional changes were made that weren't pointed out so for instance we've had times where we've said you know show the nearest fire hydrant that's the only thing that's left on the plans no submit plans showing where the nearest fire hydrant is but also in the meantime they've adjusted the size of a building which impacted the parking calculations and staff has to go back and re-look at all those things this will be a quick overview or not overview and an overlay and we can identify almost instantaneous if additional changes were made again going paperless anytime online submissions so these can you don't have to wait for the planning or the building offices to be open Monday through Friday you can submit weekends you can submit after hours you can submit anytime you'd like no more paper storage and I got some photos some of the offices we used to have paper everywhere and it was difficult to find where plans were Lobby traffic this should reduce the amount of Lobby traffic because everybody is now corresponding and doing the work online and so those folks that in the lobby that were actually helping that may have a question on something rather than a plan question um supports teleworking it's not that we work from home we're customer service so we're here should there be another pandemic we would be allowed to work from home in this case instead of plans sitting on the shelf for 48 hours you know to to get clean you know it's all we can continue working and it should be really no no hiccup in that and again mobile access so you can see the status of your plans or review anything pretty much anytime so again here's some of the big sheets that we used to mark up and there would be different colors and sometimes legible sometimes not in chair cater you've seen plenty of these plans and a lot of times we'll have to go over it with the developer to make sure everybody's clear on what's needed and so now everything will be done online we can Cloud out you know the corrections that need to be made and we can add a note um we can different departments will use different colors so instance like the green could be planning and we're going to say you know add additional landscape trees in this area you know you need to add three more trees the blue could be Public Works where you need to add curb Gutter and sidewalk to this area and then the developer can click just to see Public Works comments see all comments if it's too busy um if it's too busy with all comments they can click and just see individual Department comments so that way they know what they're looking at and looking for and again this is the office on the upper right uh is actually sitting in the audience right now um and then you can see some of our file cabinets are not filed but are filing uh plans that we're waiting for review and it just it gets busy when when you're dealing with all these paper sheets now you can have clean desks we can work and again I think one of the biggest things that's going to be a benefit is the amount of time that people actually have to wait in line or not wait in line anymore and in our assistance can be more direct towards people that really need assistance we will have as we get through uh the challenge of getting everybody up to speed developers and staff on using the system we will be having workstations out there where we can help people walk through submitting online but we are now pushing everything except for a few projects to be submitted online and before I open it up to questions again just a real high level Workshop I'm not trying to market the project because or the product because we have already implemented it but if you are curious and need a little bit more detail um let me know and we can set up some in-person meetings and I can walk you actually through the whole the whole system uh I would gladly do that and again this completes my presentation commissioner Coleman thank you commissioner cater um so is this intended to be like cradle the grave kind of thing so this thing would come in as an application it would go through the planning process building department with comment on it fire department comment on it and then would it would it survive planning department would that then go to the building department once permits were issued and with all the uh with all the inspections be documented in there and and so at the in the end of the end of the project we would have a complete record of everything that went on with that project yes thank you for that question um so there is a small change on how we do it now on some of our resubmittals you can submit to building uh after after it's gone through planning and you've seen the corrections you can submit to building uh and then they'll provide a backup copy to planning and that we will back check and so they're going down kind of parallel lines and oftentimes the site plan is not still up to standard and there's still Corrections that need to be made while building is reviewing the footprint let's just say and they find it acceptable but then Solid Waste will say well you need to move the trash enclosure that then impacts the building footprint and so you have a possibility of what building reviewed they need to go back and re-review it so under this evolve process you're going to go through planning and the site plan is going to be final and when you're done with that you won't be back to planning at all your your next submittal will stamp the plans and say this is what it's going to be what it's going to look like that will then be submitted over to building and building will look at the structural and everything that way and then they will be able to use this going forward out into the field for inspections and such and then it'll have one complete record and that will once it's final certificate of occupancy or whatnot it'll be saved on what we call our laserfish file and we'll have that record in perpetuity So when you say stamping you it's