The Yuba City Planning Commission approved a use permit for an 81-foot “monopine” cell tower and related ground equipment at the Yuba Sutter Food Bank, 760 Stafford Way, after a staff presentation and a brief public hearing in which no members of the public spoke.

Assistant Planner Andrew Darryl told commissioners the proposal (Use Permit UP 25-01) would include the tower, ancillary equipment and a backup diesel generator. Darryl said the project is a contingency for AT&T in case a lease at an existing water-tower “exit site” is not renewed; that lease currently runs through April 2027. “The recommendation today is to adopt the resolution approving the environmental assessment, adopting the mitigated negative declaration, subject to the conditions of approval and mitigation measures, and approve the use permit,” Darryl said.

Darryl said the tower would sit inside a fenced lease area behind the food bank and would be screened by a 6-foot chain-link fence with slats; one mitigation measure calls for painting the monopine trunk brown. He presented signal-coverage maps showing greater coverage in the area if the water-tower exit site were to go offline. A noise study commissioned for the project, Darryl said, found estimated noise levels would remain below the general-plan “conditionally acceptable” threshold; he added that the on-site diesel generator would be tested about 40 minutes once a month and would otherwise operate only during outages or emergencies. Darryl also described site access via Stafford Way and said regular on-site traffic would be negligible.

After Darryl’s presentation the commission opened and closed the public hearing with no public speakers. An unidentified commissioner moved to adopt a resolution approving the environmental assessment (EA 25-02), adopt the mitigated negative declaration, and approve Use Permit UP 25-01 for the monopine tower and related equipment at 760 Stafford Way. The motion was seconded and passed on a voice vote with three “aye” responses; Chairperson Brookman was excused from the meeting.

The approved permit is subject to the conditions and mitigation measures explained in staff’s recommendation, including the screening and trunk-painting mitigation and any monitoring called for by the environmental determination. The commission did not take additional action at the meeting on construction timing or lease negotiation outcomes for the exit site.