good evening and welcome to the planning commission meeting of january 7th 2020 my name is gary hirsch hey pardon me 2021 yeah rolled over happy new year happy new year i am gary hirsch i am the chairperson of the commission the planning commission is a citizen body appointed by city council the commission is empowered to make final decisions on certain matters with those being appealable to city council on other matters the commission acts an advisory role to the council with the council making the final decision you will have an opportunity to address the commission during the public hearing portion of the meeting your testimony is very much appreciated and encouraged the commission does act from a written agenda you will need to fill out a yellow speaker card and give it to city staff if you wish to speak on an item copies of the agenda and the speaker cards are located on the table just inside the main lobby door to the civic center at this time i'll ask you to silence your cell phones and other electronic devices thank you there are seven members appointed to the planning commission at this time i'll ask the commissioners to introduce themselves and state the district which they are representing starting on my far right good evening i'm ed nyberg representing the cholla district good evening i'm vern crow representing cactus good evening i'm al lennox vice chair representing the peril district my name is rick harper i represent the saguaro district warren wilfong the ocatillo district and as i said i am gary hirsch a mayor oral appointee representing the city at large and i am a resident of the cactus district let the record reflect that all commissioners with the exception of commissioner nowakowski who is in route are in attendance this evening and we will introduce commissioner nowakowski upon his arrival for the record the planning commission receives staff assistance and guidance from the planning division and the city attorney's office mr metta would you please introduce city staff who are present this evening mr chairman and members of the planning commission to my extreme left is uh diana figueroa who's the recording secretary to my right mr jim gruber the chief deputy city attorney and right adjacent to me on my left is george gellard who is the senior planning project manager i'm jamshid mehta i'm the newest staff member in the development services group and i will serve as your liaison for this meeting and probably a few more until we have a permanent replacement for the planning administrator position thank you mr meta and welcome back to glendale after uh extended sabbatical yes that's right appreciate it thank you is there anyone in the audience that would wish to speak on an item this evening that is not on tonight's agenda because these items are not on tonight's agenda the commission cannot take action this evening however items may be added to a future agenda anyone here this evening that would like to speak on a non-agenda item hearing and seeing none i'll ask commissioner nowakowski to introduce himself and his addition to the meeting for the record thank you mr chair martin nowakowski i represent the residents of the yucca district thank you the record could reflect that all members of the planning commission are present at this time now we'll move on to approval of the minutes we have minutes from the planning commission meeting of december 3rd 2020. is your emotion salute we have a motion and a second for approval of the december 3rd 2020 planning commission meeting minutes all in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion is passed the minutes are approved mr mead are there any withdrawals or contingencies this evening thank you sir we'll now move on to our public hearing items the purpose of a public hearing is to provide interested parties an opportunity to present testimony for the commission's consideration we will follow the same procedure for each item the chair will call the application number and the name of the applicant staff will present the report and answer questions from the excuse me from the commission the applicant will be given an opportunity to make a presentation and answer questions from the commission other persons who wish to testify will be asked to do so and answer questions from the commission the applicant will have an opportunity for closing comments staff will be asked for any final comments on the application and procedural guidance the chair will then close the public hearing and ask for a motion prior to discussion you will need to state your name and address for the record if you wish to speak on an item please be brief to the point and avoid repetition and the chair does reserve the right to limit the length of your testimony all exhibits shown to the commission shall become part of the permanent record and must be submitted for the file and let's see this evening we have one public hearing item palm air apartments phase 2 gpa 20-09 mr gaylord is doing the city presentation good evening sir thank you mr chairman members of the commission good evening george gaylord glendale city planning staff the case is before you this evening our gpa 2009 and zon2015 having to do with the phase two portion of the palm air apartments project the request has two parts once again there's a minor general plan amendment from gc or general commercial to hdr 30 which is high density residential 30 units to the acre and a rezone from c2 or general commercial to r5 multi-family the project site is located at the southeast corner of 45th avenue and palmyra avenue somewhat just about two miles east of uh city hall and the site itself is located within a portion of the community once again designated gc by the uh glendale general plan or general commercial it's located at the kind of the northeast corner that commercial corridor once again just east of 45th avenue and south of palmer that southeast corner uh the zoning for the site currently again is c2 everything to the north and east of uh the site is zoned multi-family and south and west is basically commercial zones c2 and c3 this is an aerial uh depiction of the site and the the surrounding development you can see once again it's uh located uh the southeast block of palmyra and 45th palm air is that first street to the north of glendale avenue again right alongside of 45th avenue this is a little better look at the