a virtual stamp it is a virtual stamp which is one of the requirements and again maybe for chair cater is that the upper right hand corner remain vacant or no writing or anything in the upper right hand corner about a two inch by two inch block so that way it can be virtually stamped there's security protocols in place to keep that from limiting it to who can do that correct that's correct okay yes now when it goes to the building because typically once planning department approves everything it goes to the building department for actual permits to construct right I've provided that all the site work's been done and all that kind of thing so uh you know in in the day we you would treasure this stamp set of documents that you could then go out and build your building right and you kept that you know under lock and key so that you didn't have any disputes later is this all going to become virtual is that is it going to be the inspectors are going to be out there with the tablets and checking off this stuff is that the intent eventually that is the intent so the plans will all be on an iPad we'll say and if there's a dispute out on the field because I will assume that some developers will want the printed sheets for for their contractors to look at but we will have an iPad that an inspector can say look no here's here's the stamped approval here's the way it should be I don't know how the printed sheets got revised so ultimately everything will be digital right now we're really focused on grading permits grading plans uh conditional use permits site plan reviews over counter permits General plan amendments zone changes we will get to those down the road but those really don't have a site plan review associated with those but we just want to try to work through any flaws right now on on a majority of permits before we Implement everything well I'll just say from my standpoint and I'm his I'm historically opposed to technology but but uh and change mostly change I don't deal with all the change but uh this sounds like a really good program seems like uh certainly the way we need to do things in the future so thank you for sharing and again the intent is to save valuable time and money to the developer to City staff and the General Public thank you commissioner coming are there any other Commissioners wishing to speak but I'll just say I have a lot of questions that pertain to using the program but they are not really related to this commission or um the members of the public I would just say that in jurisdictions I've worked with that have gone digital I think there is a great um there's great accountability both from the public and from um the different public agencies I think being able to track changes in a way that is not cumbersome and requiring somebody to manually change out 200 sheets of paper on a front counter seems very beneficial and uh so can I just clarify the so then it's only being implemented in some of the submittals or is everything being submitted to planning right now now a digital submittal the items that are not being digitally submitted to planning would be like land division okay uh General plan Amendment zone changes uh everything else anything that really involves a site plan review which would be a condition to use permit zoning modification um and like I say over-the-counter like home occupation permits or water heater changeouts those are all being submitted online it does and then from the building department perspective are all building uh you know tenant Improvement things that don't go through the site plan process those are all also digitally being submitted digitally as well as things that are current will have been currently in the process basically like fact checks okay perfect thank you no I just I think it's a great step forward and I think it's a great uh tool for our city so thank you and thank you for the presentation with that Madam clerk next item please agenda item number eight Communications there's a new staff uh does Steph have any Communications we're gonna do just a quick update on our general Plan update we have done the community outreach sessions we are summarizing the results of those you will be involved in some stakeholder meetings so you will probably receive an email either from staff or from a consultant we would request that that you work and give of your time with that with the consultant it'll probably be you know it could be 15 20 minutes of questions but your input on that as a planning commissioner will be very important and just to keep things on the Forefront there is a a water bottle not not the water bottle but yes thank you um there there's a water bottles just so everybody's keeps that in their okay I'll make a note that there was a water bottle in every photograph from the building department in the uh in the presentation so that's very very good nice catch the uh The Branding is is running very deep of this effort because it is very important I did not think you would catch that I would also like to introduce Shannon Clark he is representing the building department now he'll be with us we will have a meeting September 15th um that's in two weeks we have one item obviously a conditional use permit that's being continued to that meeting and we'll have a couple other items that's all I have thank you and welcome uh Mr Clark Madam clerk next item please agenda item number nine commission Commons uh do any Commissioners have any comments I would just like to thank Bakersfield college students from the criminal justice program that showed up tonight and becoming part of the Civic process hopefully we'll see after you graduate and you stay here locally so thank you girls welcome to the commission I hope you enjoyed tonight seeing no other commissioner comments Madam clerk next item please agenda item 10 adjournment this meeting is adjourned at 5 54. have a great evening everyone [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]