 I call the meeting of the Planning Commission to order. Ms. Wilson, would you please call the roll? Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present, except Chair Edmondson. Thank you. We have the draft of the August 8th minutes. Does anybody have any issues with the minutes? Okay, seeing none, they are approved. Then public comments, I have one card. You don't need to fill that a card if you want to make a comment on an item that's not on the agenda. And Mr. DeWitt, you are first if you could state your name for the record and you know the three minute rule, so. Hello, my name is Duane DeWitt, I'm from Roseland. And the minutes that you've just approved, basically take the three minutes that I spoke about last time, condense it down to one sentence, which doesn't accurately reflect all that I've said. So a person who hasn't attended the meeting doesn't really get the drift of what the discussion I brought forward was. To just say because I talk about Roseland and just mentioned Roseland in there is not enough. So in the past, I almost dutifully used my own time to follow the Open Government Task Force efforts. It was so important about that Open Government Task Force and I'd like the record to show that I say this today, please. Is that there were recommendations that were given and put forward. And those recommendations were something that it was actually advised. All boards and commissions, all city staff and others should begin to participate in so that we had a process that was more accountable and open and transparent. Now, we may look at it like, well, we had a tremendous fire. And that tragedy has caused us to have to do things in a more expeditious manner. I believe that's a canard. You can put that in the record too. That's the kind of word that will definitely make people look. And it's the kind of thing that we're here now in the 21st century, almost two full decades into it. And I can't come up and give you information to be utilized in a digital format. I asked to do this recently with a small video clip. And they said, well, no, we can't do it. We have to vet it first. And actually, when I went and I asked the First Amendment Coalition and others, that's a form of censorship. It's like, wait a minute. We're supposed to be able to come and give you information without having be predetermined whether or not it's okay. So it's been almost many number of months since you took away, not you, but others, some nameless folks, took away the overhead projector, took away the opportunity for the public to come in and bring information at the meeting and submit it besides just a paper copy. And have it available to the public to see. So in a sense, we're backtracking and we're not even going where that open government task force recommendation, which was worked on so hard, with so much money spent by the taxpayers. And we're not getting things the way we should. So I'm hoping you, as a board and a commission, would say, hey, we'd like to see those recommendations be implemented. Please give that a discussion in the future. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. Is there anybody else who'd like to speak? Okay, seeing no one rise, we'll go to the, I will close the public comments. Do I need to do that? Close the public comments. And planning commissioners report. Commissioner Sisko? Yeah, I just wanted to let the commission know that the Waterways Committee met this morning and we had the opportunity to again review the bike and pedestrian master plan, in particular how it coordinates with the creek and waterways master plan. So we had a very sort of organized specific meeting about where certain conflicts might be for us to have the opportunity to make some statements. And then it's going to be going back to the consultants. And ultimately, those will be incorporated or reviewed or resolved. And I believe we'll be seeing that a draft plan sometime around the first of the year. So, and we also had an update from Alistair Blyfus about a creek cleanup efforts, which are always so impressive how much over 1,000 cubic yards of trash having been removed from the waterways, mostly attributable to homeless encampments. He showed us, on the website, there is a way for the encampments along the waterways to be sort of coded, that they've been cleaned up or they're noticed or they're chronic. So there's new tools that both the water department and the police department are using to coordinate these cleanups and keep our creeks safe. And also he brought in pictures that they are putting in security fences up against the storm drain so that the encampments can't go within the storm drain. So a lot of activity to protect the creeks and a lot of effort by the community and our students to keep our creeks clean. So it's always a heartening committee meeting. It's a good news meeting. Yeah. Anybody else? Commissioner Groniga? Just an announcement that the next subdivision committee meeting will be held on September 5th. And I believe there's one parcel under consideration for final approval. Thank you. Department reports. Ms. Hartman, do you have anything to report? Couple items. This morning the city council's cannabis policy subcommittee met and they're working through over a series of meetings because there's quite a bit of work to do. They held their second concentration area merit review process. And so as a result of the concentration area that was Petaluma Hill Road and Santa Rosa Avenue, there was five potential applicants in that concentration area. And they did select an applicant to move forward in the use permit process. And as a result of selecting that applicant and based on the scores that they accepted in terms of the merit review, an additional