Attachment 3LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
D. Michael Kane, Chair
Matthew Hudes, Vice Chair
Mary Badame
Kendra Burch
Melanie Hanssen
Kathryn Janoff
Tom O'Donnell
Town Manager:Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney:Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 3
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR KANE: We’ll now move to Item 4, which used to
be Item 3. Town Code Amendment Application A-17-006 and GP-17-
003. Project locations is town wide. Applicant is the Town of
Los Gatos. Consider amendments to Chapter 29, Zoning
Regulations, of the Town Code. Also the General Code, and also
other policy documents regarding Planned Development ordinances
and the Conditional Use Permit Table.
As I read the application, the Town is the Applicant.
Ms. Armer will present the Staff Report, after which we may ask
questions of the Applicant, and we will invite comments from the
speakers in public. If you have not turned in a speaker card and
intend to speak, please pick one from the back of your chair.
Ms. Armer.
JENNIFER ARMER: Good evening. The item in front of
you is consideration of a new Planned Development Ordinance
proposed by the Planned Development Study Committee, developed
over the last few years and forwarded to you from Town Council
for your recommendation.
The recommendation from the Planned Development Study
Committee is presented in three parts: First is a draft Planned
Development Ordinance. The second is a draft of changes to the
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Table of Conditional Uses; this is primarily focused on
residential uses in commercial zones and a requirement that they
be part of mixed-use project. The third is minor edits to the
General Plan for consistency with the two previous items.
In addition to these three items, a list of other
important issues was also developed by the Planned Development
Study Committee, with the recommendation that these eight topics
be considered. Staff has provided additional background
information for each of these, and articulated for each one, or
in some cases, two, questions to be considered.
This concludes the Staff’s presentation, but we’d be
happy to answer any questions.
CHAIR KANE: Any questions for Staff? Commissioner
Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Ms. Armer, can you explain, maybe
for some clarity for myself, about the comment that you made
about the PDs for residential being part of the mixed-use? In
the couple of places that I read it, it almost felt like it
contradicted itself, so I wasn’t that clear.
JENNIFER ARMER: There were two tasks that were
presented to the Planned Development Study Committee. One was to
look at modifications over a new Planned Development Ordinance.
The other was to look at possible modifications to the
Conditional Use Permit Table, the conditional uses, to allow
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residential in commercial zones, but only as part of mixed-use
project, so that’s independent of Planned Developments; that
would be conducted through the Conditional Use Permit process.
These were the two main subjects that were considered by this
study committee.
JOEL PAULSON: Just for additional information,
currently through a Conditional Use Permit you can request an
all residential project on a commercial site. In the general
vicinity of the timeframe there was a project that was being
considered, that the Planning Commission considered and Council
as well, so as they developed the study committee that was
another task that they were asked to look at, and ultimately the
recommendation was to still allow residential in those zones,
potentially with a Conditional Use Permit, but to require that
they also have commercial attached to them, or in the same
project, so that they meet more of the intent of the General
Plan designation.
CHAIR KANE: Other questions of Staff? Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: For the rest of the
Commissioners, I believe Commissioner Hudes as well, I sat on
the Planned Development Study Committee, so my question kind of
pertained to, since it’s been almost two years since we looked
at this. Everything else was familiar except for Item 8 that we
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were supposed to discuss, the addition of General Plan land use
and/or zoning designations, and it said we had recommended that
we consider adding one or more General Plan land use or zoning
designations, but I could not recall what they were. Or did we
leave it that we didn’t think there was enough zoning
designations generally and that we ought to make sure that we
have the right ones. So what was the intent of that?
JENNIFER ARMER: My understanding is that the list of
eight items, which are included as Exhibit 7, were topics that
were discussed by the committee and that came up as important
topics, but beyond the scope of that committee, and so if you
look at the last item there listed, it’s, “Consider adding one
or more General Plan land use and/or zoning designations.
JOEL PAULSON: I would also offer that you’ll probably
hear this evening from one of the other study committee members.
Ms. Quintana will speak this evening, and I believe it was she
that brought up the possibility of considering a mixed use
General Plan or zoning designation.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yeah, I was thinking it might
have been that. Then just one other quick question.
Since we’re embarking on the process of the General
Plan 2030 this year, and I watched the Council hearing when they
talked about the scope and it sounded like they had definitely
been in favor of doing a public input process. I don't know what
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the other Commissioners will think, but there are at least a
couple of items here where it might be beneficial to get some
public input, and my question is would that be an appropriate
venue to do that, because there’s a Land Use Element in the
General Plan? Is that reasonable to think that we’ll have
opportunity to do public input when we do the General Plan
process?
