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The completion of a historic resource survey to be completed by a consultant after the Council takes action on the proposed draft amendments will have several benefits: it will save property owners/applicants time and money since they won't have to hire a consultant to prepare an individual property survey (which typically can cost about $5,000 and take 30-45 days to complete); it will let owners/applicants know whether the property is considered historic or not and allow them to plan their additions/modifications accordingly; and it will aid staff in its review of projects. Staff recommends a few minor clarifications/corrections to the Task Force's proposed amendments and discusses a possible change to the garage location amendments as described below. Staff-Recommended Changes Downtown Specific Plan Based on the Council's direction and the feedback from the Downtown's commercial property owners, the Task Force intended to exclude commercially-zoned properties and make the new historic preservation policies and regulations apply to residential buildings in residential zones as there are some homes in a commercial zone such as Spring Street or an office zone such as Old Bernal Avenue. In drafting the new sections of the Specific Plan, staff forgot to add language to clarify this when it was presented to the Task Force. Therefore, staff added clarifying language to Historic Resources Polices 1, 2, and 3 on pages 7 and 8 of the draft Specific Plan amendments (Exhibit A). These changes are shown in highlight. Downtown Design Guidelines The mass and bulk compatibility policy in the Specific Plan had gone through various drafts before the Task Force selected its final form. There is a similar mass and bulk guideline in the Downtown Design Guidelines (Height and Mass bullet two on page 35) that staff forgot to update to incorporate the Task Force's final changes to the Specific Plan policy. The attached amendments to the Guidelines (Exhibit B) include this correction. Possible Change to Garage Location Amendments While staff supports making the Specific Plan and Guidelines consistent with respect to garage regulations, staff questions whether using the Task Force's recommended greater than 60 ft. lot width would potentially allow more homes to be built with a garage-dominated front elevation in the one area of the city where it would look most out of character with the surrounding homes and conflict with the architectural styles that are being required. The Task Force had originally contemplated using a 50 ft. lot width as the cutoff for requiring a detached garage. The Task Force and some members of the public were concerned about the width of the house that would remain if you were required to place the drive aisle leading to the detached garage on the side of the house. However, staff notes that if a two-car garage was P13-2446/P13-4447/P13-4448 Page - 11 - November 13, 2013