dispensary that's proposed in that same area, but outside 600 feet of the highest scoring proposal is also allowed to move forward in the use permit process. So there's several more meetings ahead of the subcommittee to work through. I think it was 21 out of the 38 applied for for cannabis retail are on this sort of competitive track. So they need to be vetted out by the subcommittee to figure out which ones get to move forward with the public process. And all of that information, including any of the packet information that's presented to that committee is available online. It's on our cannabis website, srcity.org slash cannabis. You can get all that information there. And the city is also moving forward in our efforts for downtown housing. As you know, it's a council priority to incentivize housing downtown. So we are moving forward probably within the next week or a few days to publish our RFP request for proposals to update our downtown specific plan. So stay tuned on that. And again, that type of announcement would be on our department web page planning and economic development. Thank you. Are there any statements of abstentions by commissioners? Okay, then we'll move on. We have no study session items, no consent items, and we'll move on to 10.1. This is an ex parte hearing. So can Commissioner Collier do want? I visited the site and have nothing further to disclose. I visited the site and have nothing further to disclose. I also visited the site and took note that there was a security guard in the parking lot area. I visited the site and have nothing further to disclose. I also visited the site and have no no information to disclose. I also visited the site and have nothing to disclose. So Mr. Ross, who'd like to start? Thank you Vice Chair Weeks and Commission. My name is Adam Ross. I'm with the City Planner with the Planning and Economic Development Department. Before you, the item before you is the Sonoma Patient Group CUP modification located at 2425 Cleveland Avenue. The CUP 18-086 is to allow extended weekend hours of operation, delivery services, and bring the existing medical and adult use cannabis retail dispensary into current zoning requirements required by City Council Ordinance 2017-025. The current hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and weekend hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The proposed weekend hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., which would allow the dispensary to remain open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week. The project location is located west of Highway 101 north of Steel Lane and south of Bicentennial Way on the west side of Cleveland Avenue. The project is located within a multi-tenant office building. They occupy 1,170 square feet of that building, where the rest of the tenants are not affiliated with the applicant. North of the site is a Big Five. South is Office. West of the site is a multi-family development. And east of the site across Cleveland is a large commercial operation. So it's an orchard supply hardware. I believe there's just staples there as well. On May 8th, the CUP application was submitted to the Planning and Economic Development Department. On May 18th, the application was referred to applicable city departments and was also given travel referrals. A notice of application was also sent out to all property owners within a 400-foot buffer. There was an additional notice of application sent out on June 5th because the original notice of application did not include delivery services. So there were two notices of application for this project. On June 20th, a notification of incomplete application was sent to the applicant. And the next day, on June 21st, the applicant provided a project description and narrative that was updated, as required in the incomplete application notice. On July 10th, staff received a certified odor mitigation plan. And on July 16th, the application was deemed complete. The general plan land use designation is office, which allows for, which provides site for administrative, financial, business, professional, medical, and public offices. West of the site is medium density residential. North is also office general plan land use designation. East across Cleveland Avenue and south of the site. Further south is retail and business services. So the zoning for the site is CO-SA, which is office commercial within the station area combining district to the east. That is also north as well as CO-SA. East is general commercial SA, so CG SA in the combining district. And then west is PD 0414-SA, which is a multifamily residential development with the R330 base zone. So the site plan shows the building footprint as well as the ADA path of travel. Gives you the overall kind of building footprint or building envelope. There's the property line located here on the map. We have the ADA spaces right here in the ADA path of travel to the entrance for customers. The current parking for the station area is subject to station area requirements, which is 2.5 spaces for every 1,000 square feet of gross floor area, which would require three spaces for Sonoma patient group. For the entire building, it's roughly 10,000 square feet, so that would require 25 spaces. The site offers 30 spaces with two ADA spaces within that 30. Here's the floor plan for Sonoma patient group. And on this floor plan, you see the secured entrances that is for delivery, for receiving product, as well as what the delivery driver will come in and out of. And it's locked from the inside. You can't get in without a key or being allowed in by an employee on the inside. And right here is the customer entrance, which is a sliding glass door, which has a secured gate for when the business