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minor amendments to that, but staff believes those are going to be acceptable to the Council. 4. There was some question about whether or not there was a need to clarify existing policies and guidelines. Some of those inconsistencies and maybe outdatedness of some of the information in the policies and the guidelines, particularly in the policies of the Specific Plan, were very obvious and did need clarification. The Task Force was exploring whether or not to complete a comprehensive historic resource survey instead of an as- you -go process of requiring property owners to pay for analysis of their individual property when they decide to do a project. Doing a more comprehensive survey ahead of time to be funded by the City would eliminate both the time and expense of the applicant later down the road; it also informs people ahead of time in terms of real estate transactions, and they can make an informed decision if they are really interested in owning a historic property or not. 6. Implementation of the Mills Act, where the City sets up a program which allows it to enter into contracts with property owners regarding some particular improvements to the property that are consistent with historic preservation, restoration of historic features, and even more common, maintenance, in exchange for relief from their local tax bill. The Council was not supportive of pursuing that. There were a few things that were discussed in the Task Force meetings which were not a part of what the Task Force brought forward to the Council but did come up at the Council check -in: (a) improvement to the City ordinances about property maintenance, essentially, the issue of demolition by neglect, when an owner who has an old property and just does not take care of it, and ultimately the property gets too bad that it has to be torn down; and (b) the use of story poles, which is something the Commission is familiar with and which becomes particularly important when projects with historic homes in the Downtown area are being considered. The Council asked to add these to the package of initiatives to move forward. Mr. Dolan stated that the Task Force recommendations will affect several of the documents that guide decisions in this subject matter: there are very small amendments to the General Plan which are very much just clean -up; there are some more significant proposed changes to the Downtown Specific Plan; some additional changes to the Downtown Design Guidelines that typically have some relationship to what is being amended in the Specific Plan; there would not be a change to the Zoning Ordinance in terms of creating a Historic Preservation Ordinance, which the current Specific Plan states would be done; however, a few related issues came up requiring changes to the Zoning Ordinance, one of which is story poles. He noted that the Commission is aware that oftentimes having story poles is very helpful, but staff has no authority to require them now, and the Task Force essentially felt it was important enough to address the issue. He added that with this amendment, staff would be able to require story poles if necessary. He noted that it adds a minor expense but is really very helpful in seeing what these new structures might look like in a particular setting. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, November 13, 2013 Page 16 of 50