Good evening and welcome to the June 27th, 2024 meeting at the Walling Creek Planning Commission.
Will the Secretary please take the roll?
Commissioner Kwok?
Here.
Commissioner Ward is absent.
Commissioner Klopp?
Here.
Commissioner Reiser is absent.
Commissioner Nating is absent.
Vice Chair Anderson?
Here.
Chair Strongman?
Here.
And do we have a quorum?
We do have a quorum, thank you.
Moving on to the item number two, the consent calendar. We have one item of
the consent calendar which is the meetings of our meeting on the 13th.
Do we have anyone who would like to pull it to discuss or make a motion to accept?
Make a motion to accept the consent calendar. Second. Will the secretary please
take the roll. Commissioner Klop? Yes. Commissioner Ward is absent. Commissioner
o'clock? Approved. Commissioner Reiser is absent. Commissioner Nate Ng is absent. Vice
chair Anderson? Yes. Chair Strongman? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving on to
public communications item 3 this is the portion of the meeting that is open to
the public for to make comments on any subject other than which is on the
agenda. Therefore, would anybody like to come forward to make a comment? Seeing no
When approached the podium, we will close public comments
and move on to the next item, which is public hearings,
the project of AB 2097 parking ordinance update.
Good evening, oh, sorry.
Good evening, commissioners.
My name is Henry Roode, assistant planner
with the Public Works Department.
You may remember two weeks ago we had a study session
on some proposed updates to the zoning ordinance
regarding parking.
Today, it's coming back.
We have a draft resolution, which has been amended
with some small fixes for your review,
recommending a draft ordinance to the city council.
So just to kind of recap a bit about what is in this update,
in response to our findings
from the right-sizing parking study,
we are lowering city parking minimums for residential.
We are eliminating parking minimums
within a half mile of transit,
as mandated by state law AB 2097.
There are other updates for state law compliance.
In addition, we're also changing
how we regulate bicycle parking requirements
to decouple them from automobile parking
and adding new provisions
for transportation demand management,
in addition to some smaller housekeeping cleanup items.
So the action item today,
the Planning Commission is recommended
to review the complete draft ordinance as amended
and provide a recommendation
to city council for adoption.
Staff recommend that the planning commission adopt
this draft resolution.
And then on July 23rd, city council will review the ordinance
for the first reading and on August 6th, the second reading.
And so with that, if there are any questions or comments,
I also have these slides from the study session
as part of this presentation,
if you'd like to refer back to them.
Would anyone like to see those slides?
Seeing no answer to that.
Does anybody have questions?
Any commissioner have questions for the staff?
See, oh go, go ahead.
What's it?
Oh, you have a hot mic.
Awesome.
Seeing none, we will open up for public comments.
Any member of the public would like to comment on this item.
Please come forward.
Seeing no one coming forward right now,
I will close the public hearing on this item
and bring it back to the commission for comments
or a recommendation or motion
to recommend to the city council.
And does that motion include the changes
as provided by staff?
I would, that would include the recommendations.
Those, I will refer into this sheet here.
Is that correct?
Yes.
So it would be adopt the resolution with those changes.
that we adopt the resolution with the changes that were made after the last
meeting. Thank you. Secretary please call the roll. Commissioner Kwok. Yes.
Commissioner Ward is absent. Commissioner Klock. Yes. Commissioner Reiser is absent.
Commissioner Nating is absent. Vice Chair Anderson. Yes. Chair Strongman. Yes. Motion
passes thank you and move on to item five of the agenda the commission's consideration
project the updates to the design review project progress and role of the design review commission
we'll have a staff report first good evening uh chair and commission uh ben schuster with
community development if you'll recall i was here a couple months ago now uh at the study session
and we were talking for the first time
about all these changes to the zoning code,
pages and pages reflecting a new design review process,
new objective standards, kind of various code cleanup.
And that was all done at the behest of the city council
who provided direction last year
and then kind of in previous years.
So tonight, coming back to this body
to kind of give a formal update of what the council did.
It's substantially similar to what you all saw
a few months ago and then to kind of give you a sense
of the remaining work that's left related
to this overall effort and then to provide you
with a little deeper dive on the new process,
what your new role will be and then also to give you
an opportunity to ask any questions.
