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Commissioner O'Connor stated that he did not know how fast staff can do this within <br />this comment period, but if it would be beneficial to have some community meetings for <br />at least those two or three neighborhoods that are so close to this project to hear what <br />they have to say and to make sure that they all understand what could be coming. <br />Commissioner Ritter agreed. He stated that the Planning Commission always gets into <br />the nuts and bolts of the zoning and layout of a project, but there are other committees <br />and commissions, such as the Economic Vitality Committee, that work on promoting all <br />the things the City needs to make it one of the top cities in the world. He added that <br />staff also needs to start utilizing some of the other volunteers that are working with the <br />City to help promote that, whether it be social media, newspaper ads, or community <br />meetings, to make sure that people are educated; for example, for issues such as the <br />stall time for that stop light, this would take the heat off of the fact that people have to <br />wait 10 extra seconds at that stop light. <br />Mr. Weinstein stated that the point is well -taken and that staff will sit down and <br />strategize the different ways to outreach to folks. <br />Commissioner Nagler referred to the industrial use question and stated that the <br />proposal clearly skews towards retail consumer groups and hotel and office use and <br />inquired if that is because that is what the landowner is proposing or what the City <br />considers to be the best, highest use of this land. <br />Commissioner O'Connor also inquired if that is the retail that is proposed, if the thinking <br />is mostly big -box, larger retailers, as opposed to a strip mall, to be most compatible with <br />the current uses that are there. <br />Mr. Weinstein replied that it is all of the above. He explained that this is not a project; it <br />is a program, so no specific uses, no specific buildings, and no parking facilities are <br />proposed at this point. He indicated that staff worked with the property owners and City <br />consultants and looked at the list of conditionally permitted and permitted uses in <br />conjunction with the proposed rezoning for the site, and considered what reasonable <br />development scenario could happen with the new land use regulations that are being <br />put in place as part of this economic development zone, and that is how they came up <br />with the square footage and composition of uses that are analyzed in the EIR. He noted <br />that uses that are less intensive than that could happen, and uses that are more <br />intensive than that could probably also happen, but the likelihood of that is not very <br />good. He added that they wanted to make sure that the uses they identified here, which <br />include big -box retail as well as other types of retail and commercial, represent a <br />reasonable worst -case scenario that does not under - estimate the noise, traffic, and air <br />quality impacts that would be generated from the project, but the specific types of uses, <br />whether lower -scale retail, big -box retail, or more office space has not been determined <br />at this point. <br />Commissioner O'Connor referred to the analysis of the reasonable worst -case scenario <br />and inquired if the economic analysis took into account the impact that a couple of <br />big -box stores might have on the existing smaller stores in the City that would sell <br />similar products. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, September 23, 2015 Page 13 of 19 <br />