is closed for customers. You come in here, you check in. There's a check-in window right here where the laser is pointing. They wait, they're vetted, whether they're medical or adult use cannabis customers, and then they are allowed to go into the retail space, which is right here. And then beyond that is all limited access area, which is an office and where the products are held as well. The site is existing and does not propose any changes to interior exterior, so the applicant has provided pictures as elevations. Looking southwest on my left when looking at this picture, you see the freestanding sign that has a Sonoma patient group as one of the tenants of the building. The entrance is right about where the picture is taken for the driveway into the site. And then right here is the Sonoma patient group entrance, which is that sliding glass door, which leads to the waiting room where you check in. Right here is where you would get into the main building where you can access other offices and you would also find the secured access door, one of them within this door. So it would be closed off hours and this is only open during normal business hours as well. So this is an image from inside. This is the check-in window. This is where the customers enter and you would wait to be approved to go in through to the retail space or medical and adult use retail space. And then looking east from at the east elevation of the building from within the property line, here's the other entrance to the main building where other tenants use as well to get in, but within here on the left side is the secured access door. So staff received four emails and three phone calls in response to the notice of application. The phone calls were from the same residents as the emails, so they emailed and called as well. And there was one extra email from another nearby property owner. The concerns were about general safety and security of the surrounding properties and the potential for attracting criminal activity to the area. In response to that, what was looked at is the applicant has been in business for over 10 years and has security on site one hour before business opens for customers and up to one hour after the business closes to customers every day, as well as having nightly patrols by a paid security company and they also have 25 security cameras on site, which captures inside the location and outside the location of the property. I believe that is limited to mostly the surrounding area of the property. It wouldn't go into a lot of the neighboring properties, but I'm sure the applicant can clarify that if you're interested in that. And they generally permitted hours of operation for cannabis retail may operate from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. up to seven days a week per section 20-46.080 F4 in the cannabis ordinance. So environmental review, the project qualifies for a class one exemption under secret guideline section 15301 in that the project is permitting an existing private structure involving negligible expansion of use and the proposed project does not propose an expansion of the structure's total square footage and there are no interior or exterior changes as part of this project. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve Resolution CUP18-086 to allow the medical and adult use cannabis retail dispensary with expanded hours of operation and to allow delivery services located at 2425 Cleveland Avenue in Santa Rosa. Thank you. Commissioners have any questions of staff at this time? Commissioner Duggan. I'm just curious if you were able to find out any information about police calls to the site and also the resolution of the odor complaint and also just out of curiosity on the project timeline you mentioned referrals to tribal groups and I just wonder what that's about. So I did have a request for police activity in the area and I did receive a copy of an incident that happened in May of this year where there was a break-in and product was stolen. They did also attempt to burglarize another dispensary in the city limits where they were caught during that time and I can send you the incident report for that specific one after this and so I also have a stat report which shows different types of calls by the SRPD to the site. It is hard to determine which ones are directly involved to the cannabis retail dispensary so further investigation would happen on staff's part to answer those questions for each individual report besides the one that I have here and the code enforcement case was for odor which was processed in 2016 and it was closed so what happens with that from the information I received from the code enforcement officer on the case is the file is the complaint is submitted they create a case and on initial review the code enforcement officer goes to the site and does a general observation and at this time they walked the site and found that there was no violation so the case was closed because of no violation viewed by the code enforcement officer and as far as who called in the complaint that's confidential and they don't release that for security reasons I'm sure but there is no there is not necessarily a report that was filled out because it was closed so early because of the way that the case was gone through quickly and there is it's mostly in our city records but it's not like a like a staff report or something of detailed paperwork that I can necessarily provide and if you want more I can see about getting more after this if there is anything no that's okay thank you was there a third question I was at the tribal well any discretionary applications subject to um compliance with CEQA Environmental Quality Act uh we do need to refer those applications