City Council — May 12, 2026

Okay.

Welcome to the regular meeting of City Council May 12,

6pm.

Maybe we have roll call please?

I make a motion to approve the consent calendar.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Whitney. What time is it over there?

Uh, 9911 PM. Okay. All right.

Thank you for continuing to participate. All right. Management reports. Was there someone else that wanted had something to speak on a community participation open duty? Was that someone that okay, cool. All right. The management report City Administrator Information on the Mr. Three here

All right, good evening Mr. Mayor, council members and Council Member Fernandez out there in Florida getting a tan.

It's raining here actually.

Go figure you go to somewhere nice and it's horrible weather. Okay so Royal Theater construction is moving on the historical stuff has been pushed on to the federal level. It made it through state they are still doing some Footer work on the interior, still prepping for concrete for the exterior. For the pads so today they were supposed to get the sewer profile that they've been needing for the permit. So, um.

I hope they got that today so they can submit tomorrow. The good thing is Caltrans has given me access to be able to view all permit status, so we'll be able to check on that real time and be able to give them the go probably before we get the email to go. So that's good on that and the information we got was that the front facade wall We could do what we need to, and maintain historical integrity. So we'll be good on that aspect. Moving on the Los Monteros, we're moving pretty good on that. Doing a lot of the grading, they're getting ready to start pouring curbs and gutters along the south entrance.

So this 9th Street at the bridge, they can restart doing that. They're thinking they might want to hold off and see what the skate park contractor says about egress and ingress into the location if they're going to need more access. But they're getting the dog parks squared away, and all that stuff should be moving pretty quick. 303 is cooking. They got I think both of the front aprons in now.

They got the gate ordered. They're prepping, doing final prepping on the ground for the asphalt lane. So this is moving pretty good there. And track again we got all the permits issued now There is still some little coordination needs to happen with, like a frontier and as far as. Moving utilities and pulling utilities things like that but as you guys have probably seen.

The project is moving really quick on the East side and. We were going to restart construction on June 1st. But they made it to our site and ripped up our sidewalks today so, um. They're remobilizing on the 26th and they're going to start kicking off construction again. Um, I don't know how in depth is going to be in the beginning because it's. I don't know a week sooner than they had prepared for but they're still planning on the 26th of May.

So we will be using that temporary bus stop that's there and they're still going to allow access and 80 access to the train station itself. They're gonna restore that back to the condition. It was in today before it got ripped up. And then the only other thing I got from that is we now have the lost dog scanner stations. One is located right here by the fire department and the other is at the veterans hall. So people, they find a dog, they come up, they scan it gives them a number, a chip ID. They call a number that's on a little board there and they can look it up and feel the contact to whoever the animal belongs to So that's it on the administrator report. Any questions on

that? Just a comment, one of the first times I've seen animal control go through our neighborhood so there was a couple loose dogs running around there

but... Well you know it's good to know that they're starting to move around since we were We just paid them a lot of money. So it's nice that they're out there, you know?

David I have a quick question. Yes ma'am. I'm excited to hear about the pet ship. I went to the ribbon cutting in Santa Maria at the fire department. Will they be sharing a flyer for residents to know about that?

Um, I have a flyer. I can post it on IG.

Perfect.

Also send that to me. Yeah and then get it to you. Awesome. Yeah, that's my mistake. I thought it was already out but yeah, I'll get it. I'll get it out and get it to you real

quick

on

the chip. Is it specific for a certain chip company that provides

any? Yeah, that's my understanding. It chip that better veterinarians or animal shelters utilize. It will read

okay.

As far as the public works side, a lot of people noticed the bridge is starting to go over the UP tracks over on the south end of Abispo. So they're starting to get moving on that and then the baseball field tomorrow was supposed to be getting another hopefully the last load of infill to finish that off and get that ready They had a major irrigation repair that they had to do out there, the same location at O'Connell. And there was a sidewalk or a crosswalk repair out in front of I think it's right there. Yeah, 1 of those got the crosswalk things get knocked down.

