3B Public Hearing 2007 0507 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Draft Excerpt of Minutes April 12, 2007 Planning Commission Meeting Page 60f9 Pastor Mortara said he holds seminars on Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. twice a year, with attendance ranging from 100 to 350 people. Acting ChairNice Chair Reed invited the third ofthe speakers to address the Commission. Paul Gant, President of Safety Compliance Management Inc. explained that there is neither an objective safety problem nor a statutory problem. His background and experience include 15 years in the fire service, working in four jurisdictions as firefighter, paramedic, training officer, battalion chief, fire marshal, and deputy fire chief. In 1992, he became President of his own firm, providing environmental and occupational health and safety training services and consulting services in both private and public sectors across the U.S. His firm also helps businesses comply with various regulatory requirements, including those involving hazardous material storage and hazardous waste handling and disposal. He is a Certified Safety Professional, a CallEP A Registered Environmental Assessor, and is also qualified as an expert witness in various states, providing testimony and services on topics of safety, hazardous materials and regulatory compliance. As part of his work with the Faith Fellowship project, he made note of the general conditions of the neighborhood, including a relatively new firehouse across the street from the Catalina Street property. He reviewed correspondence from the City regarding placement of the church in that area. Based on the concerns expressed, he obtained records from the sites that were storing the hazardous materials, and reviewed those records in an attempt to understand the issues outlined in the staff reports. He concluded that the issues should not compel the City to deny the church's request to be sited at the Catalina Street location. This is based on several factors. The presence of a haz-mat business plan (HMBP) or haz-mat management plan does not in itself identify sites that are significantly hazardous. In fact, the HMBP is filed when minimum amounts of hazardous are present at a site; as little as a single 55-gallon drum of oil or 200 cubic feet of gases, less than what would be in a typical welding cart. He said he would not be surprised to drive down the street and find a number of HMBP occupancies near the City Offices on East 14th Street. Further, he said, the filing of an HMPB for a business imposes certain conditions to provide safety programs to effectively manage the hazardous materials that are present in a compliant manner on a daily basis, and dispose of hazardous wastes. These provisions protect employees as well as people in adjacent businesses. He found the hazardous materials present in the neighborhood similar to those found everywhere in the country. These include combustibles such as glycol, an antifreeze solution; oils and lubricants; propane cylinders for forklifts - the same as we use in gas-fired backyard grills; gases such as argon, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, and acetylene, some in very small amounts. While these substances can pose hazards, the various layers of regulations from the California Fire Code to the EP A regulations for storage to Cal-OSHA regulations governing employee health and safety, and to local HMBP programs require effective and safe management of those materials. This is all to protect visitors to the site and the surrounding community as well as employees. There are a couple thousand people in the area now, and the programs in place are protecting them now on a daily basis. Those same programs would also protect the congregants of the assembly during their evening and weekend church services. He concluded by saying that he and his family attend Crosswinds Church, a mega-church in Dublin. It is located in an industrial building in an industrial complex, with a number of his company's clients nearby, clients with greater hazards than those present around the Catalina Street site. He contended that church uses are compatible when the community has a well-established and well-managed program such as San Leandro does, and said it was well within the Planning Commission's discretion to allow the project to move forward.