JENNIFER ARMER: The General Plan process will
definitely involve significant public outreach and public input,
and it’s likely to cover all topics. There will likely be some
focus on topics of particular interest and importance from Town
Council that my understanding is we will receive comments and
suggestions from the public as an integral part of that process.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Other questions for Staff?
Commissioner Hudes.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: I very much appreciate the
opportunity to have served on the study committee. It was a
great learning experience; it ran over two calendar year
boundaries, I think.
My question is how does the Staff Report here today’s
proposed amendments reflect the recommendations of the PD I see?
Are they being taken as the starting point for this, or were
there recommendations or amendments by the Council that reviewed
the work of the PDSC subsequently?
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JENNIFER ARMER: Council’s direction to Staff was to
forward the recommendation from the study committee to the
Planning Commission for consideration.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: It looked to me like there were
some places where Staff was making… On number three it says,
“The draft PD Ordinance removes the 40,000 square foot minimum
lot size, however the PDSC recommended the Commission consider
requiring a minimum lot size for PDs.” So that recommendation to
remove the minimum lot size, did that come from the Council, or
where did that… That didn’t come from the PDSC, obviously.
JENNIFER ARMER: It did, actually. The removal of the
minimum lot size was incorporated into the draft ordinance
presented to you this evening, however, in addition to the
language of the draft ordinance that was forwarded by the study
committee there was also this list of eight items for
consideration, and so in addition to the agreed upon ordinance
language there also were these items that should be considered,
one of which is considering a minimum lot size threshold for
Planned Developments; it’s the third bullet point on that list.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: So while it was a recommendation
there seemed to be enough votes on that committee to say that
should be considered and relooked at by whoever looks at it
next.
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JOEL PAULSON: These eight items were specifically
referenced by the Planned Development Study Committee at the end
of their deliberations, and you referenced one that’s a perfect
example. The Planned Development Study Committee recommended
removing it, so in the ordinance you see from their
recommendation it’s not included. However, as we continued and
had more meetings and discussion came up, some of these topics
kind of got regurgitated and there were some different ideas,
and so that was one of the topics that the Planned Development
Study Committee said Planning Commission and Council really
should weigh in on this, and so they can either agree with us or
they can decide to go a different direction.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR KANE: Other questions for Staff? Commissioner
Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: My question follows up on
Commissioner Hudes’ question. I noted that the Planned
Development Study Committee had 12 members, and Exhibit 9
mentions a consensus vote on the revised ordinance, so was there
a motion with a vote so that maybe we know it was unanimous in
forwarding it as proposed, or was it maybe a 7-5 vote, so we can
kind of gauge how the committee was leaning? I couldn’t find it
in any of the minutes.
JENNIFER ARMER: It was a consensus vote.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: So a consensus vote means
unanimous or…
JOEL PAULSON: It does not, and so we’ll have to look.
We don’t have those exact numbers, and we’ll see if those are
available. I’ll dig through my other binder.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
JOEL PAULSON: Unless Matthew or Millie remembers off
the top of their head.
CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Commissioner Hudes may also
want to weigh in, because like I said, it’s been almost two
years. But my recollection is we spent a lot of time discussing
every single issue across many meetings. When it came down to
drafting the ordinance we actually went through every part of
the ordinance and every bit of the language, and we walked
through whether people were in agreement with it or not, and I
don’t recall anyone saying I can’t live with that and I won’t
move forward, so my sense is the consensus was unanimous.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: This is very minor. It’s nit-
picky, but it’s a housekeeping issue. If this goes forward,
Exhibit 5, Section 29.80.080, Section A, I believe we should
insert the word “and” between “standards guidelines.”
CHAIR KANE: Excellent point.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR KANE: Other questions or directions for Staff?
All right, seeing none, I’m going to go to the public portion of
the public hearing, and we have one speaker card. Ms. Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: I, too, was on that committee. I have
lots of comments, but I’m not going to be able to make them all,
so I’d just like to make some general comments.
My general comment is this took place over a very long
period of time. It started in 2013 with the Town’s Policy
Committee looking at it, and then it went on and on, and when
the committee was appointed there was a gap of six months before
we actually met, and then was additional time that we met, and
then there was a big gap again before it came back to Council,
and then finally to you, and now back to the Council. My point
in saying that is that I think that in that period of time there
have been some changes that have happened in the legislative
domain that may affect what the conclusions were in this report.