So again, tonight just gonna touch briefly
on the overall project, gonna dive into what changed
in the design review process,
what's changed with the Design Review Commission.
Gonna touch briefly on objective standards
and then, like I mentioned earlier,
open it up to question and answer.
So, back in May and June, just a couple weeks ago,
the council at two different council meetings
heard a number of things and took a number of actions.
They adopted the residential and mixed use
Design Review Standards and Guidelines booklet.
They also adopted a pretty extensive suite
of municipal code amendments, and that, again,
implemented new objective development standards
for these residential mixed use projects,
also updated our design review process,
and that include revising the roles of the DRC,
this body, the community development director among others,
and again, some minor code cleanups sprinkled throughout.
So there's still a number of items
that are ongoing related to this work.
That includes the corresponding
non-residential design review standards and guidelines.
That work is anticipated
to be brought to the council in September
and so this body would see that in August
along with corresponding changes to the zoning code
for the non-residential development types.
there's also some minor cleanups remaining to the DRC's roles and responsibilities that we're
looking to delegate to other bodies as well. And so again, this body would hear those in August.
So all of this work, why are we even doing it in the first place? Two main reasons. One is state
law. So state housing law over the past number of years has really emphasized the use of objective
Standard requires the use of objective standards as well as streamlining for certain residential
development types. And then the city council kind of along the way has said we would love to
streamline our overall design review process, have that kind of better line with state law and state
intent. And so we've taken all that and kind of pushed through this huge body of work.
So now I'm gonna dive into what's changed
in the design review process.
Again, this should all seem pretty familiar to you.
Not much of this changed when the council adopted it.
So kind of the key highlights here
is the design review commission formally
was the approving authority
for essentially all design review entitlements in the city.
That has been taken away and been given
to either city staff,
that's the community development director,
or to this body, the Planning Commission.
And we'll talk a little bit more about that.
And it also established, like I mentioned,
new processes for all the new,
the kind of variety of state housing developments.
And we've, again, codified that and clarified that.
So those are kind of the main takeaways
from what changed process-wise.
And then as part of that,
We also, again, revised or redelegated all the kind
of miscellaneous duties of the Design Review Commission
in keeping with the council's direction.
And so you can kind of see on this list,
there's just a lot of miscellaneous things
that the DRC over the years had approval authority for.
And so those are being removed and given to other bodies.
The two at the end marked pending.
Those are items that staff is currently working on.
And like I mentioned, those will be included in August
when we come back to this body.
So here I've highlighted the Planning Commission.
So you can see on the left, existing,
well, no longer existing, but the old role and proposes now
actually adopted.
But essentially, the key takeaway here
is the Planning Commission goes from a body that
would hear appeals of designer view entitlements
to now being the authority that acts upon
our large design review projects.
And so what's a large project?
What's a small project?
We call those minor and major.
So minor projects, these are all,
for the most part, done at the staff level.
And these are four residential units,
essentially small additions,
kind of minor commercial storefront updates.
So a new store comes into Broadway Plaza,
new signage, new storefront,
that's all done at the staff level, typically.
And then anything that's not specifically codified now
in the design review article,
that would then be approved by the planning commission
with the design review commission
serving as an advisory body to this commission.
So there's three new types of design review categories now.
And again, this should all sound pretty familiar.
Ministerial, again, this is staff level approval,
regardless of the project size,
and that's because of state law,
which mandates these decisions be made
without a public hearing.
And so the Planning Commission
will never see these projects.
Objective design review, this encompasses, again,
other types of state law.
Really, essentially we're treating it
as all residential projects in the city
or residential mixed use projects.
There's state law establishes a meeting limit.
There's also limited discretion by the city to deny.
And so really it's if a project complies
with all objective standards,
the city essentially must approve.
And then the last one is discretionary design review.
And again, this kind of matches what we do today.
This will apply to all of our,
well, I should say continue to apply
to all of our commercial projects in the city.
And then it will also apply to any residential projects
that for one reason or the other,
opt out of objective design review.
And so with these different pathways,
there's then kind of two approval pathways.
I'm only gonna focus on the ones
that are relevant to this body,
so that's objective and discretionary.
So there are kind of rare circumstances
where the Planning Commission might hear a small project normally delegated to staff
and that would only be in the scenario that there is an associated entitlement that the
Planning Commission already hears and it's associated with a small design review project.
