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She stated that staff anticipates there will be less emphasis on finding potential housing sites as part of this update. With a current Regional Housing Needs Assessment of just over 2,000 units and nearly 1,400 units to carry over from the latest round of rezoning, this update needs to identify locations for roughly 669 housing units. Staff is obviously looking to the East Pleasanton area to accommodate some part of that but is also working to identify other sites within the city that may be appropriate for rezoning. Staff will begin preparing background information and review of current programs this month and anticipates the public outreach and meeting process will begin in early 2014. This public input will be incorporated into a draft update and recommendations for the Planning and Housing Commissions to consider in June and July, followed by additional public workshops before forwarding the draft document to the City Council around the end of August 2014. Councilmember Narum stressed her concern over the process, particularly that it be very transparent in how and why certain sites are selected for rezoning and that they not lock in on the east side alone to solve the problem. Community Development Director Dolan assured her that staff understands that concern. He explained that with such a reduced emphasis on rezoning with this update, staff did not feel a full independent task force was required but is essentially asking the Planning Commission to function in that role. He stressed that staff intends to replicate the process used in the last update wherein the Planning Commission narrows the list of appropriate sites and then public workshops are conducted to gather community input. He explained that while the east side has enough inventories to cover this entire RHNA round, the focus will really be on balance and how to spread the burden throughout the community. He also noted that the city has the luxury of a substantial inventory to work with in this round, most of which is concentrated in northwest side of town and not near the east side at all. Councilmember Narum asked if staff envisions the process will be driven by staff or the Commission. Mr. Dolan said it would be very similar to the task force process in which staff ranks sites using certain criteria, the Commission narrows the list of options and conducts public hearings before making an ultimate recommendation to the Council. Vice-Mayor Cook-Kallio asked how many units were rezoned as part of the last update. Ms. Stern said approximately 2,300. Vice-Mayor Cook-Kallio said this feels like a much less cumbersome process than the last update. She said she felt confident that, with the Council's direction to balance the burden throughout the City and the public's willingness to voice its opinion, the city has the resources to make this a successful process. Mayor Thorne opened the public hearing and seeing no speakers, closed the public hearing. Mayor Thorne said he believes the City did a truly outstanding job of public outreach with the last update, yet there are still people throughout the community who share comments to the contrary. He said it is truly disappointing to hear such things when he knows the effort that staff and the task force made in getting public input and said that any ideas to improve the process would be helpful. MOTION: It was m/s by Narum/Cook-Kallio to approve the staff recommendation. Motion carried by the following vote: Ayes: Councilmembers Cook-Kallio, Narum, Mayor Thorne Noes: None Absent: Councilmembers Brown, Pentin City Council Minutes Page 6 of 7 October 1. 2013