 hello hello the combination of that in my hearing aids okay so with that it's a little after 430 and we'll go ahead and call the Planning Commission of February 22nd 2024 to order and can you please call the roll thank you chair weeks commissioner Carter is absent commissioner Cisco your commissioner Sanders present commissioner Peterson present commissioner Holton here vice chair Dugan is absent and chair weeks here I let the record reflect that all commissioners are present with the exception of commissioner Carter and vice chair Dugan absent great thank you so with that approval of minutes item 2.1 we have one set of minutes from January 11th are there any changes okay seeing none those will stand as approved there's nobody in the chamber so at my assumption do we still need to go through the process of saying is there anybody in the chamber for public comments I'm sorry yes okay if you are in the chamber and we should make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have three minutes seeing no one we'll go ahead and close this item and go down to public comment we're now taking public comments on item 3 non-agenda matters this is the time you may address the Commission on matters not listed on this agenda but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Commission seeing nobody go to the podium we'll go ahead and close the public comment so with that I'll read our statement of purpose the planning Commission is charged with carrying out the California planning and zoning laws in the city of Santa Rosa duties include implementing of plans ordinances and policies relating to land use matters assisting and writing and implementing the general plan area and area plans holding public hearings and acting on proposed changes to the zoning code zoning map general plan tentative map tentative subdivision maps and undertaking special planning studies as needed so 4.2 commissioner reports are there any reports by commissioners only to say that we're pretty excited that we have one extra day of black history month this month because of leap year so okay so I have a couple things I attended the council goals setting a couple weeks ago and since majority of it was done in close setting I don't have anything to report but hopefully there will be some information coming out that we can pass on today I attended the mayor and board chair lunch where a variety of different other board chairs and I just wanted to mention that I am the representative from the Commission to the Memorial Hospital neighborhood meetings they meet once a quarter with the neighbors regarding the helicopter and the new application a revised application to the county on that so but that do we have any public comments on item 4.2 if you are in the chambers and wish to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have three minutes for your comment and seeing nobody go up there we'll go ahead and close this and move on to item five department report Ms. Murray thank you very much I do have a couple of things to report on the first is we're doing some pretty big recruitments I don't know if any of you have had the pleasure of working with Jesse Oswald our chief building official he's resigned his last day is March 8th and so there will be some changes happening in the building department the building division we are also we've opened the recruitment for the deputy director of development services gave Osburn's former position so so you guys can expect to see some new faces coming on board soon there are also a lot of other vacant positions so I'm sure there will be some sort of faces circling through here but those are some higher level and then I also just wanted to acknowledge that we have the planning commissioners conference coming up and I am able to attend this year and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with you outside of the council chambers so with that I'm gonna conclude oh oh that's it thank you and thank you to the powers that be that we are able to go to the conference I know the one other time I went I got a lot out of it so I'm glad you're gonna be joining us we promise to behave I think I did not say that okay so if you are in the chambers and wish to make a comment on department report please go to the podium seeing no one we will go ahead and move on to statement of abstentions are there any statements of abstentions on the one item tonight and no consent items and no report items so we'll move right on into our first scheduled item which is 9.1 to public hearing public hearing wayfinding ordinance CEQA exempt rezoning zoning text amendment REZ 23-009 and Christian Candelaria will be presenting. Good evening members of the commission and chair today before you is the wayfinding sign ordinance this is file number REZ 23-009 and this is to be a zoning code text amendment to affect citywide for this project this is going to be a zoning code text amendment for wayfinding signage below our different components of this project so we're going to be going over business wayfinding public civic wayfinding general standards eligible eligible criteria design standards application process the removal definitions renumbering of the zoning code sections that are related and then transit hub signage giving you a overview of the timeline so this began with the railroad square business wayfinding pilot program they came forward wanting to implement some type of commercial signage but this was explicitly prohibited by the zoning code so we worked with them with a temporary use permit for a one year approval while we gathered feedback and this is part of that process next was the downtown wayfinding sign program this is a type of public civic wayfinding this is allowed already by the current zoning code and they were a given a sign program in September the next we did a public survey about both types of wayfinding and that was from October 9th