This is, I would say, the great exception and not the rule and so this will very rarely
happen.
But for major projects, the process will always be the design review commission gets a singular
public meeting, it's a study session they will provide their comments and
recommendations to the Planning Commission and then the Planning
Commission would hold a public hearing to make a final determination on the
project. Discretionary design review is the exact same approval kind of pathways
so everything I just said for objective that would apply here for discretionary
design review as well and as I mentioned earlier objective design review projects
essentially must be approved if they comply with all applicable objective criteria, including
our objective design standards and our objective development standards in the zoning code.
And there is very narrow grounds for denial. Those grounds for denial are actually specified
in the state law and are usually based in, I believe, health and safety, very, again,
very limited. And then discretionary design review, again, is what we do today. Design
review is a kind of subjective entitlement, we as a city may approve, may deny, may approve
with conditions. Wide discretion to approve or deny. Okay, so I'm going to pause there
on the design review process and then jump just briefly into objective standards. What
makes a standard objective? And really it's kind of these three definitions here on your
screen. There's no personal or subjective judgment involved. It's uniformly verifiable
and measurable, and then it's known to all parties prior to submittal of an application.
So really it's about essentially the free flow of information, right?
Everyone has the same set of information up front and a developer can know if my project
meets all of these requirements, my project will be approved.
And objective standards are, again, located in our now revised and adopted residential
design review standards and guidelines, and then also in the zoning code.
The form of them, or the intent of them, is a little bit different.
So the standards in the zoning code, those are probably familiar to you.
Things like height, setbacks, lot coverage.
So they kind of help define the overall mass of the building on the site.
And then the design review standards and guidelines, those are all about how do you actually implement
that, so building articulation, specific landscape materials,
and the like.
So the Design Review Standards and Guidelines booklet,
and again, this will also apply to our non-residential booklet
when it's adopted.
They're formatted in essentially the same way.
There's a bunch of chapters.
Each chapter has an intent statement
that says the intent of this chapter is to accomplish XYZ.
And then there are standards listed.
And standards are things that a project must comply with.
And then there are guidelines.
And guidelines are things that
they were not possible to make into an objective standard.
For example, you can't measure paint color as an example.
And so guidelines are strongly recommended,
but for projects protected under state housing law,
do not have to comply if they choose not to. However, for projects going through a discretionary
design review process, we do have a lot more authority to enforce both the standards and
the guidelines. Okay, so kind of putting it all together, we have our new process and
we have our new standards. So what does this mean? So this slide, and then we're going
to go into each one, kind of gives you the high level overview of the majority of the
that this commission will see which are again the larger major projects and and there's really
four steps that we're going to walk through. So a project comes in is submitted to the
community development department so a staff member intakes the project we then do sort of
an initial analysis determine if a application is complete incomplete and then we make a
determination on the compliance with objective standards and then we write a staff report.
and that staff report is then part of the overall packet that goes to the design review commission
uh for the DRC to comment on and the the design review commission's role is again to look at
staff's analysis to then look at the project through their own set of kind of their own lens
as as as um design professionals and then to make their recommendation and comments on the project
and then they make a recommendation to the Planning Commission.
Then the project effectively goes back to staff to summarize the DRC's comments,
to kind of write another staff report, summarizing everything, and then coming
forth to this body and making a recommendation to the Planning Commission for an action.
And then the Planning Commission, which is everyone here, you'll have all that information,
you'll have all of staff's analysis,
the design review commission's analysis,
you'll hold the public hearing,
and then you'll take action on the project.
And here I just really wanted to emphasize
this is a new process for all of us,
for staff and for all our various commissions.
And so we're all kind of in this together.
And just because it's new doesn't have to be scary.
And so we'll support each other through this new process
moving forward.
So with that, like I said, I'm available for questions on anything I covered tonight and
that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I have a first
comment. Question for you is, what decision are you expecting hoping for us to make tonight?
There is no action required for you. This is just an update and an opportunity for you to
ask any questions about the process. Okay, thank you. Other commissioners?
All right. Thank you for the presentation. I do appreciate all the staff's work on the consistency, preparing the materials and everything for us to review, as well as all the other commissioners and the city council.
