[0:01] [Music] [0:33] [Music] [0:58] **Planning Commission Chair:** What—good evening. I call the July 17th, 2024, Apple Valley Planning Commission meeting to order. First item of business is the approval of the agenda. Any changes from staff? [1:12] **Tim Benetti:** Madam Chair, members of the Commission, we have no changes for you tonight. [1:15] **Planning Commission Chair:** Thank you. Thank you. Any changes from the Commissioners? Can I get an approval? [1:18] **Commissioner Schindler:** Approval. [1:19] **Commissioner Scanland:** Second. [1:20] **Planning Commission Chair:** Moved by Commissioner Schindler, seconded by Commissioner Scanland. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [1:28] **Commissioners:** Aye. [1:30] **Planning Commission Chair:** Opposed, nay. Motion carries. The next item of business is the approval of the consent agenda. The consent agenda items are considered routine and will be enacted with a single motion without discussion unless a Commissioner or citizen requests to have any item separately considered; it will then be moved to the land use action items for consideration. Can I get an approval for minutes of June 5th, 2024, regular meeting? [1:57] **Commissioner Scanland:** So moved. [1:58] **Commissioner Schindler:** Second. [1:59] **Planning Commission Chair:** That was a motion made by Commissioner Scanland and second by Commissioner Schindler. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. [2:07] **Commissioners:** Aye. [2:09] **Planning Commission Chair:** Next, we have a public hearing tonight that will be Huk and Bodega, and at this time, I will open the public hearing. We will now open the public hearing for agenda item 4a. The Affidavit of Publication for the notice of public hearing is available for inspection in the Planning Department. Everyone wishing to speak at this public hearing should be sure to fill out the attendance roster. Please include your name and address so that accurate records can be maintained. We will begin the procedure with a brief presentation by City staff, followed by a presentation by the petitioner of the hearing. Upon the conclusion of the presentation, City staff will be asked to comment on the proposal's conformance with pertinent regulations and policies. After that, comments will be taken from the general public. Presenter tonight is Alex Sharp. [3:16] **Alex Sharp:** Thank you, Chair, and good evening. As noted, this is a public hearing for an interim use permit—pardon me while I get used to the new technology. So, it is an interim use permit for Galaxy Partners LLC. They've requested an interim use permit to allow a corn roaster on weekends and holidays through the summer of 2024 and into early to late fall. Just as a reminder as to what an interim use permit is and what it's for before we go into the area here: an interim use permit is for a temporary use, typically limited to one year, for a type of use that would not be otherwise allowed by the zoning code. The uses cannot go forward with a variance due to state law; therefore, the only mechanism for trying out a use prior to perhaps full adoption, or if it is only intended for a temporary use, is an interim use permit. Our code does allow for these. The Commission has seen a number of them through the years. Essentially, they are to kind of test that out or do that temporary. In this case, an interim use is sought at 6999 152nd Street. It is at the northeast corner of Galaxy and 152nd. As you can note, I do have the proposed corn roaster in that southeast corner location, though I will bring up an aerial and site plan a little later that provides a little bit more context. The site is zoned PD 739 Zone 4. PD 739 is our Central Village District. Those familiar with it will be aware that it is kind of intended to be Apple Valley's walkable downtown versus the Cedar and 42 corridor, which is a little bit more auto-oriented. PD 739 allows for and encourages a lot of that pedestrian activity on the street and, in fact, would allow outdoor sales within this zone by right—meaning no permit required, no review from the city—as long as you're doing it adjacent to the building. In the case of the corn roaster, they are looking at two 100-pound propane tanks, and our Fire Marshal found that that was an unacceptable risk next to the large fire exit of the bodega. Because of that, it pushes it across the parking lot. The location—we've discussed a number of them. The first location, and I wish I had a mouse to be able to show you, but it is essentially in the L-shaped section of the building on the east side. There's a small patio section there that they'd be able to locate in. Members of the public won't be able to see this, but I don't have a laser pole here—never mind, technology is not going to agree with me at all this evening. That location wasn't originally intended for something like this. Unfortunately, due to the fire safety, we do need to move it as far away from the building as possible. Firefighters essentially need to be able to walk up to the propane tanks and be able to turn it off if there was a large fire issue. While unlikely, fire safety does take precedent over zoning code in most occasions, and so we've been trying to work with the applicant to allow for this to be on site. We've issued special event permits to allow this in the meantime. We're looking to do this interim permit and probably come back to you this winter or late fall when this expires with the applicant on an ordinance update. That ordinance