to November 9th last year and then we went to the design review board for recommendations January 17th and then we went to cultural heritage board for recommendations on January 25th and then the rest are what is outlined for today as planning commission then we're really going to city council in March and hoping to have an ordinance effect in April before you are the two types of existing signage on the left is the business wayfinding located in railroad square and on the right is the public civic wayfinding located downtown around courthouse square and close by areas so these are the list of the definitions that we're looking to be adding to the glossary to be amended and provide some additional information for this process so that includes business wayfinding public civic amenity wayfinding and then also providing definitions for the sign plaque the signpost the sign header iconography and pictogram these are the going to be the proposed permitted areas so this is going to be the downtown station area and the north station area these areas were selected because they have the specific plans and their specific plans specifically spoke about bringing wayfinding to these parts of the city here are the dimensions that are proposed so we're looking at signpost maximum of eight feet in height a sign plaque that would be 12 inches in height by 24 inches in height and then the font size would be two inches maximum sorry two inches minimum and six inches maximum um businesses have a little bit more regulations regarding font size and because they have logos and their business names as well as associated text so this outlines some of the ways they also have to deal um comply with our standards and then currently I have before you is the existing sign dimensions so this will show you how these would these existing signs will have to comply um some of them are a bit smaller than what we are proposing due to feedback and how it is seen visually it will be us this shows how they would want to make it a little bit bigger so it's a lot easier for the pedestrians to view them as they're going by and then we're going to go a little bit more into the railroad square signs here's some two different depictions about those signs so here are the different locations we currently have permitted with the temporary use permit they have nine signposts and between them around 40 businesses have contributed to this and each of them are allowed railroad square allow them to each go for three signs so that was their maximum and a lot of them are actually interested in continuing and if there are any further signposts added on they would like to also be a part of that process and they have quite a few people interested these are the downtown signs so these ones are for public and civic they have a color type of coordination for different areas so if you're going to a park it's usually green some of our civic spaces are red and then blue for like the transit or parking I believe is what they were for and then they have events labeled in white this is the downtown map they have quite a few signs they have about signposts they have 21 of them and a lot of them are pretty similar in the way they look they just they have different sign plaques for different things that they're showing and some of them are double-sided and some of them are single-sided depending on where they are located so these are the general standards that are being proposed for wayfinding currently there would be three signposts minimum to become a sign program six signs per business there are public radaway standards that were included after review with other departments and then as well as ADA standards traffic standards and then other zoning standards going into design standards we're also allowing walking time estimates but it's not a requirement fashion and digital signs are prohibited directional arrows are required and sign headers displaying the area's name and injury of the location are required here's some additional standards for business wayfinding each of them each signpost in business wayfinding is actually required to have one public civic sign there are additional standards for when they might not need them as 100 feet if there's already a sign already used for a public civic in the area and then 200 if there isn't 200 feet if there isn't a public civic amenity within 200 feet they wouldn't need to advertise one we're also needing iconography so that would be things that are showing like parks city hall you want like a little image indicating what that might look like it's kind of like a universal language to show other people and then logos business phone numbers physical addresses qr codes and website addresses are prohibited for public civic wayfinding standards there would be uniform uniform design requirements so as you saw in the downtown signs they had a color palette they followed their font sizes and they had a specific font type that they wanted and then we are also requiring english and spanish text and then iconography and directional arrows here is a list of the application process so this is everything they would need in order to apply some of the ones to point out are the renderings and to show where they how they look like in the area and then also a physical mock-up that will show what it would look like in person so when the planner is reviewing they would have a clearer understanding of how it would be seen in the public an additional piece i wanted to highlight the city is currently working with the metropolitan transportation commission for additional type of transit signage so additional standards were proposed for informational kiosks maps and other transit hub signage just to separate the two from wayfinding for the survey this went out in october through to november we had over 400 individual respondents and we there's a common theme for some of these comments that