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BACKGROUND The City utilizes a comprehensive development review process, consistent with its General Plan, that incorporates considerable community and commission review to assure that proposed development meets community and City Council expectations. Since 1978, one step of the process has included implementing the Growth Management Ordinance that provides the guidelines for pacing the rate of residential development approval. The current GMO includes the following major features/requirements: • Requires the City Manager to provide a report to the City Council detailing the new annual unit allocation for the upcoming RHNA period within 90 days after it has been adopted by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and to identify the number of allowable number of RHNA units assigned to Pleasanton through the RHNA cycle. • Provides the Council may direct staff to prepare a growth management report analyzing community growth and assessing the City's ability to absorb new housing units. • Establishes that the number of residential building permits that may be issued annually. • Allows the City Council to consider growth management unit allocation trades, prorations and transfers in the event that approved construction schedules require such changes. • Provides the City Council with latitude to approve the proration of growth management unit allocations in any year provided the total number of units do not exceed the number required by ABAG for the RHNA period. In essence, this provision allows for the "borrowing" of unused growth management unit allocations from one year to be used in another, provided the total allocations for the RHNA period is not exceeded. As mentioned previously, when the City Council last amended the ordinance in November 2012, there was an expectation that additional amendment would be forthcoming to address still existing issues related to the administration of the program. Further, Program 30.2 of the City's Housing Element obligates the City to review the GMO. As such, staff is recommending amendments at this time. DISCUSSION While the amended GMO includes numerous addition and deletions of text, these are essentially related to the four primary recommended changes and their impacts are described below. How the Amendments Would Change the Ordinance 1. Using PUD and/or project approvals as the annual growth management unit gauge rather than the number of building permits issued The current GMO establishes that the number of annual growth management unit allocations is based on the year that a building permit is issued, not the year the project is approved. As such, GMO agreements allocate to developers a specific number of Page 2 of 7