We got that back up and then everything else is pretty much operation as normal. No big issues anywhere else water or sewer so any questions on public worksite?

I have a quick question. It's actually it's on Jess report, just a real general question. He says that this is on Leroy Park phase two documents to review etc and then it says we anticipate receiving approval to start the bidding process what's going to happen in Phase Two at the park? What is that?

Um, I know it's another building. But I don't know exactly what the building entails. I think it's more like an open gym style, I think is what it is with offices.

Yeah, it's a 22-2200 square foot extension from the west side to the play area that'll include a restroom Are you talking about Leroy Park? Yeah, it's at 2200 square foot. It'll be open and it's under the city's... that's separate from the Boys & Girls Club so they'll have... no from where the play area is that way from the end of the gym on the west side going toward the beach yeah it's 2200 square foot building so that's gonna be nice will be a an area for events and meetings and stuff like that all right um any questions of david from the audience any questions the public okay Now we'll go to Director of Public Safety, Chief

Cash. Thank you Mr. Mayor, Council, staff, community. At this time we have no written report unless there's any questions of

me. You gave us the report, a written report regarding what? On the top.

Let

me see that. Oh, I don't have my glasses.

It's okay.

Thank you.

Thank

you. Anything else? No sir. Okay.

I just want to say thank you Chief for joining us for the Cyclemania event it was great to see you on a bike with the community so appreciate the efforts

Were you sore? Were you sore, Chief? All right. Good. You're in good shape.

There was a few times I couldn't see you but I knew you were back there.

Okay. All right,

Yeah, there you go. We have a long history, and we're hoping to keep it here in Guadalupe. Thank you. Oh, my God. I can't believe it.

We have a council member, so she might be having some technical difficulties here at

Yeah, I can't hear it. I can't hear at all. I don't know if Bill's mic is on.

That's OK. Thank you. We're just getting warmed up. Ask her if she missed anything.

I missed everything, but I'll catch up. It's all good.

Yeah and again my apologies we kind of just gave the background in terms of locating the property So we just kind of gave a little bit of context of where the property is and we're pretty familiar with it but that context and we pointed out the fact that it's some kind of odd shaped piece of property. Again, we're currently looking at the site plan itself is kind of where the rubber meets the road again 15 units, most of them are like duplex type units. And then there's three detached units and again served by driveways.

Access vehicle access is from the driveways straight into the buildings and we'll look at that a little closer. And again, landscaping next slide please. So we always will look at what are the issues. Again, this is a relatively small project but there's always something to look at again based on the zoning ordinance and based on the quality of life and based on meeting fitting the neighborhood and those are the three.

We always look at, are we proposing a quality living environment for residents? And we look at how was that accomplished or if it isn't We wouldn't be here if we didn't think it was. We'd still be working on it. Again, conformance of the zoning ordinance. Typically, if it conforms to the zoning ordinance, we're in pretty good shape because again, the zoning ordinances are guide for health welfare and safety and fitting the neighborhood. Then neighborhood compatibility, and we look at that in other terms that are maybe specific to the particular project. Next slide please.

If we can see it, that's the floor plan. So we're talking about livability and we looked at it for residents from two perspectives, the indoor area and the outdoor area indoors. We noticed compared to a lot of the apartment projects we've looked at in recent times, units are a little bit larger 1230 square feet. We've looked at recent projects that have been run. The apartments have run like in the 600 square foot to 800 square foot range so these are a little bit larger And as you can see, on the floor plan on the left is the ground floor plan there two levels to tears and there's a living room.

The garage itself to car garage, and we'll talk about that garage versus carport without further time being I use the term garage. And again, kitchen and standard facilities on the ground floor patio out there in the back up at the top. And on the right hand side, the upper floor they call it family room. It could be a 3 bedroom unit another bedroom and the master bedroom down there at the bottom is it is a master bedroom with walk-in closet.