we received so how this might impact the city budget and how this might impact applicants um where some of the designs they have specific questions about sign design and how that might be covered this is great for tourism and residents this helps promote bike and pedestrian usage some of them are hoping that we might get 911 poles for emergencies and signs maybe not necessary due to present-day technology some of them wanted to be removed they would want more clear public civic amenity wayfinding signs some believe it's too long-term maintenance and another would be to have sandwich boards removed which are prohibited in the zoning code and then also remove parking meters to promote walkability with wayfinding so one of the we went to both the designer review board and the cultural heritage board for recommendations first is this the recommendations from cultural heritage board they recommended that each signpost have a sign header that clearly demonstrates the name of the preservation district both of the existing ones do provide a sign header they were largely focused on how small the railroad square one appears to be seen as it kind of blends in more and they would like it to be more prominent um but they would like for business to use their logo so it showcases the individuality of each business and showcases what Santa Rosa is like and then incorporating public and civic amenities that should be a requirement for business wayfinding and then they would also like for historic landmarks to be counted towards complying with the public and civic requirement for business wayfinding we also went to the design review board so here are some of the recommendations that they provided that would be signed plaque dimensions they wanted to increase the size to 12 inches that that is now included they also created the uh recommended the minimum of three signposts to be a sign program and then wanted to have listing of the sign program uh application requirements they also were also concerned about the sign header specifically the one in railroad square and then they were they did want the business logos to be used to showcase individual businesses and then wanted to make sure that public civic amenity wayfinding had their each had a uniform design across all of the signage and then using pictograms and legally required for 88 um there were additional recommendations that were not included these ones are um the overall design should match the sort character of the preservation district signposts should have a similar design to the character of the area they also recommended concept review with drb and chb these were not proposed because this project is hoping to have a ministerial process so that something that is done at the director level given to staff and so that makes it a much more streamlined process um adding any further discretionary review would make it a lot more lengthy in time and can create some uncertainty with applicants um at this time there have been no unresolved issues as a staff review staff review and there have been no public comments for this item besides the survey so this project has been reviewed for um under the coliform environmental quality act um it's exempt because it does not have a design sorry does not result in a direct reasonable foreseeable direct indirect physical change in the environment um for no resulting in physical change in the environment and then also reviewed for um using the city right of way as well as consistent with the general plan or zoning or community plan um those ones include the center as a general plan the north station area and the downtown station area specific plan so there are required findings for zoning code text amendments these ones are listed here that includes following the goals and policies of the general plan not be detrimental to the public interest health safety and convenience or welfare and then additional findings for the proposed amendment would be consistent with the zoning code and with CEQA it is recommended by the planning economic development department that the planning commission by resolution recommend that the city council adopt a zoning code text amendment to amend title 20 of the Santa Rosa city code chapter 20 just 38 to provide standards for wayfinding signs and section 20-70.020 definitions of specialized terms and phrases to add definitions related to wayfinding signs if you have any questions my information is listed here and that concludes my presentation thank you are there questions of staff at this time commissioner sanders thank you um i was just curious can existing poles be used or does every wayfinding sign have to have its own pole yeah so we are allowing existing poles to be used some of them are used in the downtown um signage right now that is kind of up to the discretion of transit traffic engineering they will help determine which ones can be used and which ones cannot specifically the street light pole street lamp sorry traffic lights are not allowed but we could review if some street lights may be allowed or they might just add their own to make it easier can what is a 911 pole i've never heard of that before um i don't know if you've ever seen the blue poles in different cities or college campuses those ones they alert security or police yeah that was my guess but i didn't want to i didn't want to be presumptuous um and then i some some logos don't translate very well when you shrink them down and try and put them on a sign and sometimes i can this is you know years of being in a band trying to get my logo on a flyer it looks great on my computer screen then they put it on the flyer and it looks like crap is there what is the process of making sure that you know a business's logo actually does translate and is legible wants us on the sign who how's that process work um so that one's going to uh be between both the city and the holder