to the tribes that may be interested and so we this part of part of that process any other questions for staff at this time uh would the applicant like to make a presentation and if you could um state your name for the record please hello my name is Ronit Taggart I'm the legal and compliance specialist for Sonoma patient group okay first off I'd like to thank the commissioners and everyone for attending today's public hearing whether you are here in support of or in opposition to our efforts we appreciate your interest in our close knit community and taking the time to be here today we are here to discuss our conditional use permit application to extend our weekend hours and add delivery services for our dispensary located at 2425 Cleveland Avenue Suite 175 in Santa Rosa I'd like to start by telling you about Sonoma patient group we are the longest permitted cannabis dispensary in Santa Rosa been legally compliant for more than a decade Sonoma patient group was formed in 2007 as a collective and recently reorganized as a for-profit organization and since 2007 Sonoma patient group has provided medicine for medical patients and expanded to include adult use 21 and over sales beginning in January of 2018 the owners and board members of Sonoma patient group are Fred Ginn, Nicole Williams, John Sugg, Leanne Nakashima, and Jewel Matheson. Sonoma patient group provides highly trained personable staff who ensure the highest standards of care in the cannabis industry provide compassionate care and safe access to high quality lab tested medicinal and adult use cannabis and we provide a safe environment to learn about and select your medicine Sonoma patient group is proud to offer a secure location to purchase your medicine LeFrance protective services provide security guards during business hours as well as routinely patrolling the premises after hours in addition security guards patrol our proposed new location at 2265 Cleveland Avenue and deter any individuals that are loitering in that area neighbors and surrounding businesses have benefited by Sonoma patient group providing increased security in collaboration with the Santa Rosa police department we have regularly provided support by collecting and responsibly disposing of hazardous waste in the neighborhood and we take our community outreach seriously we have an open door policy when it comes to working with citizens to improve our neighborhood and to continue dialogue with our neighbors about our existing operation and our proposed relocation we voluntarily conducted a community outreach effort that occurred in April of 2018 inviting comment and interaction with neighbors our outreach efforts have shown the majority of local businesses are in support of our efforts and we are here today as we are requesting an extension of our operating hours we are currently permitted to operate Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. we are requesting a modification of our existing permit to extend our Saturday and Sunday operating hours to be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. the requested modification of including two additional hours complies with the state guidelines for operating hours of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and the city guidelines of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and we currently serve an average of 200 patients and customers per day and we anticipate serving approximately 20 additional individuals daily by expanding our weekend operating hours and in addition we are also requesting to include delivery services we anticipate a single delivery driver leaving the premises starting with two trips per day once in the morning and once in the afternoon however this may increase up to four trips per day based on the frequency of orders we anticipate being able to fulfill multiple delivery orders during the day thereby decreasing the amount of individual traffic to the licensed premises and cannabis goods will only be delivered to a physical address located within the state of california except to federal land such as casinos in an effort to show the support that we have within our community we have received signed petitions from at least 45 individuals who are in support of our requested changes we've provided quotes from various supporters but the overall sentiment is that our customers who work on the weekends will greatly benefit by the extended hours and our customers with mobility issues or who may be elderly will benefit from delivery services and thank you so much for today's public hearing thank you any questions of the applicant at this time commissioner mr. peterson i just have a question about the community outreach portion of it sort of what is the what are the nuts and bolts of the open door policy and also in the april 2018 outreach did you speak with anybody from phillips family dental i don't believe anybody from phillips family dental approach us directly for the april 2018 outreach so we also coincided that with our conditional use permit application for relocating to 2265 cleveland we went around and we put up our own notification and flyers on the surrounding residences and neighbors and inviting them to come to our dispensary we had pizza drinks we had two people attend who were just curious about our dispensary nobody showed up in opposition to but we wanted to open up the doors for people to come and be able to voice their concerns and hear what the community had to say thank you any other questions yeah i've got one more question so this is in referral in reference to attachment number six which is the odor of mitigation plan and on page three it says detailed operational and maintenance plans should be developed by the owner and i'm