PC 052516 - Laserfiche WebLink

Chair Ritter: Any other questions? Commissioner Brown: Yes, if you could expand on the PMC amendment for limiting the height and stories in downtown, as it relates to Land Use Policy 15? Amos: The Downtown Specific Plan policy says that we need to initiate an amendment to the Specific Plan to limit the height, whereas the zoning district allows the maximum height in the zoning district of Office to be 30 feet. That's measured to the mid -point of the roof, so it could actually be a couple of feet taller than that. The policies in the Downtown Specific Plan, if staff were to initiate it and the City were to adopt it, would be to limit any development in the downtown to have a maximum height of 30 feet and be no more than two stories. So in this instance, the applicant is not exceeding the 30 -foot height limit allowed by the zoning district for Office, but they are proposing three stories. Commissioner Brown: Okay, so it's basically only the Specific Plan Land Use Policy 15 that talks about the two -story restriction, but it's not in the Municipal Code; it's just part of the Specific Plan so it's guidance that could be over - ridden by a PUD? Weinstein: Yes, we have this policy that says an amendment to the code should happen but it hasn't actually happened yet and it's possible that when a policy like this actually gets converted into Municipal Code policy that the requirement might be a little more nuanced than this. There might be certain exemptions for certain types of buildings. It's hard to predict how this would translate to the Municipal Code, but in the meantime, we try to stick to the spirit of what this policy requests which is that buildings be less than 30 feet in height and not more than two stories, as well, but there's some flexibility there because there is not a Municipal Code amendment that has been undertaken at this point. Commissioner Brown: Okay. As part of the whole civic center proposal, will we be looking at this area and zoning, because as you said, it's residential primarily today. It was zoned or rezoned some time ago as Office which is not currently being used as such and essentially the proposal for this property is suddenly back to mixed use and residential. Is that north side of the street going to be re- examined as part of the civic center and what is the prevailing theory as to what that might become, or is that too much out of scope for today? Weinstein: The Office district is not going to be revisited as part of the civic center master plan which really focuses on that site and where the civic center is going, but it will definitely be looked at as part of the Downtown Specific Plan Update which we are going to embark on in the next couple of months. If you talk to people downtown and you ask them what their top 10 list of updates to the Downtown Specific Plan should be, revisiting the Office district will be in the top 5, so we're certainly going to look at that. Again, sort of looking at the principles that resulted in the Office district being there in the first place; it was intended to be sort of a buffer district between the Central Commercial Retail district and residential uses to the west. But principles behind that seem pretty good, but the actual land use implications of that need to be re- visited. Commissioner Brown: Okay, thank you PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, May 25, 2016 Page 6 of 28