of the sign program i know right now the railroad square district they do review and have their own template of making sure these will fit on the signs and then in the future we're proposing that they apply for a sign permit with the city so that way it will follow our font size requirement and so the names itself of the business would need to meet the font size requirement and then associated text can be smaller than our requirements right but you can get all those requirements and then look at it and no one can still read it and then what what happens at that point does it just go up and um i know some businesses may have altered what their original logo is like in order to comply um and then some of them will have to do that as well because some of them currently don't last one promise um you mentioned that businesses contributed to this sign program so there are 40 businesses currently part of the railroad square sign program not really contributing but they do work with that district in order to get onto those signposts and when you say work with i mean are they do they pay uh yeah so um they have a sorry yes they do have a fee that they do um they don't pay the district but they have to pay for the signs with the sign businesses to create the signs not directly paying the railroad square district and where is that what does that money go to where is that held that one is that's just what the sign businesses that's not something the city handles but there will be of uh we are proposing fees for the city review part i know for the sign the actual sign plaques that are there for each business those ones are going to be proposed to be like a zoning clearance fee level and that one is no charge currently i said that was the last one i lied this is the last one um is is that a single payment or is that like yearly or by yearly or uh no so we're not proposing to have anything continuously coming back um that would cause too much um work for the uh staff thank you okay i have a few questions um one is uh the railroad square with the businesses how was it decided what businesses were on there yeah so um i spoke with the staff there at railroad square um they it was a first come first serve basis but they did distribute information through their newsletter they also went out and did public outreach to do the different businesses and talked to them about if they would like to have a sign and through that process that was how it was uh established they also only offered three slots per business and so that was also one of the restrictions i'm gonna stand railroad square for a minute um so i see the sign header on the top of the sign uh it's slide what is it something slide something um it's not the logo i mean it's it's hidden with all the other signs are they talking about and the downtown signs has the courthouse i mean the um empire building pretty prominent so you can tell that's downtown are they proposing to do something different with the header here yeah with railroad square we have already talked with the applicant team and that they would be creating a much more prominent version of the sign header and it would probably be proposed on top of the at the top bar that you see there let's see so there was a discussion about um in preservation districts sign posts could be more um consistent with the heritage nature of a historic district and it sounds like that that was uh not agreed upon and i wondered if there was any thought about coming up with a standard that could be used in all historic districts if any other historic districts were interested in wayfinding sorry i i i just came to me i should have asked in advance but i didn't think of it earlier that's okay let let us take a stab at that so right now i think the only i think the only or i think the only preservation district really affected by this is the railroad square district um and and we opted to keep it at a um ministerial review with the railroad square association eyes on the the actual sign equipment and signs that we opted not to do any of that concept design review or um which before the cultural heritage board or the design review board but before the cultural heritage board i think more um addresses your question and um and leaving it kind of in the hands of the the permit holder thank you i cut just a couple more questions um i noticed in the example one of the examples for downtown had the ice skating rink so you can have seasonal signs on the posts i'm assuming yeah so for this package they actually provided every single sign that they're going to be trying to do in the future so i did review quite a few event signs that they'll be just taking out and putting back in depending on the events of the season great and if they if uh downtown decides to add businesses how would that be selected um i guess my thought is the same way railroad square does it select through the dao or but if you could talk a little bit about that yeah if they would like to add a business wayfinding to that package we would just go through the changes to an approved sign program process um and then that way we would just verify how they might want to go about that and then we do have a proposed fee for that process as well and so it would be perhaps the same process where the dao goes out to the downtown merchants and ask yes so you would have an eye on that yeah okay um and one last thing uh who puts them up and you may have said that and i yeah so for both of these um they worked with sign arama uh business and those what they uh installed those sign posts and the signs so the city doesn't do any of the installation it's by a yeah okay an outside source okay that's it for my questions okay uh commissioner cisco and then commissioner holton mine's more of a comment than a question but um when i look at this it's um it's a pedestrian oriented program because the signs are really little and