I did want to clarify, so I know you talked about the classifications of the minor projects versus major projects. If they are major, are they always going to pass through design review?
yes mission yes and that was that was by design that was specific uh city council direction
and then if when the design review uh commission makes a recommendation is their recommendation
going to be a separate attachment uh as part of the materials that we'll be getting for our
consideration i think that's something as a staff we're still working through it's not going to be
We don't anticipate that the DRC would have a resolution.
Oh, thank you.
Yes.
It would most likely be just something in a staff report.
Okay.
Cool.
All right.
Thank you.
Sure.
Anderson?
Thank you.
A couple questions.
The way it's described there, the objective standards, it's just, you know, does it or
doesn't it?
Yes.
Check the box.
Yes.
Having sat through my share of design review meetings
and know-how designers like to discuss things,
checking boxes isn't really kind of the way they do things,
but that's the process.
I'm wondering, is there, you know,
it sounds like there's nothing for them to decide
in a sense, because it's sort of there.
But even with an objective standard,
There's inevitably going to be some ambiguity,
some play in the way the words are constructed,
and just an interpretation of how a particular design
complies or doesn't comply with it.
Is there some, it's called flexibility.
There's some flexibility that the design review has
to say, we don't think,
You know, maybe the staff doesn't, maybe the staff doesn't.
But we don't think that what the designer
has brought to us as complying actually does.
So, I mean, is there at least that much discretion
that they have, hesitate to use that word, but yeah.
Yeah, so I think there's a couple different pieces
to your question.
Let me see if I can work through all of them.
Again, I kind of go back, first of all,
to the definition of what an objective standard is.
And really, it is intended to be clear and unambiguous.
And so that was very intentional in the development
of the Standards and Guidelines document.
Two members of the DRC were actually heavily involved
as part of the city working group
in developing those standards.
And so really, there really should not be any ambiguity.
There is some flexibility built in to some of the design standards in that there are
multiple ways to meet a certain standard.
And so that's baked into the document directly.
Kind of the third piece of that is there is always an ability and an option for staff
and for the Design Review Commission and for this body,
to provide their comments and thoughts
on a project to the applicant.
However, the applicant is only required
to follow the kind of strict compliance with standards.
And so I think there will be opportunities
with certain developers who wish to be good neighbors
and good partners, right, to listen and hear the feedback,
especially from our design professionals.
But the actions that are taken by this body to approve,
really can't consider that.
So if the developer ultimately says,
you know, I don't want to do that,
then really we still have to kind of comply
with state legislation.
Building on that, I'd like to kind of get a good sense
of how the meeting limit comes into play.
So the state limit is five meetings per project, correct?
Yes, and again, just to emphasize,
we're talking about residential projects.
Okay, yeah.
So there are a lot of five meetings.
If a project is pretty approvable
and it goes through a short path.
Would that be meeting at the design review
as one meeting that they make a recommendation
to the planning commission?
Planning commission takes a recommendation,
says, yeah, that's right, approved.
And then project is approved.
I mean, is there's no other meetings likely to happen?
Correct.
And so the five meeting limit really is intended
to limit the number of, for example,
continuations I know that a body can do.
It also includes the, if you think about meetings,
for appeals, for example,
that would be considered another meeting.
Next question was, you know, so, say the appeal.
Yes.
To the council, I guess.
Yep.
That would be a third meeting?
Yes, that's right.
The appeal counts towards that five.
And just to clarify that the five,
It's not five hearings, it's five meetings.
And so as I understand that can be, for example,
if the city mandated the project go
and do a whole day community meeting,
that would actually count as a meeting as well.
Okay, okay.
So, I know, with some design review,
before there's actually an application,
they'll do a kind of study session
that sort of sit down with the developer
and just throw ideas back and forth.
And that may change some of the things that they do,
partly because they're good ideas,
partly because they might be more likely
to get a good recommendation or approval.
What concerns me about, in particular,
the one meeting limit for the design review is,
and especially if you're only just interpreting
objective standards and there's never no ambiguity,
but limited ambiguity involved,
that the value of design review is really kind of lost there
because design review doesn't see the thing
until they come in for their study session.