Three bathrooms, well two and a half bathrooms. There's a half bathroom on the ground floor and two bathrooms on the upper level so that's pretty unusual to have two-and-a-half baths. So they are bigger units than we typically see. Next slide please. And then livability from the outdoor side of it, the outdoor areas. We looked at what we call the open space areas and how they serve the units The open, there's the private yards themselves. The private yards range from about 225 square feet to 265 square feet which is a little bit larger. The code only requires 100 square feet so we've about doubled that in size. The code requires a minimum dimension or a minimum depth for a private yard of eight feet. They've exceeded that meaning they can't be too narrow.

There is a substantial common area Between the buildings, that's mostly turf. And then there's a long, excuse me narrow strip at the top that's turf as well and the applicant calls that a common yard area and we agree it could function as a place to you know throw a ball or something like that. We wish it could have been a little bit wider but that area at the top is 15 feet wide and 15 feet wide is what's required for an ADU so It can function, I just sketched in there's a little shaded area.

In my thinking we haven't nailed that down but in my thinking outdoor area doesn't always have to be turf or grass you could be a little bit of concrete where you could bounce a ball or something so uh we may at the zoning clearance stage make some adjustments so turf or maybe a little Hard hard scape can't hurt a bit where you can do other things than just. You know, sit on the grass but again that will accommodate some outdoor seating and picnic area. So, um, again so the private yard area is there.

And the common area is, it's fairly substantial. We've seen worse. And again, I didn't mention but there are four common area parking spaces and we'll talk about that in a little bit more. So in terms of indoor livability the units are bigger than we usually see in terms of outdoor. We'd say it's more than adequate. Also, the network of sidewalks is pretty good. Sidewalks connect from the units to the perimeter streets so we always promote walkability so they did a pretty good job with that as well. Next slide please.

So, zoning conformance to the Zoning Ordinance. We got to do that or we can't get here so just some of the primary issues we look at are some of the requisites driveway width zoning ordinances and we cite the code sections 25 feet wide when you have a A corridor where the buildings face each other and garages where you back out. So 25 feet wide is the requirement so you can back a vehicle out, turn around and maneuver. Otherwise it's 20 feet wide if it's just a two-way driveway but again in this case 25 feet wide 24.9 we give it to them and that actually does... It's actually 25 feet if you include the recess you know for the garage door assuming they have garage doors but we'll get to that in a minute But anyway, the back out the driveways work found a conform off street parking for apartments multifamily apartments.

The zoning ordinance requires two spaces per unit one covered and one uncovered They're providing 2 coverage spaces, which meets the code. 15 units 30 spaces code is met and then additionally there's a. The 4 uncovered spaces in the common area so that conforms to the requirement for apartments next slide please. Project density zoning ordinance wants to make sure you don't overbuild a piece of property, squeeze too many units on it. In this case, the yard two zone allows a maximum of 20 units per acre and on the 1.0 acre they got 15 so they're in the ballpark, so if the project sites not overbuilt Landscape, the requirement is 10%.

They're provided 34% we're looking at ordinance revisions to maybe increase that minimum. But they've exceeded that as we discussed early. A lot of it is decorative landscape again in part to accommodate the stormwater basins and decorative landscape We do like, but we'd like to kind of improve the balance and get more functional landscape more of the outdoor common area. But again, code is met in this case in both regards. Also, we had the recently adopted urban for Aaron forest management plan that I get that backward anyway.

Will include 15 trees and all trees will be come from the urban forest management plan. They will be from that tree planning list, and again those trees were tailored for Guadalupe in the climate and soil specifically. Private yards we talked about, code is met for ground floor private yards. 100 square feet is required and between 225 and 264 square feet is provided exceeds the minimum. Next slide please.

Setbacks The zoning ordinance defined a setback, a building setback. Something we always have to look at in planning where the buildings are positioned on the property and a setback is defined as the horizontal distance between the face or front of the building or the face of the building and the property line. So usually in almost 99% of the cases, um, the building setback is measured from the property line. As we said, this property has a very irregular shape So the property lines aren't really in play.