In addition, we’re going into the General Plan cycle
pretty soon, and as I think one of you indicated, some of these
issues are really General Plan issues, such as new General Plan
designations, or relooking at all of the General Plan
designations to see if they still work, that they don’t overlap,
that kind of thing.
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I’m going to run out of time, and I think I’m going to
ask you to let me speak longer, because I think I have some
important things to say.
You talked about it earlier today, objective standards
versus subjective standards. That’s something that the Town
Council wants to look at very carefully during the General Plan,
because that’s the way the legislature is moving, that if we
don’t have the specific objective standards you won’t be able to
turn something down or approve something, and I’m saying that
because in your packet, at the end of the executive summary the
Vice Chair added some discussion about the public benefit, and
that whole section really bothers me, because you read the
proposed zoning draft, and it’s pretty specific, and then it
goes to… and it has to be consistent with the General Plan, and
it has to be this, and it has to be that, except as stated in
section blah, blah, blah, and then when you get to section blah,
blah, blah, you have terms that really are not defined and are
very subjective, and as the Vice Chair said, it seems like the
total effect has been just moving the deck chairs around. We are
substituting one set of language that is not very specific for
another set.
CHAIR KANE: Ms. Quintana, your time is up, however,
given your depth of experience you have in this area, I’ll give
you another minute or two.
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LEE QUINTANA: Well, I’d like you to ask some
questions, I think that would be better, but I will point out
that on the Table of Conditional Uses we did add that condition
that the residential uses could be allowed through CUP in the
commercial zones, but it had to be in conjunction with a use
that was authorized by that zone, so that we weren’t de facto
doing a General Plan amendment without doing a General Plan
amendment, and not preserving the integrity of the zone.
I would add on that one in particular though, I
question whether one single-family unit should be allowed as one
of those conditional uses, since we are looking to increase our
housing supply, and using single-family in commercial districts,
unless they provide a large part of the mixed-use, doesn’t seem
logical to me.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. I’m sure there
will be questions for you. But again, given the amount of time
and expertise you have in this area, I believe this item is
going to be continued, and if time permits you might want to put
a list of bullet items together for us.
And also, as Commissioner O'Donnell has mentioned in
the past, you give us some very substantial, meaty, heavy,
weighty stuff, and I got your 19 pages at 2:00 o'clock.
LEE QUINTANA: What 19 pages?
CHAIR KANE: You submitted guidelines from Menlo Park.
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LEE QUINTANA: Oh, no, what I submitted is the brief
from Greenbelt Alliance on just this question, and I submitted
it on Monday morning so that it would get to you by Tuesday, but
apparently it didn’t.
CHAIR KANE: All right. Questions for the speaker?
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had the same thought as you
in the sense of the General Plan starting, so here is where I
came out. I, too, was thinking about the new laws that came out
that are encouraging housing production, and I think they have
impacts on a number of these definitions, including the
minimum/maximum density and so on, so forth.
So I wondered if your recommendation was to spend more
time studying it before we approve it, or is it worth trying to
put it out there because it’s better than what we have now?
Because the whole reason for this was that developers were
willy-nilly, especially in the case of residential just saying I
want a PD so that I can go way above the FAR and so on, so
forth, and so what the Planned Development Study Committee did
is make that a lot more specific and with a lot more
requirements, so I wondered even what the other changes out
there, if it wasn’t much better than we had before. So I’m
asking your opinion about it.
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LEE QUINTANA: I think that in some ways it’s better,
but I also think that by not… Under Section 2980.080 it lists
what the Planned Development Overlay is not intended for, and
it’s, “Not intended for uses inconsistent with the General Plan
or proposed development that can reasonably be done under
existing Town Code or a relaxation of the standards.” And then
it goes on. There are bunches that have to do with physical
features.
Then it goes down to number 8… Oh, and number 7 is for
affordable housing. Number 8, “A property being considered for a
use or combination of uses not allowed in…”
(Microphone gives out. New one is brought over.)
LEE QUINTANA: Okay, we’re back. “Not under one of the
existing zoning districts.” Well, that makes sense, but then it
says, “A property being considered for the creative use of the
site consistent with the base zoning district.” Well, that’s
very subjective. In my opinion that’s not better than the
language that we have now, which really allows you to do
anything you want from 180-degrees to zero.