site currently there is an rv storage facility located on the property the site to the east is vacant at this time the east portion of the property the vacant site i should say is also part of a larger this is two parcels it's one project this is a zone change for phase two you may not have heard about phase one yet this did not require any kind of zoning action that went through the process within the last year we recently [Music] did a design review with that site i believe there's about 53 units located on that east parcel the the plans for it have been approved through the design review process and they're in for permits currently the subject property includes the parcel to the west again that southeast corner of palmyra 45th i believe this is a zoning change from c2 to r5 that would result in i think it's 42 units a little a picture of the ground level site the area to the left of the screen is the undeveloped portion of the palm air that's the the first unit of the project and the enclosed area behind the black wall is the rv storage area that would be redeveloped as the the second second phase of this project this is looking west along palm air to the intersection of 45th street what you see to the right of the screen is some existing townhome development this is kind of a distorted view of the intersection there the camera has narrowed the intersection to make it look kind of sharp but it's actually a 90 degree angle this is looking east palm air is to the left of the screen and 45th avenue is to the right you're looking toward the entry of the existing storage facility this is a shot immediately across 50 45th avenue to the west what it what you're looking at here is a recently demolished site i think in association with the school there were some buildings there that were removed recently it's now vacant as part of a redevelopment project this is looking uh this is the site immediately to the south you can see the block wall along the south side of the storage facility the applicant mailed a initial notice to adjacent property owners on october the 1st everybody within 300 feet of the site was notified they also were invited to participate in a virtual neighborhood meeting an online meeting on october the 15th there were no participants in that meeting tonight's hearing has been advertised um notices were mail out and uh the site was posted on december the 17th excuse me the notices were mailed on the 18th in our review of the the applicant's request staff finds that it's consistent with the city's general plan on zoning ordinance and the residential design development policies we believe it promotes infill development where infrastructure is already available contributes to the housing diversity of the area and affordability and in general furthers the public health safety welfare of the citizens of glendale staff is therefore recommending approval of gpa 20-0-9 as written and approval of zeron 20-15 subject to the following stipulation uh one substantial conformance to the project narrative dated september 21st 2020. uh mr chairman i uh i forgot to introduce the applicant this is adam baugh with with the morris plc they're representing the owners palmer uh investments llc with him this evening is also ryan hatch the developer of the project next door i believe is also involved in this project and hannah blaim mr chairman thank you mr gilbert commissioners do we have any questions commissioner crowe mr gellard is this section 8 housing i'd defer that to the applicant i guess you can do it when you come up thank you very much additional questions commissioner nowakowski all right i i see phase one and i say see phase two uh do you know if when this is developed if it's going to be developed at the same time is it the same developer is it one development because just judging by how the landscape design is it seems like there's there's uh you know palm air uh west and palmyra east so with one little driveway connecting but just just seems like if it's gonna be one developer that the design would have been different just curious my understanding is it's all the same owner same developer all right and so the expectation mr chair mr gaylor is that the development will be developed at the same time because if you travel on palmer between 45th and 43rd you know it's very different this this there's a sidewalk then there's no sidewalk and then there's a sidewalk so my hope is that uh it'd be done at in the same time and then also you know that big vacant lot in phase one is a cut through from palmyra to glendale so there's there's a lot of things going on in that vacant lot just yeah so just letting you know and then has there been any outreach to the academy of math and sciences across the street i know you're going to have a driveway into phase one right across from the that charter school thank you any additional questions commissioners commissioner nyberg on my far right mr thank you mr chairman just uh one question it looks like the property to the east is zoned r4 was there any consideration to r4 for this request just for continuity purposes my understanding is that they wanted to do three-story units along the at least the south portion of the site on the phase two property and the you have to get up to an r5 in our code before you can go three stories we have an r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 are one a single family the two three and four are all multi-family but you can't go higher than two stories okay thank you any additional questions very good thank you miss gaber um would the applicant or applicant's representative like to come forward and make a presentation please state your name and address for the record sir certainly adam baugh whithy morris 2525 east arizona billboard circle thank you for your time i almost feel a little silly that this one case is what brings you out but it means a lot and i appreciate you being willing to show up on a night like this where development still tries to move forward in the midst of a pandemic so thank you for that i appreciate staff's participation in helping us get to this point this is a case that's long in the making and i i'm grateful for the questions that you've asked because i think i'll be able to address them all during the scope of my presentation okay i will be brief because i think george has done a good job summarizing it but