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Mr. Dolan replied that staff will try and send it to everyone who spoke tonight. <br />c. P13 -2446. P13 -2447, and P13 -2448, City of Pleasanton <br />Consider amendments to the General Plan, Downtown Specific Plan, <br />Downtown Design Guidelines, and Municipal Code relating to historic <br />preservation, residential design, story pole requirements, and demolition <br />by neglect within the Downtown Specific Plan Area. <br />O'Connor recused himself, indicating that he owns property in the Downtown. <br />Commissioner Posson joined the other Commissioners on the dais. <br />Brian Dolan presented the staff report and stated that after a very long and interesting <br />process, staff is bringing forward the recommendations of the Historic Preservation Task <br />Force. He then made a brief presentation of the history of the Task Force. <br />Mr. Dolan stated that the Task Force was created in October of 2011 by the City Council <br />and consisted of seven members, two of which were Planning Commissioners and five <br />were at -large members selected by each Councilmember. He indicated that the primary <br />focus of the Task Force was to review the City's current preservation policies, guidelines, <br />and processes, pointing out that there were two points of emphasis: (1) to see if some of <br />the "brain damage" from the previous processes and projects that had been evaluated <br />through the existing procedures could be eliminated; and (2) to explore whether or not the <br />historic resources in town were actually being protected enough. <br />Mr. Dolan stated that the Task Force met twelve times, held a public workshop and four <br />outreach meetings, and had "check -ins" with both the Planning Commission and the City <br />Council. He indicated that when the Task Force had formed a tentative plan or path <br />forward, it went back to the City Council and brought forward several issues: <br />1. The Task Force spent a fair amount of time talking about the potential creation of a <br />local historic district, but the Council did not believe that was something it could <br />support. <br />2. The Task Force explored whether or not the City should be pursuing local standards <br />and something different than what the criteria currently are for determining a historic <br />structure or property, and there was no support for that; one Councilmember said <br />that she would be interested in more information. He stated that ultimately, the Task <br />Force, with one minor exception, took that feedback from the Council and did not <br />recommend the creation of additional local standards. <br />3. The HFTP proposed the creation of a definition of demolition. The City was <br />operating in a kind of vacuum in this regard which came up time after time in various <br />projects. The Council was supportive of that and actually selected one of the <br />options that was presented at the check -in. Based on some of the public input at <br />one of the more recent meetings, the Task Force has subsequently made some <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, November 13, 2013 Page 15 of 50 <br />