just wondering if that has actually happened for operation and maintenance of the whole complex i guess yes we had odor mitigation plans kind of already in place and then when we put in the application they wanted an a certified mitigation plan done by an engineer and when he came to the facility there was no additional modifications or anything that we needed to do to further mitigate the odor so there was not necessarily a change in our actual operating procedures that we needed to do but if the commission would like us to produce and provide an operating procedure regarding that we are happy to do so thank you any other questions okay so i'm going to open the public hearing uh you don't need to have filled out a card to speak um and if you could keep to three minutes and state your name please so i'm going to open the public hearing my name is Karen Pratt and i've been a customer of Sonoma patient group for many years now and i'm very infirm i just recently lost my vision or 50 in each eye and i can no longer drive um and a lot of times my issues are so debilitating that i can't get to a dispensary and it would be really awesome to have delivery especially for those of us that can't get out or can't drive so i just wanted to put my vote in for that and the safe access to good medicine without molds and without you know additives that the people on the street put in that god knows what's in it you know this is really the way that you know i feel everyone should have safe access thank you thank you anybody else wish to speak hi my name is sherry pratt i've lived in center rosa for oh gosh about 15 years now used to work at a local bank used to be in perfect health i have a severe arthritis probably room a toy and i've had five hip surgeries and two knee replacements and all kinds of stuff going on if it weren't for sonoma patient group i probably would not be standing here in front of you today because the pain is so debilitating that it makes a person feel like they'd be better off dead and thanks to them i don't feel that way on a daily basis i get a reprieve and it doesn't interrupt my life it doesn't interrupt my mind it makes me feel happy and joyous in being alive and knowing these wonderful people delivery would be helpful to me in the same way that it would be to my friend and sister karen i'm not long for driving my shoulders are going and i almost couldn't drive from roller park back to center rosa just because of that anyway as these folks here that have helped me be productive and a member of society here for as long as they have 10 years after my retirement thank you thank you there is a button on the side of the podium right there that can lower the podium if that's helpful my name is heidi howell and i've been a patient of sonoma patients for many years even before they were asking for delivery i actually had some help from the owner when i was in the hospital and needed it so i've been waiting a long time for sonoma patients to have delivery and i really hope that you'll consider it for people like me and for the other women that spoke thank you so much thank you anybody else wishing to speak okay i'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission somebody'd like to make a motion i'll move a resolution of the planning commission of the city of santa rosa for a conditional use permit for extended hours of operation for medical and adult use cannabis retail with delivery services operating in a 1170 square foot tenant space in an approximately 9822 square foot building with daily operating hours from 10 a.m to 7 p.m located at 24 25 cleveland avenue apn 015-481-026 file number c up 18-086 and wave for the reading second thank you that's first moved by commissioner ducan and second by commissioner sisco um discussion um i can go ahead and start um completely in favor of this modification it's within you know our existing um allowable hours uh obviously deliveries are important to their patients and so i think having that uh availability is important also and so i'm in favor of this uh item i'm also in favor of the modification i can make all the project findings that the uh location is um within applicable zoning districts and consist of the general plan and compatible with the land use um and all the rest of them and i think it's um a minor modification and i think it's sorely needed by the community so i'm in support of the project commissioner calia i also am in support of this um modification of hours and delivery option clearly it's definitely needed and access to safe medicine is incredibly important to mr. kraniga yes i'm um first of all pleased to see that certified uh engineers report on the odor control given the circumstances in 2016 so i think that's a very positive thing um i really have no uh issues and or questions at this point in time and i do appreciate adam's uh good work on this commissioner peterson uh i'm also in in favor of of this conditional use permit and would be able to make all necessary findings i think that this location is completely appropriate for this type of business i think the hours uh make sense and uh to address some of the neighbors concerns i think uh frankly having the presence of a security guard on site will deter some of the effects um that they were concerned about that are entirely unrelated to the operation of this business um so with that i'm in favor thank you i am also in favor of it and i i believe that uh as previously stated that modifications are very minor and that's why i would be supportive of it so with that um if we could vote it was if we could vote now okay so that is six eyes with uh chair edmondson being absent and that's the final item for the meeting today so i'm going to close the meeting