update would allow for this type of use, but we are also trying to cater it into that larger "could go outside of the zone" type of intention. We do have some other businesses that have been interested in doing this type of thing and are, in fact, in the process of doing outdoor cooking as well, and so we want to make sure when we do a zoning ordinance amendment that we take the proper time and create it where it could extend across zones. So, the interim use permit is a good solution for that. You can actually see the corn roaster in this aerial photo in that southeast corner. This was taken during one of the weekends. One of the primary concerns that staff had noted was if people are waiting in this location, are they backing up into the drive lanes, things of that nature. We've got some suggestions that staff has included in the staff report. Ultimately, with the popularity of this, we are wanting to see what works best and work with the applicant, and that's where that interim use permit really shines—is it's going to allow us to determine how to best write this ordinance for the future. So you can see it in that southeast corner, and then we've also got a couple photos of the corn roaster. It has been popular. It has also taken part in Kelly Park events for their Music in the Park events on Friday nights. So, the owners have been working well within the community to try to make sure that they're following the rules and moving this forward. With that, if there are not any comments from the public or concerns—nearby property owners within 350 feet were notified, public hearing signs were placed out, so the public should be relatively aware. Staff has not received any comments to date. So, if the Planning Commission concurs, staff would suggest a recommendation to be made by the Planning Commission this evening. With that, I open it up for any questions. The applicant is present to answer any as well. [8:32] **Planning Commission Chair:** Anybody have questions? Commissioner Scanland. [8:35] **Commissioner Scanland:** Chair... Alex, I guess as you—I like the idea of doing the interim permit and the fact that you can work through some of the kind of test out and find out what direction you'd like to go versus just putting some rules together. I guess some questions as you do work on that maybe is... not just because of this, but like you said it's being looked at for other locations, is what it would be allowable in terms of signage and parking, and how that affects the parking situation, appearance? And then in this case, is there anything with venting with cooking in that, with this being near residential properties, living area? [9:16] **Alex Sharp:** Chair, Commissioner Scanland, I'm actually glad you asked. One of the initial concerns from staff—namely me—was, "Is this going to have a smell for the nearby apartments?" Summer months, people are going to want to be able to open up their windows, so that was a primary concern of mine. And you can ask the applicant; I brought it up pretty early in the process. Having visited this now three times—briefly on some other occasions but once being a customer and sitting around for quite some time—there doesn't appear to be any smell. So, this is a propane-fueled, very similar to your grill. The corn isn't roasted for very long on this. It's a very high temp from the appearance of it, and this isn't a smoker like we have in some of the other areas of town that inherently is going to have some smell. And so I think that that is one of the considerations we want to be putting into that new ordinance. I don't think it's actually going to affect this use having visited it. The only issue with putting things like that into an ordinance is the subjective nature of smell, and so we will have to work through that challenge, and I don't know where that's going to end up yet. That's the challenge for a future ordinance amendment, not for the IUP. If we start receiving complaints about smell, then it starts becoming a factor, but to date, no complaints have been received. I've visited it; there's no discernable smell from 10 feet away. [10:55] **Commissioner Scanland:** Yeah, I was there—I went, we went to dinner there on Saturday night, and I didn't notice anything myself when I was there. I guess one question is the loss of parking, because I know parking there is tight. That was one question that I had. [11:09] **Alex Sharp:** Chair, Commissioner Scanland, it was another concern of staff. They have one parking stall over; they're using two. It was one of the reasons why we were looking at moving the corn roaster up to the—on the site plan, you can see that there's a pedestrian crossing. We have talked about internally with moving it up there. Let the applicant know that that might be the final resting spot for it. Speaking at our full staff meeting, the bodega is packed on the weekends and it has a high pedestrian use. So perhaps blocking that pedestrian use during the weekend is a higher impact than the temporary corn roaster during the summer months. So I think that is a piece we're going to need to navigate. We've got one stall overage that we're going to need to try to look at. An interim use permit, thankfully, can kind of overcome that because it's that temporary use and we can allow something to see where things are at. The parking requirements within PD 739 are some of the least stringent within the city and allow you to use the on-street parking. This aerial doesn't show it, but this one does: there's a very large