And they've only got that one meeting to say,
and recommend yes or no,
and they can make some specific suggestions
recommendations that we might, you know, implement or something, but whether the applicant might
implement in order to get an approval from us. But, you know, with a single meeting,
there's really no given take there. So what I'm wondering is a couple of things. And, you know,
sort of like after the fact, I suppose, but it's, I think, important to get this idea out there.
if there were to be, say, an informal get-together with design review members and the applicants,
you know, before any application is made or before it goes for an official hearing.
I think there's two ways that might go and I think I know how it would be interpreted.
I assume that if the whole design review group gets together with you know the
the applicant and the designers and they sit around and do a little charrette and you know have
have fun for an afternoon um that even if that's not a noticed official well probably would have
to be noticed that's the core um but that would count as a meeting am I correct? I'll let her
if no application has yet been made I'll let our city attorney weigh in on that.
So if no applications come in so first of all, you're correct. There is the brown act issue
You really couldn't have right in the core of the Commission meet like that. But if the application
Hasn't come in and it's the developer kind of, you know
The applicant comes to the city approaches city and says this is what I'm looking to do. What's your feedback?
I don't think that would count towards the meeting because the the
The limit is really imposed when you have your complete application once it comes in.
So if it's like, hey, before my project, I want to understand what's the city's position,
what's what you're looking for, I don't think that would necessarily count, that wouldn't
count as a meeting, but then you couldn't do it in that format with the majority of
the members meeting that way.
Okay.
I was going to say the other option would be to have the applicant just informally seek
advice from say two of the five members individually or perhaps two together, but you know, just
get some feedback.
So if there were the possibility that the design review could, there were not a one
meeting limit on DRC that they were allowed two meetings.
How would that impact the ability of the city to limit it to five meetings?
So I think to start, you know, one of the reasons why we implemented a one meeting limit
was at the kind of direction of the City Council who specifically asked for that, which is
why we incorporated it.
You don't mind blending things with the City Council, that's fine.
But to kind of your point, if the DRC were allowed to have two meetings, then again thinking
about, you know, the action, right, the approval or denial of a project by the planning commission
at a minimum is one meeting, and then you have to hold essentially space for one additional
meeting in case the project is appealed.
So now we're talking about four.
So that means at most the planning commission would need to make a decision in two meetings.
In addition, part of the reason for the design review authority changes is to make sure that
the process is expedited, so that even though we can have five meetings, that's not necessarily
what we want to do as a city.
So it was the same idea.
What has been your feedback from the Design Review Commission on, well, both the design
with the limitation as to what they're allowed to do in terms of decisions and the fact
that they're now only an advisory board and they only get one meeting.
I think that would probably best come from the secretary, so I'll let him chime in.
So just to inform the planning commission, two members of the design review commission
has resigned, so there are three left.
So part of it is I think they didn't feel that they had the authority to make decisions
anymore and so they felt that they thought they wanted to resign.
And you know it's really to add to that it's a change that the city is going to have to
adapt to sooner or later and because of the trends in the state legislations and so this
this is an effort in trying to move the city towards that
and trying to, there are some developers that will argue
objective design review means it's like ministerial,
you don't do anything, you just approve it.
And so we're trying to not go that route
but also preserve that room for the city to still say,
hey, this is what we think the design should look like,
but also abiding by the objective criteria
that it's supposed to abide by.
So I think it's a change that's not the way
that the city is used to conduct things,
but it's a direction that the city as a whole
is trying to move to adapt to the changes
in the state law, because that trend
is going to continue at the state level.
One quick clarifying question.
I recall in the presentations done
when we started talking about this,
a comparison across cities of which cities have a design
or architectural review committee in which don't.
So it's our commission and it's not consistent, right?
So other cities have been able to manage without one
or how do they do that?
Yes, there are many cities
that just rely on a planning commission
and don't have a design review committee commission.
Yeah, I know Oakley has a youth commission
and a city council.
That's it.
So, coming to the Planning Commission now, we get a recommendation, presumably it's
based on the designer view people who know their stuff inside and out and they say this
complies with the objective standard or doesn't.
You know, are we then in a position to look at those decisions and see if we agree with
them and, you know, or because it's objective and, you know, are we sort of not bound by
it but sort of impelled by their decision and their expertise to accept that?
Sure.
That's a great question.
I think it's a little bit of both.