And also the lack of definition of what is a public
benefit? And that’s why I sent in that thing from the Greenbelt
Alliance, because they talk about that, and at the committee
there was discussion about what is the difference between a
public benefit and a community benefit, because the Town had
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just eliminated community benefits, and I honestly could not
distinguish a difference between the two, and in the Greenbelt
Alliance paper they more or less state that, that it’s the idea
of getting a benefit from a PD that you wouldn’t necessarily
otherwise get, but whether it’s called community benefit, or a
public benefit, or a development agreement, or whatever, is
basically the same type of thing.
And then they go into how different jurisdictions have
done it, and they looked at whether the more successful ones, it
seemed, are the ones that had public hearings and very clearly
defined what the benefit was and what you got for the benefit,
or vice-versa, rather than the case-by-case, which is the way
this would work, as does our current one. They gave one example
of Palo Alto and they said it really did not work very well,
because there were no specific guidelines and it just made the
process longer.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. We have a
question from Commissioner Hudes.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: I have kind of a bigger picture
question, having been part of the process and having firsthand
experienced your very involved input to the process, as other
members. The work of the committee went through many, many
iterations where we actually looked at an issue once and then
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came back to it. In the end I support the recommendations of the
PDSC, and to me that’s a starting point.
My question for you is do you support the
recommendations of the PDSC, with maybe the exception of
legislative changes that would compel us to do something
otherwise?
LEE QUINTANA: I would support it if there was
specific as to what constituted public benefit and what was
being—I think somebody used the word “horse trading,” which is
essentially what you’re doing—what was being horse traded for
it, and this leaves that totally open. You can get one project
that maybe gives a tiny little benefit and gets a huge deviation
from a standard, or vice-versa, so that’s one part that I don’t
agree with.
The other part that I really am disappointed in not
having come to a conclusion from the committee, although I
thought there was pretty much a consensus, is that the A&S
should take place at the same time as the Planned Development
zoning, because in essence if you have a Planned Development
zoning and you’re doing a subdivision, and you can’t approve the
subdivision until you approve the zoning, but once you approve
the zoning you have to approve the subdivision, because it’s
already been approved, and the same thing with the A&S, you
really don’t have any discretion anymore.
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CHAIR KANE: Thank you. We have a follow up from
Commissioner Hudes.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: If I could. Since I don’t think
it’s our job or purview to recreate the Planned Development
Study Committee and go through every point and take every
possible input to it, but instead to use the Planned Development
Study Committee as a starting point, would you be willing to
provide in writing, so that we can consider this in a future
meeting, any areas that you think are either not reflecting the
decision of the PDSC, or are something that has evolved since
then, rather than providing alternative points of view on every
possible issue that there could be?
LEE QUINTANA: I can’t promise. I am limiting the
amount of time I spend on Town items below what I have been, and
I will try, but I can’t promise. But I do think that given that
the General Plan is going to be looked at and given these new
laws that I don't know how they’re going to affect us, and given
lots of other things, the need for objective criteria.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: As to my question, if you could
provide those things in writing, that would be helpful to us.
Thank you.
LEE QUINTANA: If I can provide it in writing not
coherently but stream of consciousness. Where I get hung up is I
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have all of these ideas and I want to get it into a perfectly
logical sequence, which is hard to do.
CHAIR KANE: If I can read William Faulkner, I can
read you. Thank you, Ms. Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: Oh, and one other thing I want to say
is that the final consensus vote—we took consensus votes along
the way and they weren’t always unanimous, some of them were,
some of them weren’t—the final consensus vote that was made was
made so fast that it was already declared approved consensus
before I was able to say wait a minute, so it was a consensus
vote, but I don’t think it was a truly unanimous vote.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you very much for all of your
input. Thank you.
LEE QUINTANA: And I hope you continue it.
CHAIR KANE: I’m going to close the public portion of
the public hearing. Does the Applicant want their last five
minutes?
JOEL PAULSON: (Inaudible).
CHAIR KANE: Then I’ll turn to the Commission. I have
an idea, if I can quickly find it, regarding how we proceed from
here. I’m going to read Staff’s recommendation on page 10 of the
Staff Report, as that may provide a guideline. “Staff recommends
the Planning Commission review 1) the proposed draft PD
Ordinance; 2) the proposed changes to the Table of Conditional
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Uses; and 3) the proposed edits of the General Plan; and to
discuss the eight questions highlighted in this report.