For this particular zone, you need a 20 foot front yard setback, a 10 foot side yard setback and that would be measured from the two streets on either side north and south we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second on the graphic. And then a rear of 15 feet so setbacks are typically measured from the property line and front to 20 side 1015 rear next slide please.

So in this case, the front is the Galardi side down there at the bottom generally than the narrow end. The other two sides which would be north and south, in this case left hand and right hand of this corner sides So on the Galardi side at the bottom, 20 feet would typically be required. And so in this case we measured setbacks from the back of sidewalk and almost every case property lines are run along the back of sidewalks in this case they don't property lines you're just kind of everywhere so to speak. So we use the barometer the proper the back of sidewalk instead of property line. In actuality, the property line is so far the one on the bottom on Gilardi Street is so far.

It's on the opposite side of the other property we looked at. So it's well, the setback has met in this particular case. On the left hand side you can see there's a property line at the centerline of the street and Instead of using the center line of the street to measure the property line, we use the back of sidewalk and that would be five feet. Technically, the setback is met because the centerline well exceeds the five feet where the sidewalk is.

It gets a little dicier on the right-hand side on the other Guadalupe Street side Because there's a property line that's five feet away from the building. That does not meet the 10 foot side yard requirement, but we did make a finding that it works in this particular case. The findings are included in exhibit two and again the reason is because the irregular shape of the lot and that was created The streets are easements through the property, and so the property's divided.

Hope that's clear. But we did find that these setbacks do work. We just approached them a little bit differently. Next slide please. Neighborhood compatibility, just a view of the north. Next slide please. Neighborhood combat compatibility view from the south. It's in the properties mostly surrounded by residential on all sides and to the east as well. Next slide please.

So, in terms of off street parking, we said the project that does meet the parking code However, the applicant is proposing enclosed garages which is perfectly fine in some cases. However staff is suggesting open carports instead. Staff agrees the garages improve the appearance of the buildings however staff is concerned a bit that enclosed garages would encourage storage and storage would displace required vehicle parking The project does contain larger units, only four guest spaces and there's no driveway parking. In our minds the result could be more tenant parking on the street.

Code is meant for in terms of parking but the units it's a little unique so next slide please So that's a staff recommendation. I'm gonna call it a soft recommendation, we're open for discussion and I'll explain the reasons why it's a soft recommendation instead of a firm recommendation and I'll show a slide that we could require no driveways but what we are open to is hearing from the applicant in hearing his case on why he'd rather have garages than carports but next slide please.

That's a project I worked on it's called Refugio and I just bring it up because it's kind of similar. It's townhomes, it's actually apartments with garages. It was designed as a townhome project but they decided to market as apartments The fact it was designed as townhomes, townhomes have a different parking ratio. So when something looks like a townhome walks like a townhome and acts like a townhome, the parking is different. It requires more parking spaces in apartments. And so there's a project with garage doors, but it has more parking spaces what we call the guest parking is a lot larger.

And just that note on the side not directly related to the picture but it just points out parking required by this chapter shall be subject to design review approval by the planning director and designee that only says that We could require the removal of the doors, but we'd rather look at the whole picture and hear from the applicant. We're open next slide please again recently approved apartments I don't think i've seen an apartment complex with garage doors they're all carport and I think that's for a couple reasons you want A tenant to just drive in there. And again, no storage and you want them, you don't want the maintenance of a garage door that if it closes what happens? It just seems to function simpler for an apartment complex with an open covered parking.

But again, that doesn't mean we can't consider in this particular case something different. Next slide please. And then the building elevations themselves. So, and again I'd like to thank the applicant and that's one reason we're pretty open and flexible on the garage doors. We looked at a plan in the very beginning that we didn't find to meet our standard and the applicant did redraw the plan and came up with what we thought was a little bit better. And so this is better than what we saw in the beginning, so we have worked together to kind of get to this point. So again, that's the elevation of the typical Plan B, the two units.