Again, when staff, so staff will always be the first eyes on a project.
And again, because of the nature of objective standards, that they are clear and unambiguous,
it becomes easier to essentially go through a giant checklist that is provided to the
the developers and then checked by staff.
So we asked developers, does your project comply
with the landscaping standard?
And they will say, yes or no, or not applicable.
And then they will tell us, you will find,
you know, our landscaping calculations on sheet,
whatever of our plans.
And so then staff is essentially going through
and checking, yes, we agree that you meet
the city's landscaping standard.
The DRC, in that capacity, again,
we're talking about objective design review.
This is only for residential projects,
so the commercial stuff is a little bit different.
They're essentially doing a second check
and going through and doing the exact same thing, right?
And then when it comes to the Planning Commission,
you will have two sets of staff and design review saying,
yes, we believe this project complies, or no, we don't.
And then essentially, you are the final check, so to speak.
But you will, again, have a lot of previous analysis done
for you, and so that whatever you land on your decision,
It's probably going to be in the same vein as the previous analysis done, right?
But again, we really do not have a lot of flexibility, right?
And so if you comply, we have to approve.
And just to add to that a little bit, so state law actually also has a standard about what
it means to be consistent with an objective standard.
So, if a reasonable person can say that it complies,
then you're supposed to say that it's compliant.
So if you're-
I assume design review is reasonable.
Right.
Okay.
So, a reasonable person, it's kind of the standard
that kind of lawyers like to use.
But so, if you have that standard,
so if you had some comments from the DRC,
or even from staff, and I'm not a designer or a planner,
I can't try to give you an example, but if you have something like that, it's down to one
to two standards and, you know, that's before the planning commission then, you know,
we're going to look at that and we're going to say, well, is it, you know,
is there some reasonable person component to say like they do comply with the standard
or is it so, you know, it's pretty obvious, it's off or is it, you know,
pretty obvious it's not compliant, then that would come into play.
So in terms of the path of the application,
let's say the design review sends it to us with a recommendation
that it doesn't comply.
There's a few things here that we think they just overstepped it,
or they just did the calculation wrong, or whatever it may be.
We think they don't comply.
We take that, and we agree, and we deny it.
They appeal to the city council and the city council.
let's say the city council agrees with us, okay, and deny it, then that's done.
Correct. If they, if the city council disagrees and said no it should be,
again, is that the end of it or does it come, it doesn't come back to us or
the design review. It does not come back. Okay. All right. And if our decision doesn't
agree with the recommendation we get from the design review, the same thing, they can, you know,
they or the neighborhood can appeal it, but it's not going, it's not going back. That's correct.
Okay. I think I'm done. Thank you. Any other questions right now? Yeah, I had a quick,
thank you again for all this work and for taking time for us to talk it through with you.
I had a quick question about the transition process and managing when applicants who are
in the pipeline are going through it, when you're going to how it's going to work.
Yeah really great question and that's you know obviously a discussion we had to have
with our city attorney and I'll let her chime in if I am missing anything.
So, the new process, the new standards, that was all adopted on June 4th by the Council,
and so that goes into effect 30 days later, so July 5th, essentially, which is a Friday.
So, Monday the 8th, you know, is probably the earliest reasonable time we're going to
get anything new.
But any new applications that come in after that time will be evaluated against the new
standards and will be processed through the new kind of framework that we've established.
So that's pretty simple.
For projects that are kind of in the pipeline, so to speak, there's really if you are a project
that is deemed complete and so you've submitted an application and staff has made that determination
But we have everything in your application needed to evaluate your project and that date
of that letter is before July 4th or 5th, then the standards used to evaluate the project
would be whatever the standards were in place at the time.
And so there will be a couple projects that come through that we will evaluate against
and the previous set of standards, however, the process for those old projects will more
than likely be the new process and the reason for that is the new process is more clear
and kind of more straightforward than our old process and so state law allows us to
apply the new process so long as it isn't more onerous or, yes, more onerous than the
the old process, and in our case, it isn't, so.
And we don't anticipate that there'll be very many projects
that'll be kind of stuck in that transition.
Okay, thank you.
I just have one question that occurred to me,
is when the developer does not make
one of the objective standards,
what happens throughout the process?
Yeah, great question.
