Documented by Kristina Mansfield
Here’s what you need to know
- At Thursday night’s meeting, the Clovis Planning Commission voted (5-0) to adopt resolutions recommending that the City Council approve the mitigated declaration, general plan amendment, and rezoning to allow a 26-unit multifamily development on approximately 1.62 acres of land located on the northwest corner of Ashlan and DeWolf avenues.
- Neighboring residents expressed concerns about the project’s traffic study, citing the third-party contractor’s reliance on a count pulled from a time when the school adjacent to the project site was closed during the COVID pandemic.
- Applicant Harpreet Singh Sumal confirmed the proposed renderings will be revamped with new colors and materials prior to going to Clovis City Council for final approval
Follow-up questions
- Why did city staff recommend the Planning Commission approve a project based – at least in part – on findings from a traffic study completed during a time frame when the school adjacent to property was closed due to a global pandemic?
- Can the residents in the surrounding areas file a class-action lawsuit against the City of Clovis for negligent planning due to the traffic issues raised at Thursday’s meeting?
- What is the proposed timeline for the new renderings to be ready for City Council review?
Notes
The regular meeting of the Clovis Planning Commission took place Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall (1033 Fifth St.) in Clovis. Meetings are usually held on the fourth Thursday of each month (third Thursday in April, November and December) and are open to the public.
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You can also submit comments online, and can do so here: www.cityofclovis.com/planning-commission-agendas. Comments submitted this way are limited to 300 words and must be sent in by 4 p.m. on the day of the meeting. You will also be promoted to provide some other information, like your name, the agenda item number you’re commenting on and the commission meeting date.
The commission consists of five members appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council to make decisions and recommendations on city planning issues, including long-range plans and maps for the city, plans for public improvements, development plans, zoning and rezoning of property. You can read more about the Planning Commission on its website.
Eighteen people attended the meeting in person.
CALL TO ORDER, FLAG SALUTE and ROLL CALL Chair Alma Antuna called the meeting to order at 6 p.m., while Hebert led the room in the Pledge of Allegiance. Senior Planner George Gonzalez called the roll.
Planning commissioners in attendance were:
Chair Alma Antuna
Commissioner Brandon Bedsted
Commissioner Amy Hatcher
Commissioner Joseph Hebert
Commissioner Paul Hinkle
Item 1 The commission unanimously approved (5-0) the Planning Commission minutes for the meeting of Dec. 14.
COMMISSION SECRETARY COMMENTS There were none.
PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBER COMMENTS There were none.
PUBLIC COMMENTS Next, Antuna moved into the public comment portion of the meeting, clarifying that this section is specific to items not listed on the agenda. There were no public comments.
PUBLIC HEARINGS The Planning Commission heard several items associated with approximately 1.62 acres of land located on the northwest corner of Ashlan and DeWolf avenues.
Item 2 Senior Planner McKencie Perez presented several items related to the proposed project, located at 3182 De Wolf Ave., to the commission.
Owner/applicant Harpreet Singh Sumal requested the approval of a general plan amendment and rezone to allow for the development of a 26-unit multifamily residential project that is located on a 1.62-acre parcel located on the northwest corner of Ashlan and De Wolf avenues.
“The project site is currently developed with a single-family residence,” said Perez, “and is surrounded by existing residential development to the north, west, and south and a school to the east.”
The proposed 26-unit multifamily complex will include three main residential structures: two 10-unit buildings and one six-unit building. It will feature two points of access, one on Ashlan and one on De Wolf; 60 parking stalls, 26 covered and 24 uncovered; a lawn area; a play structure; a neighborhood gateway and a 30-foot paseo on the southern portion of the property.
The project is proposing to be two stories with a maximum height of 26 feet. Perez said the developer hosted a neighborhood meeting in September 2022 and that several members of the public did attend and had concerns.
Those included, she said, the change of views and increased traffic.
“The developer did explore multiple options of development of the site, including single-family residential and commercial,” said Perez. “However, due to the size and location and the limits of the development standards, those were not feasible.”