there's a couple of things i'd love to just sort of highlight real quick oh this is uh your presentation do you have my presentation maybe time for his davey beating there you go i think what's interesting this is a good story for glendale as the city has matured over the years it's been strategic in the way it's laid out but on occasion there are infill parcels and nimble parcels like this need help being developed and i think part of the challenges that you have here at the one on the first phase is the odd configuration and the multiple parcels there and as the as ridgeway my client started to move forward and developed this plan initially was developing it's only as a single phase the phase two really wasn't part of the equation at the time in order to develop this type of product to answer your first question no this isn't section at all actually this is intended to be more of a attainable workforce housing and in this economy people seem to be building either really high-end luxury or subsidized housing and the opportunities for subsidize are few and the market for this area doesn't support a high end but what we think we can build here is a class b plus development that is market rate but in a way that's more attainable for workforce housing but in order to make that happen they had to go forward and come design around some odd configurations and this particular property being that it's an infill site not only does it have some weird geometry but it doesn't have the full complement of the roadway improvements along palm air and so they'll be putting that infrastructure in but as they're going forward with the development the opportunity to acquire the outdoor storage rv lot became available and so that's why they were already sufficiently down the road with the first plans so that's why it might feel like it's a bit of two different plans but what they've tried to do is actually create open space amenities that complement each other so one side you'll see the pool areas on the other side you'll see the park area so that way the two plans work together in that degree and in that way and it will be developed under one singular phase with one common owner so you want to worry about that happening but when i look at this site it's important to highlight that to make infield successful you sort of have to look at the bigger picture and that bigger picture includes not just the vacant land but the property we're rezoning today and i don't believe it's in the best long-term interest of the city to have outdoor rv lots in this area we think that it's a great opportunity being that there's residential apartments to north and our residential apartments being close to a school it's a great opportunity for pedestrian connectivity for students to walk back and forth so there's r3 to the north as i mentioned r4 and the only reason why we're requesting r5 isn't because the density is just because of the height and that height is only on the southern building so most of our properties two storage but that southern building this helps you kind of get a bit of an idea and originally we actually had some more height and intensity on the phase one but as we went through the plantar view process that had to be scaled down a little bit and so the zoning case gave us the chance to put a three-story building on our southern side we like the walkability of this area but we know it doesn't happen without developers participating and stepping up into that so our obligation i think as commissioner noelkowski point out is to fill in what is otherwise i think a clumsy streetscape network today you're correct your sidewalks go in and out sometimes there are no sidewalks and if you want to provide true pedestrian connectivity it needs to be completed along the length of palmyra along our southern along 45th avenue our most southern entrance that's an exit only it's not an entrance and so that reduces significantly the number of cars that will come in and out now it's just one way out only the the property is intended to be accessed primarily from palmer avenue and that way it comes in at the main entrance point and then it splits and it serves both projects i've already kind of covered a little bit of that so i'll skip over to our architecture and design the two-story buildings at the top the three stories buildings at the bottom and there will be consistency and design between phase one and phase two so by the time this is built you'll never really see or observe that ever was two different phases the idea is to build them in a singular consistent fashion but when i look forward bringing this case to you one of the things that's important to us and i think to your planning staff is how does this conform with your general plan and in this case there's three main goals that i think is important here the housing element the community revitalization and the pedestrian connectivity so your general plan has a goal to provide and build safe well-built and attractive housing and we believe we can accomplish this in a manner that actually serves glendale residents who live and work in this area and we hope that this becomes a catalyst for some of the other properties in area to begin revitalizing as well the second thing here is that the city does encourage infill development recognizing that sometimes it takes somebody willing to buy a bit of a hairy apple so to speak because sometimes infill sites have some challenges that have to be overcome and we believe we've been able to satisfy that and with staff's help work through some of the difficulties that this site's been plagued with and the last thing i point out with regard to your general plan is a goal that you should have comprehensive and continuous pedestrian facilities so residents can walk safely and avoid being within the right-of-way or on the streets or crossing dirt lots or hazardous areas and so through this process we've been able to provide housing that's needed in an attractive way market rate for workforce but also in a matter of brings info here and pre and completes from that pedestrian network so at the end of the day i think this meets a lot of those goals and policies of your general plan it's one reason why it's been highly recommended but more importantly it's consistent with the pattern of apartments in this area and for that reason staff recommends approval we haven't had