So there's a couple options.
actually we were having a pretty deep discussion
about that earlier today.
So kind of get into some of the inner workings
that you typically don't see.
So when a, again, when a project comes in to the city,
there's a planning application form
and there's all these requirements on there,
including what we're developing right now,
which is essentially a compliance checklist
with objective standards.
And so staff during that initial 30-day review period
are looking at the application and saying,
did your project submittal provide all the things
that we asked you for?
And then within that letter, we're also kind of evaluating,
does your project look like it meets
all the objective standards?
And so in your example, let's say we as staffs think,
hey, it looks like you're not meeting two of your,
two of the standards that we would require
to be able to approve your project.
So at that point, the developer really has two options.
One is they, three options actually.
So one is they can revise the project
and we would advise them of their options in this letter
so they can revise the project to essentially come into
and show compliance with the standards.
It's option one.
Option two is they can basically waive their kind of
streamlining rights under state housing law
and we would process them as a discretionary entitlement.
In that pathway, I mentioned standards
and guidelines earlier.
So under that, there is a lot more leeway for staff,
the DRC for the Planning Commission to have that kind of
give and take that you were talking about earlier.
and so we would go through that process.
And then the final pathway is the developer disagrees
with staff's assessment, and they say no,
we would like you to continue processing the application,
and if we don't receive any new information
that influences our decision, and again,
it would go to the DRC for the second
and then Planning Commission for that third and final check,
then ultimately the outcome would be a denial of the project.
Do you want?
Thank you, and one more question over here.
So, would it be possible, let's say that it came to us
in your example with the recommendation
that the two objective standards that were not met.
You know, the floor air ratio is calculated wrong
and it's actually 2% too big.
Something else.
Could we then, despite the fact we're dealing
with objective standards, but in fact with an interpretation
of the checked of standards, we have a choice of denying it
because it doesn't comply, in which case, they're going to go back, you know,
they're going to peel and then that's, they lose that and they have to go back
and start all over again, or approving with a stipulation that they remove,
you know, 2% of the floor area on a revision that the staff can confirm.
is that one way to deal with that kind of situation.
If we think, in fact, that there's noncompliance,
but you want to, you know, allow them an option
to resolve it without going back to the beginning.
So if I can kind of repeat that back.
I think what you're asking for is can we condition a project
to meet certain standards that they're not meeting
and then approve that so long as they do XYZ?
I'm gonna let our city attorney weigh in on that one. Thank you. Yeah, so the
Commission would have that authority that you how you would have the ability to condition the project
because the whole premise of why we're doing this is that state law requires if the project complies with all the objective standards
you have to approve it unless you make the findings of adverse impacts based on
existing standards
so if the project is not compliant with the objective standards that
structure goes away and so essentially you're reviewing the project as you know
as in the beginning that you would you're saying you know you don't comply
here are the conditions we're not required to make findings and the
findings I'm referring to earlier it's for denial and also for lowering the
density of the project which is anything that you know reduces the the ability to
provide housing so you if they don't comply that protection really goes away
And you can say, well, you don't comply, so here are the conditions.
And even if the conditions, you know, somehow reduces your density, it's, you know,
it's within the city's ability to do that because you do not comply with objective standards.
So, yes, you do have that ability to impose conditions.
And part of the public hearing is really having that discussion with the applicant
if they're willing to make the changes.
So, for example, if they come in with an application and half
of the objective design standards are not met.
That may be a point where, you know, there's not going
to be a whole lot of discussion and it may be a clear answer.
But if there's like certain things here and there
where they can make some adjustments
where they can meet the standards and so, I mean,
that's sort of the purpose of the public hearing.
But the point of it is to make sure that they are getting
to the point where all the objective design standards are
met.
Thank you.
And just any more questions?
do we need a public hearing for this item?
It's not a public hearing and I don't see anyone in that.
It's true, very true here.
Therefore we will not have a public hearing.
We can see there's no public in the room.
Do you have what you need from us?
Yes, again, this was just an opportunity
to clarify any questions you had.
Thank you for all of your hard work on this.
Thank you.
And we'll move on to Commissioned Member or Staff
Reports or announcements?
No reports by staff, thank you.
In the form of the commission.
Seeing none, we will now be adjourned.
Item seven, thank you for coming.