Another concern was traffic, specifically traffic during school hours, said Perez.
The site is on an intersection of two major streets, so the volume of traffic could be accommodated by both streets. A traffic analysis for trip generation and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) were prepared, and both determined that no further analysis would be required.
Perez said the site would serve as a transitional development and would integrate into the neighborhood from future and existing single-family residential to the north and west and the school site to the east. The proposed trail would connect to the neighborhood and lead out to the intersection and the neighborhood gateway, which would mimic the existing gateways located on the south side of Ashlan.
Next she touched on a few goals from the housing element. “I don’t think the housing element has been certified by the state yet, but the draft housing element has the goals that I think the city is going to commit to, once certified,” said Perez. Those goals include accelerating housing production, diversifying housing types and removing barriers to housing production.
She also addressed a few development constraints on the property. “Multifamily was not the first concept we came up with,” said Perez. “The conceptual plan that we have and that we’re showing is the result of a series of conversations and architects and site plans. Sometimes it’s a common myth that we want to develop multi-family just to maximize profits and max out the site, and that’s really not the case here. We did look at commercial, we did look at single family. They just don’t really pencil out with some of the constraints.”
Examples include the required number of access points, the construction costs for the required public improvements and lot-configuration constraints.
Perez then discussed the environmental review, which resulted in a mitigated negative declaration. “The initial study looked at 19 different impact areas, including aesthetics, land use, planning, transportation and public services,” said Perez. “In order to inform the initial study, the applicant contracted with LSA to prepare five different technical studies. These studies included air quality and greenhouse gas, historical resources, archaeological resources, trip generation and vehicle miles traveled analysis.”
The results of this study found that the potential environmental impacts are not large to trigger a larger study.
Perez said the applicant has had the first of two required neighborhood meetings, and said that residents from the surrounding areas did attend and expressed their concerns, some of which included their desire to not live by multi-family developments, concerns with traffic, noise, design and glare.
However, Perez said Clovis has codified performance standards as part of its municipal code, along with multi-family design standards, that addressed those specific concerns. Residents also expressed concern with potential impacts to their water supply; Perez said a water supply analysis was conducted and it was found that once impact fees were paid, the site would have no supply issues.
Perez also stressed that the project’s overall look and feel will change from what was presented.
“This was another sticking point at the neighborhood meeting. The neighbors generally did not like the look of these apartments, and the applicant and ownership team is completely OK with changing it and revising it to something else,” said Perez. “These are just conceptual, to show how it would look like on the ground level with the neighborhood gateway and playground per city standard. At the time of site plan review, staff will look at the architectural design, open space and landscaping, setbacks, screening and buffering, height and access to city services,” said Perez. “I know seeing the number 30 dwelling units per acre is alarming for people but there are site restrictions that literally make it impossible to build at that density.”
Once the land use has been addressed, the applicant can formally submit a request for a site plan review. “Next steps in the process will be to host a second neighborhood meeting, mail letters to all residents within an 800-foot radius of the proposed project, then go to City Council for a final decision,” said Perez.
Antuna and the commission asked a few clarifying questions about the presentation, then opened the floor to public comment.
Chuck Eaton, who owns a home on East Shields Avenue, asked about the future configuration of the street and neighborhood parks. Senior Planner George Gonzalez said part of their job, as city planners, is to work with future developers to figure out how to eventually connect the dots.
William Mancebo, an Ashlan Avenue homeowner, owns the property that butts up against the proposed project site. “I know we’re not going to be able to stop this development, but we’d like to make it look at least halfway decent,” he said. Mancebo gave several examples of other nearby apartment complexes that blend into the neighborhood. “If I have to come out of my house and look at that thing with its gaudy colors, I’m not going to like that.” He also had concerns with the traffic and outdoor lighting. “It’s bad enough with the school over there,” he said, “and that can’t be shining off of the property.”
There were no online comments. Next, Antuna asked for comments from those in opposition to the project.