any opposition from anybody involved and frankly with their participation it's been a very straightforward process and i'm grateful for the chance to present to you today and i'll be happy to close and take any questions that you might have thank you commissioners questions there was one opposed to it was dennis gerrard he said that yeah i failed to mention we did get a phone call from someone yesterday i asked him to submit a an email regarding his concerns the name is dennis gerrard i do not have a location on him whether he's living nearby or not my apologies that's the first i've heard of any opposition on this and why didn't get upset because he didn't get thank you yes for the correction i didn't see any questions here but he's opposed to the project and has a number of reasons stated and again i don't see a residential address connected to this but i assume he's in the neighborhood there the chair has a question on the 45th avenue exit only that shows that as a gated exit only and i'm assuming that's going to be a left-hand turn only south to glendale avenue is that correct or is that going to go both directions here you could go it'd be a left out or right out either one the reason why it's gated is to discourage any people who come in but the whole reason why that's there is because of public safety you need to have a secondary access point so that serves both as our emergency access as well as our egress only okay so it will be the emergency but it will be a active egress exit point yes okay my presumption is if somebody wanted to go south they would exit there if they wanted to go north they probably would just exit off of palmyra most likely yeah it's a long trip up on 45th to get to get up to orangewood i want to thank you also you mentioned the general plan and i want to thank you for your consideration there that's something that i think i can speak on behalf of this commission that we place a great value in adhering to the general plan and i appreciate your attention to that thank you very much sometimes gets overlooked sometimes the most conspicuous things get overlooked so thank you for your attention to that detail so any additional question okay thank you sir we appreciate your presentation the chair will now open the public hearing and we'll do a public hearing on gpa 20-09 and zeon 2015. can we do those contiguous mr gruber do we need two separate public hearings chairman of the commission i think you can hear those at the same time okay and then we're going to have two separate motions commissioners when it's time to vote so now the chair will now open the public hearing on gpa 220-09 and 0-0-1-5 the chair has zero speaker cards this evening is there anyone here this evening that would like to speak on this item anyone here this evening might speak on this item the chair sees and hears none the chair now closes the public hearing on gpa 20-0-9 and z-o-n 2-0-1-5 will have a motion prior to discussion is there a motion mr chair i make a motion that we approve gpa209 is written is there a second second we have a motion and a second for approval of gpa209 as written is there a discussion well you know i can understand an objection from a possible neighbor here that they don't like to see the uh the density and and so forth but i'm very familiar with this rather awkward piece of property as commissioner nowakowski pointed out there's a lot of disoriented connections and sidewalks and no sidewalk and vacant lot and it just appears to me that this is a nice use for this space so close to glendale avenue and with that i will conduct a roll call vote beginning on my far right commissioner nyberg aye commissioner crow aye vice chair lennox aye commissioner harper aye commissioner will fong aye commissioner nowakowski hi very good the motion has passed mr gruber what are the next steps in this process i remember the commission your action with respect to case number gpa 20-0-9 is not final your recommendation will be forwarded to the city council thank you well we need to do a motion on the zoning zon20-15 is there a motion mr chair i make a motion that we approve zeo in 20-15 and would that include the one stipulation including the one stipulation yes is there a second who is the second for the record commissioner crowe okay we have a motion in a second for approval of xeon 20-1-5 with the one recommended staff stipulation the chair will now conduct a roll call vote is there any discussion then we'll proceed with the vote commissioner nyberg aye commissioner crow aye vice chair lennox aye commissioner harper aye commissioner will fong aye commissioner nowakowski hi emotion has passed unanimously what are the next steps in the process mr gruber chair members of the commission your action with respect to case number zon 20-15 is also not final but will be recommended excuse me forward it to the city council for further consideration thank you that concludes our public hearing items this evening we appreciate the applicant and applicants representatives presenting the case and coming in this evening congratulations um mr meadows there other business this evening mr chairman i have nothing more to add thank you is there a planning staff report for this evening there isn't one okay commissioner comments or suggestions commissioners i have a comment i'd like to make vice chair linux this is my last night as vice chair or even on the planning commission and i just wanted to say a couple of things number one we went through a lot of planning directors or interim directors and lisa was one of the best ones we had and i don't know what happened or why she left but she would have been a good one for the spot we learned a lot of things and one thing that i've been taking out of this i don't know whether it's fortunate or unfortunate is that it seems like no matter what the planning commission if it's a unanimous vote or what the constituents say the city council does what they want to do and they're going to do it anyway that's all i have to say thank you vice chair lennox and i believe seven years yeah seven years and prior to that several other extended tours of duty with various boards of commissions within the city and uh not only the commission here but the city is a as a whole owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude for your really tenacious service to the community and you know thank you and