Following our discussion, Staff recommendations that this item
be continued to a date certain with specific direction from us
so they can bring back additional information and revisions to
the four items we’re going to discuss. Does that work for
everybody? Commissioner Hudes.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: I actually am concerned about that,
because there have been some issues raised here that I would
like to consider and think about before entering into a
discussion of all of these eight items, including particularly
the one that concerns me are the legislative impacts that may
direct us to some of these things. I’d like to see an analysis
of that before entering into these, since it’s been alluded that
there are some that impact that we have.
Also, I would like to consider some of the comments
from Ms. Quintana, both in the document that she submitted that
I have to admit that I did not have the opportunity to review in
as much depth as I would like to, although I did read it as
we’re required to, but I would like to take more time to that.
And also, if there’s additional input, particularly on
the issue that I raised about legislative changes that impact
this, and other issues that are just not representing the
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consensus of the PDSC, I’d like to have that in front of me
before actually going into that discussion.
CHAIR KANE: So what is your proposal?
VICE CHAIR HUDES: My proposal would be to take the
second part of the Staff recommendation first, which is to
postpone with additional information analysis from Staff.
CHAIR KANE: I don’t disagree. Your point has merit,
but what I’d like to do is go down the row of Commissioners and
see if they have questions. It reminds me of the question how do
you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, and we’ve got an
elephant on our hands here.
But speaking of which, this has been going on since
2013, as has been pointed out, and it’s very important work, and
it was a huge undertaking, and I just want to put on the record
who these people were, because I think they did a fantastic job.
Marico Sayoc, Councilmember; Marcia Jensen, Councilmember;
Joanne Talesfore, Planning Commissioner; Charles Erekson,
Planning Commissioner; our own Melanie Hanssen, Planning
Commissioner; Matthew Hudes, who at that time was a General Plan
Committee member; Todd Jarvis, Bob Beyer, Lee Quintana, Jak Van
Nada, Jim Foley, and Jeffrey Barnett. Thank you to them all.
So, additional comments? Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m in agreement with Vice Chair
Hudes on his suggestion, and what I would like in front, or that
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I would like to absorb ahead of time, is getting additional
comparative studies from neighboring jurisdictions on a number
of items, and that would be mixed-use definitions for
jurisdictions other than the ones provided, and specifically
maybe some cities that are more like us, like Saratoga and Los
Altos.
Also, too, I would like to see Planned Development
ordinances from other neighboring jurisdictions, and again,
Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Campbell.
Also, too, I would like to get comparative studies on
definitions for minimum and maximum density for residential
units in commercial zones, and again, from neighboring
jurisdictions; that might be Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, and
Campbell.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Other comments? Commissioner
Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: It might be a bit of a question
to Staff, too. Since we are talking about how legislation is
changing how we’re approaching housing, the comment, as you
clarified then for me with the multiuse, like if it’s in a
commercial zone, maintaining that. As we are looking at these
changes, is that something that we would now maybe want to shy
away from? I’m thinking of a couple of particular properties
that may although they were zoned commercial may actually be
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more suitable to residential, and so is there maybe a different
way we could look at that to bring in more of the housing stock,
and not make that just a set if it’s in the commercial it has to
be the mixed-use? Is there a way we could look at it
differently, reword that?
JOEL PAULSON: Well, there’s a way. The way would be
leave it as it is and not require the mixed-use, which isn’t
currently required.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, I like that.
JOEL PAULSON: I think any of those things could be
part of the motion. I would just also offer it was a lengthy
process, which has been referenced over and over. Laws are going
to change every year. I would hope that we can get some
progress, if not on all of this, shortly, but not this evening.
It sounds like we have consideration of additional information,
which is perfectly fine, but I also don’t want to have this end
up being we’re going through the General Plan Update, lets’ wait
till that’s done, and we’d be back here in about two or three
more years and we’d sit on this information, so hopefully we can
come up with a good game plan to move forward.
Our conversation with Council at the last hearing
regarding the General Plan Update work plan included interest in
separating out and having parallel tracks for the larger General
Plan Update, but also looking at the potential for getting more
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objective standards in the General Plan even earlier, so
actually doing General Plan amendments concurrently with those,
which would probably go quicker and could be adopted and then
ultimately incorporated into the final document.
This objective standards conversation is going to
continue to evolve, and I think we need to see what additional
information the Commission is interested in getting; we can
provide that information and continue that conversation.
CHAIR KANE: I agree the item requires more study, but
what I’m driving at is can we get anything specifically done
tonight? Any questions? Any likes, dislikes, clarifications?