swath of unused parking to the north of Gabella and Will is not adjacent and therefore cannot be counted towards this site's parking. We might be able to put something in—and this is pure speculation at this point, Commissioner—we might be able to put something in of, "if there are on-street parking spaces within a 1,000 feet" or something along those lines to allow for something like that if they're unable to meet their parking requirements. Again, not run through the City Attorney yet, not run through a full committee of staff—just starting to try to figure out what our issues are going to be for that longer-term ordinance. [12:44] **Commissioner Scanland:** Okay. Okay, appreciate it. Thank you, Alex. [12:57] **Planning Commission Chair:** So, Alex, I take that if you moved it over there, it isn't customers inside the restaurant who are ordering these? It's people who are walking around and everything? [13:14] **Alex Sharp:** Chair, I would want to slightly defer that to the owner. From my, I'd say, now two or three hours of watching operation, I was one of the few people that ordered it within the restaurant, and the serving staff didn't quite know how to ring it up. I think it is being ordered in the restaurant, particularly on dates like Cinco de Mayo, right? But I don't think that that is your standard operation. Most of the people that I saw walk up ordered and paid right at the roaster. They have the full capability of doing so, and that was the more common form of ordering. [13:48] **Planning Commission Chair:** Probably people like on the patio and stuff? [13:51] **Alex Sharp:** I was on the patio and... [13:53] **Planning Commission Chair:** Okay, so this was actually mainly walk-ups, huh? Commissioner Puit? [13:58] **Commissioner Puit:** Yeah, thanks, Chair and Alex. Just a quick question on the resolution. It looks like it'll be—you know, it expires November 30th of this year. Hopefully, it'd be successful for the applicant, but is the expectation that it would just renew each year? That would have to come in front of the group here? What would be—how does that work? [14:14] **Alex Sharp:** Chair, Commissioner Puit, that's where the ordinance amendment would come in. So, because this outdoor sales are allowed by right within the zone, we'd look to amend that zone with the applicant to allow that where then it wouldn't need to come before the Planning Commission. This would be by right with certain conditions, and it's those conditions that we're needing to essentially figure out from the IUP: what works, what doesn't, and how can we address any concerns that come up during its use. [14:48] **Commissioner Puit:** Thank you. [14:49] **Planning Commission Chair:** Anyone else? Can we have the applicant come up and ask some questions? Okay. Oh, we won't beat on you. [15:01] **Fernando May:** Good evening. [15:02] **Planning Commission Chair:** Good evening. [15:03] **Fernando May:** Well, first, thank you for—to Alex, always helping out and giving us a chance to explore other alternatives. We wanted to express that for us, the beginning of opening Bodega Huk has been really brutal through the winter. It was really tough for us. It was extremely stressful. And that being said, we started coming out with ideas how we could generate more money and then bring people within walking distance to the establishment. I think it was sometimes—we opened at the tail end of the summer, and once winter hit hard, we just kind of shut down, right? It was a ghost town, and the restaurant sales were super low. You know, how to keep employees on? And I think we started seeing alternatives on how can we do this? Create events outside, do outdoors—praying for no more rain—having a lot of events out in the park with the Kelly Park having music out there. So, we came across this idea of the elotes or the corn roaster. It does bring a lot of people; it creates a lot of noise and a lot of walk-ups as Alex has mentioned. A lot of people at the park walking over with their kids and enjoying that. It's more of a "street" kind of sense to it. We do sell it in the restaurant, but it is not as successful as people standing, waiting for it, kind of keeping an eye on how it's been made. Other little things like, you know, hand food snacks and stuff that is bagged, or a bottled water or juice—those are things that kind of go with it. So, I think on the aspect of the corn roaster itself, I hadn't used it before, so I drove four hours from here to go buy it from the manufacturer. We tested it out there, we checked it, I drove it back, and we did a bunch of different things. We can do baked potato, plantains, corn, and none of those items smell or release any odor. I had the idea—because we do have the wood-fire oven inside—so I had the idea, I was like, "Oh my God, this is going to be somebody's going to be there," and it has no smoke, nothing. It's just literally an oven where you throw the corn; it rotates through the carousel inside. It takes 26 minutes to do one round, and once you start, you can throw as much corn as you want to, and then it starts coming out cooked. Put it in a container and then keep it hot until a customer buys as many as they want. So, I don't know if there are any specific questions. As far as the parking, we do have around—which we started seeing a little bit of people parking in the front of the—like on the Galaxy side, and a lot more foot traffic. In the summer, the rain hasn't helped obviously, especially on the weekends, but I think next summer is going to