There's a little railing under the window and I think we'll add those under the windows of all the bigger windows when we get to the plan check stage just to add a little bit more decoration to it. Next slide, please. And that's the detached unit again. It reads like a single family house. It reads like a townhome and that's kind of one of the reasons we were concerned it doesn't read like an apartment. That's why we were concerned about the parking but we're open Next slide please.

And again, just another elevation of the plan A unit. Next slide please. So to summarize with three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a laundry, the 1,230 square foot units are a bit larger than the apartments recently approved in this city To some extent, the project reads more like a townhome or condo project than apartments. However, the project will consist of tenant rental units and it does meet the zoning ordinance parking standard for apartments. Furthermore at 15 units, the project is relatively small and it's below the allowed zoning density. Therefore staff is only suggesting carports instead of garages.

Next slide please. Beyond that, otherwise the project meets or substantially meets the applicable zoning standards. Whatever the rest of that said, I don't remember. Well, I do remember actually. The project meets the zoning ordinance. The project supports the general plan in terms of the general plan promotes residential development on unused infield properties.

Our general plan identifies roughly 32 small properties, as we know. The big project is in Pasadena but there's about 32 small properties an acre half acre that would accommodate probably 500 units So this is one of them and that's what the general plan promotes. So the project is consistent with what the general plan is promoting, infield development on those vacant lots so the project is consistent with the general plan. The project is consistent with the objectives of the state in the city housing element to increase the production of residential housing units So again, the project is exempt from CEQA.

It's a class 32 exemption. Again, reuse of underutilized sites in the city limits less than five acres where there's no habitat. Next slide please. So it's recommended to City Council adopt Resolution 2026-19 and approve Design Review Permit 2026-006-DR as conditioned, and the Environmental Notice of Exemption for the Gonzalez Family Apartment Project. I think that concludes our presentation. We're available for questions and the applicant is here to speak.

Thank you.

Yeah, Bill I'm on the carport or garage is that still an open issue.

So when they shoot we defer to the city council. I am open for the reasons stated. Just based on what we know, virtually every apartment that I've seen in here or there or anywhere is typically more cars and parking spaces. So when you meet code for parking but there's still more cars generally and those are going to line the street. There's a character of the area in the Gulati track and it's kind of Rural city, it's kind of semi rural.

It will change its plan for development that we wanted how do we want it to change? Do we want to see cars line the street they're probably going to anyway but do we want them take measures to limit it so that's kind of where up in the air. So again we give them credit for working with us. It's a small project but We can't enforce, if there's garages we can't enforce them not being used for parking. Nobody is going to look in there so it's kind of that kind of thing.

Because there could possibly be more development and that would be need additional space and it's important for us to think about what that could look like when we're, it's important that we create more housing and especially infill. And so I'm just thinking what can that look like if we were to add additional housing in the future.

Absolutely true. Good point, and there's a lot of land designated R2. I would like to see the property to the north developed at some point. We just had an inquiry about another one in Galardi. It's got a house on it and they want to do another one of these small projects so there should be more coming yes.

Real quick question. Hi what's the difference besides aesthetics between a townhome and apartment?

A townhome is for sale and apartments for rent. Got it, thank you. So it reads like a sale unit but its functions like an rental yes.

Any questions on my website. I've got, you know, question regarding with me. Really brought up in terms of, do the numbers for me Bill. If those apartments or those garages turned into what is normal people don't use the garages

anymore. That's our concern.

Yeah and in my neighborhood I don't know if anybody they can drive unless you have a three-car garage you park one car but normally it's It's used for storage. And that's fine if you have off-street parking, and what we're seeing is that there's a lot of... When you have a two car garage and you can't use the two car garage, you got two cars in the driveway and then you've got extra cars. Normally if you have a family of four or five and they're workers, you're gonna have four or five cars I, the concept is a great one. My concern is that for those in the future that are up here saying it okay you're their garages now or their ADUs.

