Laserfiche WebLink
Brad Hirst: Thanks for taking so much time going through the line by line. Let me say <br />first of all that this is a huge, huge step forward. The staff is dealing with the same <br />zoning code that I dealt with in 1969. Things change. Gerry probably has a better <br />handle on the importance of the zoning code than anybody that's been in City planning <br />since 1969 that I know of, so he is in my opinion really guiding you in the right direction. <br />And the right direction is to simplify and save time. It's going to save the staff time which <br />in turn directly affects the City budget which is kind of important. It's going to save you <br />time. It's going to save property owners time and very importantly, it's going to save <br />business owners time who want to get in. So saving time is hugely important. <br />With that, there are a few other things I would like to say. Just for historical information, <br />the 1,000 foot notification came about because the City used to follow the state <br />statutory requirement of 300 feet and then around 1970 people obviously were never <br />notified. They get 25 different cards but they never got a notice, so the City Council at <br />that time said okay, we'll go 500 feet. Well, the same people still weren't getting notified <br />so they went to 1,000 feet. So that's really how it happened was because people said <br />they never got notified. So that's just for historical information. <br />One thing I would like to mention that Commissioner Brown brought up about the time. <br />The two categories of people that are not being considered in those comments are the <br />property owners and the businesses that want to locate. It may not seem like much time <br />to somebody at the City if they have to wait 60 -90 days to find out whether or not a <br />business can locate, but if you own a vacant property on Quarry Lane or you're a <br />machine shop trying to lease that property on Quarry Lane and you have to wait 45 <br />days, that makes a big difference. A classic example in Pleasanton is the Kolln <br />Hardware Building. It came within less than three hours of being foreclosed on by a <br />bank because they didn't have a tenant. Fortunately, Community Bank stepped up, <br />made them the loan and time went on and they could sign the loan with the bank. And <br />speaking of banks, I would like to just mention to you that when you see a lot of banks <br />in town, do you know what that means? There's a lot of money. There's a lot of money. <br />I was in downtown Lodi one time and I couldn't figure out how many banks there were. I <br />did a little community research and I found out why there were so many banks in <br />downtown Lodi. There was a lot of money there. <br />Okay, having said all of that, I'm not taking up all of my 5 minutes which I appreciate. I <br />would like to, and I think that all of you probably have gotten the email that I sent in and <br />just to paraphrase a couple of things, I would like to encourage you not to delete the LI <br />professional district. Maybe you could do some consolidating into IP, but the reason —I <br />think there are a couple of LI districts now; one on Sonoma Drive and one on Old Santa <br />Rita Road. I think those are both LI .... well, Santa Rita might be IG, but IP is an industrial <br />park. When you're dealing in LI, you're usually dealing with one or two parcels of <br />property and it frankly is kind of ludicrous to do a landscape plan with botanical names <br />for a machine shop and that's what's been happening. So anything you could do to <br />speed up the process would be good, and I would encourage you to make cell sites <br />permitted uses in all of the commercial and office districts. Julie Harryman did a cell site <br />ordinance and brought us into compliance with federal law and I can assure you that <br />there's going to be a lot more cell sites in the coming years. We're just scratching the <br />surface. Data transfer is the elephant in the room. There's going to be more and more of <br />it. There's going to be more and more cell sites that are going to be camouflaged. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, August 31, 2016 Page 40 of 58 <br />