be, and especially this winter is going to be a little more successful for us considering that every day we get more people. We've been very active on social media promoting this; people have been asking, "Hey, when are you getting it out there?" I was like, "Not quite, we're almost there." So every weekend we've been doing just a special event permit, and following those criterias and those requirements of the permit, we do remove it as soon as the event is off. So we put it—it's a trailer, so we kind of hitch it on, take it, and put it away. So it's not sitting on the parking lot, it's not an eyesore for the establishment, and it's not creating any blockage of any kind. So I think that's all I have to say. I don't know if there are any questions or anything. [18:31] **Planning Commission Chair:** I would just like to say that I've been to your restaurant many times and I've never seen it slow. So, it's always been so busy that we have a wait and everything. [18:42] **Fernando May:** Good, yeah. The summer has been good for sure. [18:44] **Planning Commission Chair:** But you go through winter, too. [18:46] **Fernando May:** Yeah. [18:47] **Planning Commission Chair:** But anyway, good food. [18:49] **Fernando May:** No, thank you. [18:50] **Commissioner Scanland:** Is it similar to like what they do at the fair? [18:52] **Fernando May:** Yeah, it's the same, the same principle. I think some of them have the wheel, though—people turn the wheel—and ours has a motor, so it kind of goes on its own and brings the corn out. But yeah, it's pretty much the same concept. [19:04] **Commissioner Scanland:** So then there's no shuck, right? Because you have it—you peel it back? [19:07] **Fernando May:** You peel it and then we use the peel as a—you know, like the area where you hold it, right? And then put a napkin on there and then that's it. [19:15] **Commissioner Scanland:** Yeah. [19:16] **Planning Commission Chair:** Okay, awesome idea. [19:18] **Fernando May:** So nothing else, you peel it back and put whatever you want on it. [19:22] **Planning Commission Chair:** Pretty easy. I wish you success. Any questions for him? [19:26] **Commissioners:** No, thank you. [19:27] **Planning Commission Chair:** Okay, thank you. Before you step down, could you state your name and address? [19:30] **Fernando May:** Yes. Fernando May, and address is 6999 152nd Street West, Apple Valley. [19:39] **Planning Commission Chair:** Thank you. So, no more questions for Alex or anybody? Okay, so I'm going to close—if there are no further comments, I will close this public hearing. It is the policy of the Planning Commission not to act on an item on the same night as the public hearing. The Planning Commission will weigh all comments and information received tonight in its deliberations at future meetings. This item will continue to appear on future Planning Commission agendas until a recommendation on the petition can be forwarded to the City Council—unless we want to make a motion tonight? Excuse me, Alex, do you have a write-up how you would like to have this go forward with it? [20:19] **Alex Sharp:** You can—apologize, I'm okay if you didn't. I don't have a specific write-up for how you were to make the motion. You can recommend approval subject to the conditions of the draft resolution. [20:38] **Commissioner Scanland:** Madam Chair, I recommend approval of an interim use permit for Huk and Bodega 42 to allow for an external cooker/roaster during the weekends of 2024 until November 30th of 2024 as outlined in the staff report. [20:58] **Commissioner Schindler:** Second. [20:59] **Planning Commission Chair:** A motion was made by Commissioner Scanland and second by Commissioner Schindler. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [21:10] **Commissioners:** Aye. [21:12] **Planning Commission Chair:** Anybody who says opposed, nay. Okay, motion carries. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Off to number five, we have no land use action items tonight, so that brings us to other business, and I will call on Tim Benetti for that. [21:30] **Tim Benetti:** Thank you, Madam Chair. We have a reminder for our next meeting of Wednesday, August 7th, again at 7 p.m., followed by August 21st. We might be expecting to see some applications on those two nights, so be on the watch for some packets headed your way. City Council meetings July 25th and August 8th respectively, and we will probably have this IUP scheduled for the August 8th Council meeting. And I hope everyone's having a great summer, great Fourth, and sorry about the parade—it was a bummer. Yeah. So, but I don't know if you heard, but our Police Department did an impromptu little parade for some of the officers' two kids who were expecting to be in the parade, and so they did a little impromptu one, and it generated a lot of good feedback and buzz from them. So, I heard the fireworks show were wonderful up here. So, it's good to see that this community comes together for such a great event, and I hope everyone had a good, safe, happy holiday. [22:38] **Planning Commission Chair:** That was very nice, thank you. [22:40] **Tim Benetti:** You're welcome. [22:41] **Commissioner Scanland:** Motion to adjourn. [22:42] **Commissioner Schindler:** Second. [22:45] **Planning Commission Chair:** Motion made by Commissioner Scanland, second by Commissioner Schindler. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [22:51] **Commissioners:** Aye. [22:52] **Planning Commission Chair:** This meeting has closed. [22:53] [Music]