You know how does that impact, you know, the neighborhood in terms of parking. So if, Eliminated if you, if you allowed. So those garages then became garages and storage? How many cars would that displace into the, into the neighborhood?

Well obviously 30

parking

spaces say half of them so we're putting 15 cars on the street. And

that's

30 in addition to yeah it

could be 30 cars.

Yeah.

Okay,

in addition to what we might normally see so yeah easily. Yeah well I'll say it's 15 to be conservative but right who knows? Yeah assuming only half of them.

Of course if you want to hear from the from the you know the owners at uh we're going to conduct a public hearing that starting at six let's see let's say 6 50 And now it's open to public hearing so the owners, please come up and give us your thoughts. Thank you.

City Council thank you guys so much for opportunity to you guys looking over this in for taking time out for this. Thank you Bill for helping me go this far and be where we're at today and everything like that Yeah, you know our goal there for Guadalupe and Gilardi area is to bring that place up. That is the nickname for the place is Little Tijuana. That's what it's known for but yeah I got three houses. There was three houses on there now in the garage and stuff And the idea to build these apartments slash single family dwellings is to give a better living environment for families.

I don't want to fill it up with a bunch of things, not about the income. I know there's apartments right up the street from me that they don't even have a sidewalk because their sidewalk is a drive as parking area right there and that's filling up the streets over there. And the garages looks and everything that I want to put inside this is to give it more of a family you see the size The, the places we could have shrunk this thing up and put 30 units on top of there you know what I'm saying. Just to fill it up to try to make income but that's not the idea of what we're trying to do here we want it to be usable we got a yard for people to go and play in the backyard A picnic area and stuff like that. And these cars and stuff, what I'm afraid of if we go with carports and stuff like that is there's going to be several different things you know security reasons people loitering hanging out inside of them.

The conditions and the cleanliness, what it looks like. And it doesn't give you that home feeling where you're able to secure your stuff behind locking security. We got the government owned places right up on the hill right there around the block from us and stuff. And not saying then people been wandering around in our area cuz it's been good. It's been nice down there. There hasn't been very much people or anything any complaints I don't know. Chief Cash hasn't been in calls or anything out that way, any thefts or anything like that so it's big and that's what we're our idea. We want a family feeling building you know what I'm saying right there? You know i don't want to be a fire hazard. I don't want to be Drinking beer in their carports and hanging out, you know that's not the idea.

So we include the place but put the garages in there and close them up and everything is somebody could come in and go into their castle, their home. And that's what I feel like my house is you know where I live, I closed that door and everything out from the world to everything I want to close it and secure myself inside there. And that's, that's the whole idea. You know I'm a father of seven daughters so and their husbands and stuff. I want them to come in have a family be able to come in and it also a little affordability you know to be able because you know how it is right now for everything in a garages. So that's my whole idea you know and that's why I appreciate if you guys accept it the way it is. Accepting with the garage doors you know we put the windows in as Bill asked and stuff I think it's going to give a beautiful look for that area, bring up not only the property taxes and stuff like that.

But it's a thank you guys again if there's any questions

for me, we assuming that When you park your cars in there, you have there's an entryway and a side going into the house. Exactly. Yeah. You don't have to go outside. And yeah, there's access right through the garage

into the dwelling. Yeah. So yeah, I think it'd be a beautiful look at beautiful houses. Any

question from?

It's too easy. Thank you.

I will comment again on the carport versus the garage, I understand what you're saying in terms of having a garage to have it more family feel more of your house that kind of thing but I have to go with what the mayor talked about and as far as not everybody uses a garage to park your car And the space out there isn't extremely large and so you, there's the potential of having a lot of cars just parked in the general area. So if we were to take a vote and say carport or garage I'm inclined to say a carport would be more appropriate for the area.