as chair i want to thank you as vice chair you were a great time keeper you were always there you were willing to take make motions um at times that other people might not and you kept things rolling so thank you very much for that um any other comments commissioners okay well thank you chairman pardon me yes sir i just uh i just wanted to say that uh we have a couple of our fellow commissioners departing after this meeting and i'm going to miss you both i've appreciated your your guidance and your words of wisdom and my i'm i'm the rookie in the group so uh i guess that's about to change but uh i wish you both well and i thank you for your service thank you ed that's very much appreciated mr chairman commissioner crowe i would like to echo the same comments i'm not exactly a rookie i'm on my second term so i'm out of the rookie status i graduated but i know that the council that i've gotten from both of you the input and i really appreciate the discussions that we've had i appreciate you being on this commission and you will be thoroughly missed thank you that depends on who you talk to commissioner crowe thank you okay speak for myself thank you thank you vern really appreciate it um also my my last uh meeting i um i like to clear out a a couple of things that were circulating i had been asked by community members and contacted i was not forced out of the chairmanship by anybody i wasn't asked to leave i wasn't induced by anything other than my own desire to i'm a big believer in term limits and i believe that applies at every level of government even volunteer service in government and i've had a great run on the planning commission i am very grateful to mayor wires who originally appointed me um i waited over 30 years for a position on the planning commission i served on a number of other boards so when i got here it really meant a lot to me again i just felt like we have really i could not have asked for nicer individuals to serve with and i just i'm so fond of all of you you've just been absolutely terrific as have previous members it's just been a wonderful experience but i think there comes a time when you know you step down and you let other capable people step up and uh and carry on so you know that's why i'm departing there's no other reason to it i would like to i do have some regrets and one of them is that the city has been in a bit of a convulsion as far as the planning department there were extensive plans to rewrite uh the zoning and and ordinances and so forth during my term of chairman mr meadow this evening will be my sixth either acting director director temporary director or administrator that i've served with and some have been better than others but they all have treated me with great dignity and respect i had an opportunity to get to know two of them in particular much better they had a longer tour of duty but something is fundamentally wrong i mean i just can't help but feel that that kind of trauma um within a department it just you know i just have to go up the food chain and wonder what what is a miss and i hope that some stability will come that a permanent individual you know no person no competent capable professional person is going to stick around and not be treated right and i have my own conjecture about what has gone on i don't know i'm not there but obviously something is not quite right and i hope whatever that is can be settled once and for all second i have felt that we need training as commissioners and i tried to do what i could to implement a training program and we had some limited success with that we had preliminary plat education we had uh traffic study education and we had several other things slated i fondly hope that there'll be an opportunity to see that effort through that new commissioners can be brought through they can be mentored they'd be trained you know we don't pretend to be experts on all the topics that are brought before us and it would be helpful to each and every commissioner whether an old timer or someone new to have to have that education and brought forward so i hope that that will continue a personal issue with me is electronic billboards um i'm opposed to them i hope they will go away and i hope that a future planning commission and future city councils will prayerfully consider limiting and restricting these electronic billboards in every way they can and lastly i was once told by a former planning commission chairman who ended up on the city council that the planning commission is nothing more than a rubber stamp for city council well i thought he misunderstood the role of both being a councilman and a member of the planning commission because by no stretch of the imagination do i think that being a rubber stamp for city council is a proper role coincidentally he ended up getting himself recalled during his first term so maybe i'm not too far out of step with my disagreement with his idea there but yes we've had disagreements with the electeds we've had disagreements with staff we've had disagreements with each other it's been done in good faith with charity and i hope and good will and and hopefully with a little good humor um certainly hoping that we never rubbed anybody too much the wrong way but planning commission is ideally suited to make these kind of decisions and although the electeds at city council certainly have the authority to override what the planning commission does you know we're not elected we're not salaried we don't have a constituency other than the city at large we don't have any special interest we don't have to raise campaign funds we don't have to run for office we don't have to do any of those things itself examine the facts and vote our conscience and i really think that's what this commission has done during my time on board and i'm real proud of our work so with that i want to say thank you one and all for the opportunity and um i will uh stand down feemin pretty good about this i'll miss you all with that i'll call for a motion to adjourn and i beg your pardon yes the incoming chairman i'm very happy to say vern crow and vice chair ed nyberg um they're next up and uh i know staff will give them all the good support that i had i'm very appreciative of that so okay let's have a motion to adjourn so move support are you sure okay all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed we are adjourned 40 minutes you