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Chair O'Connor referred to Mr. Dolan's statement that the City has a deadline to submit the Housing Element, and it does not want to be in trouble. He asked staff if, after the City submits its Housing Element to HCD and the City finds out that the water issue does become much more severe, the City will still have the opportunity to slow things down or stop things completely if it felt that was the appropriate action. Mr. Dolan says yes. He explained that if the City goes so far as to have a moratorium, then things will stop because the City will stop issuing permits. He indicated that he would have to explore this with the City Attorney's Office because the City may stop planning approvals as well, although it would probably be just issuing permits because it is considered to be a short-term emergency matter which can be extended. He reiterated that that is a bigger conversation and involves more than just the City of Pleasanton. Chair O'Connor inquired, for example, if the City knows what its water allocation from Zone 7 is and if the City is not getting any more water or less water at some point in the future, and should a developer come in and want to build another 300 or 500 units, how that development would affect what little water is left, and if the City could in effect stop approving projects. Mr. Dolan replied that as long as that situation continued, that could be pursued and there is a process for doing it. Commissioner Allen asked staff for help with respect to the two ways of approaching the CM Capital property. She indicated that she likes the idea of one option to remove and downgrade the density before submittal to HCD, which will leave the City's surplus at 175 units; or the other option of knowing that the City wants to downgrade but will not make that change until it gets the preliminary input from HCD, and assuming the City is looking good, then go ahead and downgrade it later. Chair O'Connor echoed Commissioner Allen's comments. He stated that he is thinking that if the City knows it will be bringing the site down to a lower density, and this is what Hacienda Business Park, the owners, and the nearby residential owners are agreeing to, the City should not be telling HCD that it is zoning at 30 units an acre even though it is currently zoned as such. He added that he did not think the City should be portraying that if the City knows that it will be brought down, but should just bring it down now. Mr. Dolan replied that that is really the only way to move forward because the City has not advertised this as though it were going to be officially rezoned. He stated that the way he would envision this would be if the City Council went along with that line of thinking that it should downzone the site to meet the parameters or something close to what the two groups agreed on, it would instruct staff to remove the site from the inventory as submitted to HCD, and HCD would not even consider it and direct us to start the process for rezoning. He noted that it would then be pretty straight forward, presumably everybody would be in support of it, and it will have to happen after the fact; but it will be the City Council's direction to do it so it will happen very quickly. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, August 13, 2014 Page 26 of 32