when i'm driving i can't see them which is fine i'm glad that it's pedestrian oriented that the um issue i had or that i noted was that um with the requirement of some sort of civic uh posting they're posting parking and i'm going if i'm driving i can't tell that for me in a car that's where to go for parking and it is of no use to a pedestrian so i'm just wondering if there couldn't be and i understand the ones where the parking um lots have restrooms but just wondering if that that space could be used better so this is to comment okay uh well my question um is actually pretty simple um you mentioned that the city wasn't responsible for uh putting the signs up uh in the event that a business goes out of business or is defunct uh what happens at that point who's responsible for and is there some uh requirement that that signage is replaced in a certain timeframe yeah i'm trying to find the exact wording but i leave it says um they would need to be removed within 30 days of the business closure and the business itself would need to remove it and if it's not removed by them the applicant the sign program holder would need to have it removed and then if it is up to a sign program how they would want another business to take that slot and what would be the enforcement in the event that somebody was neglecting to remove their sign yeah we would just go through our normal code enforcement process so they do have different levels of um different types of fees that might be associated or different types of education that might be involved that's all mr mr sanders sorry uh brought up uh somebody that brought a question in my head um is there a waiting list will there be a waiting list of businesses who want a sign um i yeah so they have told me that they had people interested i don't know if they have like an official waiting list but they do have interested businesses that want to be on any new signpost that they add in railroad square and just as a comment um i would think that if a business does become defunct and is no longer in business they remove the sign is there a way to move the rest of the signs up so we don't have a way finding signage with one business blank blank one business blank blank blank does that make sense yeah i understand um that could be something as a recommendation if that is something that you're all interested in yeah well in the event if they were removing the signs within 30 days and i'm sure there would be a waiting list i mean i know a lot of small businesses that would love to get that kind of free publicity so especially being that there's no annual fee associated with having that signage which is something that might want to be kind of explored because it'd be a great way to generate some revenue and i know that there'd be enough interested parties especially downtown thank you so i so i the way i look at this is that the the program sign holder permit holder is like railroad square association downtown action organization it's not the individual yeah yes okay thank you and so they would do a lot of the the maintenance to make sure that the signs get moved up that they're maintained that kind of thing because they are the permit holder yes okay thank you okay anything else before we open the public hearing okay then i am surrounded so i'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing on this item if you are in the chambers and wish to make comment please go to the podium seeing no one i will go ahead and close the public hearing on this item and bring it back to the commission and if you could if you if i could have somebody make a motion that would be great commissioner holton i'd make the like to make a resolution of the planning commission of the city of santa rosa recommending to the city council adoption of the zoning code text amendment of title 20 of the santa rosa city code section 2038 signs to provide clear standards for both business identification wayfinding and civil public amenity wayfinding and section 20 dash 70 dot zero two zero glossary to add definitions related to wayfinding signs file number re z two three dash zero zero nine and wait for the reading thank you is there a second second thank you so that was moved by commissioner holton seconded by commissioner sisco so we'll go ahead and start with comments with um commissioner holton not really it's pretty much straightforward uh i think it's always good to especially with the increased level of tourism that we continue to see year in and year out i think it's really going to be helpful for a lot of people from out of town i can't count how many times i've been downtown and actually had somebody asked me oh hey do you know a russian river brook oh yeah you go down this way so it'll be nice to to have that signage up and i'll be in support of the project great thank you commissioner sisco um i can make the findings um and support the project thank you commissioner sanders i also can make findings and we'll support the project and commissioner peterson i can also make the required findings and what's we'll support the project i wouldn't note that um my my encouragement would be i think beauty is an important component of making an area desirable and livable and um to the extent that you can incorporate that without adding too much discretion to a ministerial process it definitely would have my support thank you and i also can make the findings and uh we'll be supporting this so with that if we could have a vote it was moved by commissioner holton and seconded by commissioner sisco i oh sorry in the head of myself jump in again commissioner sisco i commissioner sanders i commissioner peterson i commissioner holton i'm so eager i chair weeks i so that passes with five eyes with uh vice chair dougan and uh commissioner carter being absent and with that unless there's any other business we will go ahead and adjourn this meeting thank you all