Commissioner Hudes has given us some, but give Staff a general
sense of how we individually feel about the four items in front
of us. Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to weigh in since
I also sat on the Planned Development Study Committee. I do
believe that the current document in front of us is vastly
superior to the existing PD Ordinance, and I don't know if the
other Commissioners noticed, but there was the interim version
also done by the Policy Committee, and which was more limited
than what the Planned Development Study Committee did, and two
of the Councilmembers sat on the Planned Development Study
Committee.
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After all that time I think that the document that we
have in front of us is vastly superior to the existing PD
Ordinance and that we ought to consider going with that, but I
do share the concern, especially with the new laws encouraging
housing production. It impacts things like the minimum lot size
and other aspects of what is required for PDs and so on, so
forth, so I would like to hear more about what those housing
laws are relative to what’s in front of us to go forward with
it, but I don’t want to see this thing get protracted into the
whole General Plan cycle.
The one thing I would say could go in the General Plan
cycle is the specifics about public benefits. If you look at the
document that Ms. Quintana gave us, every one of those
jurisdictions did a fairly lengthy study to get to the point
where they had a very defined list approved by the public of
what constitutes a public benefit, and then how to incent
developers to do that, like what kind of incentive work, and
then they even had where you could quantify the incentives.
This is not something that can be done very quickly,
so that being the case, we could at least put a placeholder
definition, such as the one by Jak Van Nada, into the Planned
Development study language that we have, which would at least
give a general scope to what defines a public benefit, and then
take it on as a task in the General Plan process, or maybe what
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the objective standards are, or I don't know, but to do that.
But I don’t see that getting a good list of public benefits that
the Town really feels good about is something we could do in the
short term.
But I do agree with Commissioner Badame on some of
these defining minimum open space requirements, defining a
minimum lot size. Is there a minimum lot size for Planned
Developments, minimum and maximum density? I think all of these
are things we need to understand the law about, and it would be
worth checking with additional jurisdictions just like you did
in the definition of the mixed-use project, to see what’s
happening, because if we come out and say our minimum lot size
for a Planned Development is 40,000 and everyone else is doing
10,000, then we’re either not being competitive, or we’re
perhaps even violating the intent of the California laws,
because if we try to make it too big, maybe there’s a good,
affordable housing development that could go on a 10,000 square
foot lot.
It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive thing, but
specifically on a couple of these—I think Commissioner Badame
gave a good list—get a little bit of data from some of the
jurisdictions that are like us, and then also this analysis of
the California housing laws and if it changes the way we think
about some of the language.
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JOEL PAULSON: I just offer we are not going to
provide an in depth analysis of the 17 bills that were passed.
What I will say is that the Town Manager and I have been
discussing this, actually, and Councilmembers have been
discussing this, and the intent is to try to find someone… There
have been a number of workshops all over the state, as you can
imagine—I was just at one in San Francisco yesterday—and so
there are a number of speakers who are attorneys generally, and
they have been going around providing presentations. We are
hoping to bring somebody in for a joint Planning Commission and
Council study session. The details haven’t been finalized, I
can’t give you a timeline, but just so you know that that is in
the works, and as we get more information I’ll definitely be
providing that to the Commission.
CHAIR KANE: Other questions, comments? Commissioner
Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I just have a quick question, if
I’m taking some of this away and reviewing it. Why did the
committee want to get rid of the minimum lot size in the first
place if we’re revisiting this?
JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer that I think, for
me, whether it’s flashbacks or Groundhog’s Day, I think
Commissioner Hanssen kind of hit the point that you may have a
lot that’s smaller than 40,000, which is our current
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requirement, that is totally appropriate for a small affordable
housing development but needs some concessions and would
otherwise have to go through the variance process, and so that’s
ultimately why it was eliminated, I believe, from the committee.
So again, what Staff did was at the end of all of
those hundreds of motions and conversations about the individual
topics there were these eight pieces that came out where in that
case specifically they made a recommendation, which is included,
but they also wanted to make sure that that was an item that the
Planning Commission and Council considered.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thanks.
CHAIR KANE: Other questions or comments? Commissioner
Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Again another nit-picky issue,
but I’m just looking at Exhibit 5, and it’s Section 29.80.080,
and this is kind of a wordsmith issue. It says, “A relaxation of
standards applicable to similar types of development.” It seems
to me that the word “deviation” would be a better fit rather
than “relaxation.” Just a comment.
CHAIR KANE: Where are you exactly? Exhibit 5.
JOEL PAULSON: She’s on page 1 of Exhibit 5.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Exhibit 5.
