PC 032316 - Laserfiche WebLink

Commissioner Allen: That's great. The reason I ask is that in a previous meeting we actually had a discussion about the growth rate of trees because we wanted them to be a certain height and we ended up increasing the gallon size of the trees so they would provide screening sooner. We don't need to do it now, but that was just an area of interest as we get later in the meeting, we'd just be understanding that so that in case it makes sense to make the decision to go with the larger sized tree to create screening sooner. But it may not be needed either. Hardy: We can continue to refine that and work with staff as well as with our own arborist. But again, some species actually don't benefit by going in at a bigger size. Commissioner Allen: Exactly, so that's why we don't know. We'll leave it to the experts to help with. Thank you. Chair Ritter: Okay, questions? Commissioner Nagler: I just have a question. We'll get into this I know a little bit later in the discussion but let me just say to put my question in context, I know that you all have done over a long period of time a lot of work with the neighbors abutting this project and you've been quite responsive to the neighbors which has required a lot of time and commitment on Ponderosa's part to come up with a good project and that's good. My question though is in the recent past, Ponderosa has come to this Commission and City with two substantial projects relative to what we typically get, and I know that Ponderosa will have a couple more projects coming to us. This one is relatively straight forward because it's a PUD development plan. As I understand it, other projects that are in the pipeline for Ponderosa require either zoning changes and /or General Plan Amendments. My question really is this. Is it your intention as you bring forward projects so that your interaction with the Planning Commission will be complete with workshops and more dialogue? As much work as you've been doing in the neighborhood, my experience so far has been that you had the near opposite of those interactions with the Planning Commission with your projects. So I'm just wondering, as your projects go forward, is your intention to participate in the workshops that I know staff will be asking of you? Hardy: Well, yes. You know, having been here for gosh, 25 years and coming before this Commission and many other Councils, we like the workshop session. The process has really been, up until very recently, to work directly with the residents and to hold our informational outreach and neighborhood meetings. It has always been celebrated. It's not meant to bypass the Planning Commission. We value your input and support. We know you have technical expertise in many areas so I think what we need to do is rely also on our discussions with staff early on. When we have a site we think is unusual or large enough where it could be kind of like a blank piece of paper if you will, yes, that to me is a good candidate to come to the Planning Commission in a workshop format. It saves us the cost of putting together a lot of detailed plans. We have no interest in spending a lot of money or time in developing a plan that's not going to be acceptable to the Commission. But again, working with staff, we kind of have to gauge that on a case - by -case basis. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, March 23, 2016 Page 9 of 46