An unidentified Clovis resident asked how tall the buildings were going to be.
David Rasha, a Clovis resident who lives near the proposed project site, said he was one of the neighbors that went to the meeting and, of the 25 to 30 people in attendance, that “not one single person” was in favor of the project.
Rasha said, as a professional asphalt paving contractor with more than 40 years of experience working on streets and parking lots, he has concerns that the traffic count was done during COVID-19 when the high school and junior high were closed. “That traffic needs to be looked at very seriously during the hours of 7 a.m.-8:30 a.m.,” he said, listing the specific issues with the traffic flow of the area. “I’m glad to see there are more parking stalls.”
Rasha also had concerns with the design of the existing city parks and the future resale value of the homes in the area, citing their $500,000-$600,000 price tags. “This is quite a shock to a number of the neighbors, and myself,” Rasha said, “and I agree with my neighbors, this is a horrible-looking place.”
Perez then reiterated her previous points regarding the project’s current aesthetics and confirmed that “quite a few members” came to the neighborhood meeting.
“The owners want to make it clear: they also don’t like how the renderings look. They don’t like the colors or the materials. They also agree that it’s ugly,” said Perez. “This project has been going on for a really, really long time and it’s very expensive to do renderings and technical studies, so until there was some kind of assurances on the land use, it didn’t make sense to keep paying to have the renderings done. They 100 percent agree: they are ugly, and they don’t like those colors.”
Traffic generation is always a contentious thing, Perez continued. “It [the project site] is adjacent to a school, which is always challenging,” said Perez. Regarding Rasha’s concern that the traffic studies were conducted during COVID, when the schools were closed – effectively rendering the traffic studies useless – Perez didn’t give a direct answer.
“LSA – total third-party consultant,” said Perez. “I had nothing to do with the technical studies, the city didn’t prepare the technical studies, it was prepared by a licensed traffic engineer who did the trip generation based on the total counts.” Per its website, LSA is an employee-owned environmental consulting firm.
Perez acknowledged the frustrations local homeowners feel as the area around them develops over time. “There’s no real way for me to answer that,” she said. “I know most people bought thinking it would be a house forever, but that’s generally considered an undeveloped area that’s likely going to be developed in the future more densely than what it’s currently planned for.”
Antuna then brought the item to the commission for comments and a vote.
Hatcher said she had some concerns with the density bump, but given the presentation, said she saw why it made sense. “We’re really only looking at the density. I don’t see a problem with this one.”
Bedsted said making adjustments to density always gives him pause. “In this case, I see this as an infill lot, and I think the project is pretty well thought out, and I appreciate the applicant’s commitment. I think we want developers to do the right thing, and to make sure that things being built in Clovis integrate well into the surrounding areas. I do like to see privacy screening with landscape, and I would encourage the applicant to consider that, and how you integrate a property like this into the neighborhood,” he said.
Hinkle obliquely referenced state requirements for affordable housing that the city has failed to meet.
“One thing we as citizens of Clovis need to be very concerned about is what’s going on in Sacramento,” he said. “A lot of pressures are being put on the city of Clovis to meet their demands.” He thanked the developer and the commission for their hard work, and said he’s in favor of the project.
The Planning Commission then:
- Voted to adopt (5-0) a resolution to recommend the City Council adopt an environmental finding of a mitigated negative declaration for General Plan Amendment 2023-002 and Rezone 2023-002.
- Voted to adopt (5-0) a resolution to recommend the City Council approve an amendment to the general plan to redesignate the subject property from the low-density residential (2.1-4 dwelling units per acre) and open space designations to the high-density residential (15.1-30 dwelling units per acre) designation.
- Voted to adopt (5-0) a resolution to recommend that the City Council approve a rezone of the subject property from single-family residential very low density zone district to the multifamily high-density) zone district.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS There were none.
ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:02 p.m. The next scheduled meetings of the Clovis Planning Commission are Feb. 22, March 28 and April 18.
If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at fresnodocs@fresnoland.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.