JOEL PAULSON: 29.8.0.080, A-3.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: Section A, and then number 3. It
talks about a “relaxation” of standards. I think a “deviation”
of standards would be a more appropriate word choice.
CHAIR KANE: Comment, Mr. Paulson?
JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have a comment. I think we can
have those wordsmithing conversations, which we had many of
those at the Planned Development Study Committee as well, as we
move forward, so we can take a look at that. I think once we get
closer to formulating a recommendation, again, we’re going to
have verbatim minutes of all the meetings the Planning
Commission holds as we forward a recommendation to Council, and
possibly Commissioner Hudes or Commissioner Hanssen might have
additional comments on any of these changes that might be
suggested.
CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hudes.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: I wanted to just say a couple of
things about it not only reflected the work of all those folks
that Commissioner Kane listed, but it also reflected quite a bit
of community input, and I think we really need to take that
seriously. And a lot of that community input actually started
with the Albright Way development and the need to address some
of these issues.
I am very much in favor of substantially supporting
the recommendations of the PDSC. I think it’s a very significant
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improvement over what we currently have in our General Plan and
in our variance and other zoning ordinances, and I think it’s
also a very positive evolution from where the Policy Committee
started in a way that I think is very beneficial to the Town.
While there are points that I was not in favor of during the
total discussion, I am very much in favor of the whole, and so
I’d like to just weigh in on that, that I am not in favor of
reopening every point that was every considered, because I think
a lot of it does reflect the will of the community through a
democratic process.
The other thing I just wanted to say is that I think
while some things may overlap with the General Plan, I am
concerned about the timeline and I would like to see this come
through more quickly than the General Plan is likely to come
through, and so with the exception of areas that are really
better addressed in the General Plan I’d like to see most of the
items in the PDSC recommendations go forward.
I think the example that Commissioner Hanssen used
about public benefit is a good one to defer final resolution to
the General Plan, because public benefit applies to many things
beyond Planned Developments that are referenced, and it would be
good to get that process resolved. But I do think the bulk of
what is in the PDSC recommendations and in the language that’s
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been proposed does reflect the will of the community, and so I’d
like to support that.
I’m also prepared to make a motion at some point.
CHAIR KANE: When you say you support the work, the
findings of the PDSC, does that mean you feel they have ruled or
had input on all four items that are before us today?
VICE CHAIR HUDES: I think the last items of
additional considerations were ones they didn’t deliberation on,
but I think the others, yes.
CHAIR KANE: So you’d support the first three, and
then we still need to do the eight questions.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: Yeah, for the most part, although
some of these eight questions were also addressed.
CHAIR KANE: Okay, good. I’m okay with that. Other
comments? Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: To that point, it sounds like,
if I’m not reading into your words, Mr. Paulson, that it would
be beneficial to have this policy in place. Presently there may
be modifications that in the future, as the result of work on
the General Plan, would then cross-reference and make some
changes, but if that’s true from your perspective, and we’ve
already gone through the deep and diligent process of the PDSC,
I guess I’m finding it difficult to understand why we wouldn’t
approve what we have before us tonight to put working documents
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in place, and then take the eight items that were outside of the
purview of the PDSC to the future discussion.
CHAIR KANE: I think the intent was that we had a
chance to review them. Commissioner Hudes, you wanted to make a
motion?
VICE CHAIR HUDES: Maybe I’ll respond and say while I
think the bulk of the items I would be perfectly happy to
support just as they are, a couple of things have been raised.
One is that there are potential legal or legislative changes
that might impact some of these things, and I’d like to hear
specifically from Staff on that, and I also think that
Commissioner Badame raised a number of points for clarification
in terms of definition that would be very helpful to consider as
well, so for that reason I’m ready to make a motion.
CHAIR KANE: Let’s hear from Commissioner O'Donnell
first.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’m not saying anything
different, except to say we see the changes coming out of the
legislature by simple reading the newspaper, and all kinds of
scary things are coming down the tracks, and I think Staff has
already said this, that to the extent that we can take care of
things sooner rather than later, definitely not waiting for the
General Plan, the better off it is, because somebody is going to
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zip in here and have a project nobody wants, and they’re going
to point out to us why we have to take it.
We’re not doing anything wrong by saying we want to
have objective standards. That’s the best we can do, and to the
extent that this would help us have objective standards, then I,
for one, would like to see us do it soon. I don’t think tonight
is the right time to do it, but soon.
CHAIR KANE: I agree with you completely,
Commissioner. We can comply with the laws as they evolve, but we
should more forward on this. Commissioner Janoff, we were going
to get a motion from Commissioner Hudes. What would you like to
do?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a point of clarification.
Staff has said that they won’t be presenting us with detailed
legislative analysis…
CHAIR KANE: That’s right.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: …and that the definition for
public benefit, I guess the conversation among Commissioners was
that it’s a lengthier conversation that would be more suitable
to the track of the General Plan, so that being said, I’m not
sure… Those are the points that we have questions about. What
else do we want to continue this for if we’re not going to get
that information in a timely manner?
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JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer I think there are a
couple of ways to deal with some of this stuff. The public
benefit, for instance, Jak Van Nada submitted an option. I think
we polled other options. We used to have an option, we just
called it “community benefit,” and so we have a lot of starting
point language.
If there are things like Ms. Quintana mentioned, or
you guys have mentioned, where the public benefit maybe should
have some objective standards in it, we don’t necessarily need
to create all those at this point. That could be part of a
recommendation, and then as this evolves we can get that
direction from Council. The forum I was at yesterday, it was
“How Objective is Objective?” or something along those lines,
and everyone is dealing with this issue. There will be a lot of
work coming out of other jurisdictions that we may be able to
utilize, but everyone is still kind of in the same boat with
that, but I think some of that stuff can be rolled into a
recommendation once we get there.
I think we optimistically assumed two meetings. Again,
that’s probably optimistic; the reality is probably all along it
was going to take three meetings potentially to get through
this, depending on how the next meeting goes, and so that’s fine
from that perspective, but I think we do want to try to be
somewhat timely, and then we can always course correct in the
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future. We’re already hearing that those that were adopted last
year were just a start, so this session we’re expecting quite a
bit more work to be done from our legislators, and so we’ll wait
and see what comes of that.
CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I hear your issue with the
legislation. A)it’s a moving target; and B) there’s a lot of it,
and everyone is still trying to process it. In thinking through
this thing—it’s probably having also worked on the Housing
Element—it seems more likely that all the legislative changes
are really going to be more targeted at all housing code and
standards versus specifically the Planned Developments, which
are sort of a special case. I don't know if my thinking is
accurate on that, but I think we’ll probably have more of an
issue about the legal aspects of this with our other land use
standards than just the Planned Development Ordinance, would
that be fair?
JOEL PAULSON: That is an accurate statement. I think
there are some opportunities potentially in the PD Zone, but
typically when someone is coming in for a PD Zone they’re asking
for deviations, relaxations, from the standards. Ultimately we
are going to need to enhance or modify our existing objective
standards in our General Plan and in our Zoning Code, and that’s
really what’s going to drive it.
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I think Ms. Quintana brought up a good point about the
public benefit, in that if you want this, here is an example of
what the Town considered public benefit. So those can be more
objective than leaving it open to the decision makers, which is
one of the challenges I think some folks have with the community
benefit, which is why we no longer have that, along with the
nexus challenges.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right. So I’ll hear
Commissioner Hudes’ motion, but I did want to bring that up, but
in hearing the conversation I wouldn’t want an exhaustive review
of the law with all the new housing law to make this delayed by
months and months and months, and so that being the case, for me
personally I’d be happy if we could just do a sanity check on
some of these definitions, like the minimum lot size and the
minimum open space requirements, and relative to what other
jurisdictions are doing, so that we’re not like way out of line.
JOEL PAULSON: Yeah, and we’ll pull some more
comparative information, and we’ll probably have to put some of
it in the table. Frankly, I think why we don’t have some of that
information for certain jurisdictions is many of them don’t have
it, so we’ll just put that in table so you know we at least
looked at those jurisdictions, and if they don’t have we will
delineate that in some way.
CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner Hudes.
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VICE CHAIR HUDES: I think my motion is going to be a
bit of a dud, but after all this it’s pretty simple. I would
move to continue the item to a date certain, and the date would
come from Staff, with specific direction that includes the
comments made by Commissioners tonight and to consider those
carefully in recommending a date and in providing us with
information for the next meeting.
JOEL PAULSON: Staff would suggest March 28th.
VICE CHAIR HUDES: So the motion would be to March
28th.
CHAIR KANE: Is there a second? Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: So seconded.
CHAIR KANE: Any discussion? I’ll call the vote. All
in favor? Opposed? Passes unanimously, six-zero. Are there
appeal rights? Seven-zero. Oh, she’s back. Seven-zero; sorry.
You’re out so much, I didn’t know.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Hopefully no more.