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take into consideration story poles on that particular project as being a factor more or less important than other factors about that project was inherent in the priorities they set in their decision - making. In and of itself it doesn't say anything about the utility of story poles and it's important, even though we are nothing an advisory body to the City Council, at the same time we do have our own independent charge and our own independent opportunities to go about our business in a way we think is most appropriate to fulfill the duties we asked to fulfill. And towards that end, it is just important that we all recognize that we've had a lot of time to have this conversation. Commissioner Allen has shown enormous leadership on this issue and I really appreciate it a lot because what we have recognized as a body over time is that the story poles that have been put up on the most recent projects, specifically the Spring Street project and this subject project we're talking about, have been inadequate in really helping us make a decision but have suggested that there is utility to story poles in the same way that the computer - generated renderings that we've asked for also help us in a new and important way picture projects. And clearly, all of this is being driven by, in retrospect, a couple of decisions that have been made by this Commission and past Commissions that potentially could have been different decisions had there been more of an opportunity for us to visualize what the project in the end might have looked like notwithstanding staff's good efforts to describe projects and alert us to what heights are potentially outside the guidelines and like that. So I think it's important to take this conversation as being a meaningful expression by the Planning Commission that story poles and computer - generated renderings be part of applications to the best of anyone's ability as often as seems appropriate, erring on the side of requiring them rather than not, but not believing that they're appropriate for every project and that the presumption be particularly applicable to the Downtown area. Commissioner Allen: And I want to say I think that's a perfect rendering and I do want to say to all of you I think there always needs to be a purpose and I just want to reiterate and David said it perfectly; story poles and computer - generated renderings are an appropriate tool and we should bias to having them. I debriefed with three Councilmembers and I have one more to go, and I also totally agree that their discussion was not about story poles being right or wrong. It was about that they look to the Planning Commission to be the ones to make the decision about compatibility. Given we didn't have our own story poles in order to make a decision, they did not want to be held accountable at that meeting at that time to stop the process because of the lack of story poles, especially when they heard that we kind of didn't officially request them. So I just want to say that .... and the other thing is that two Councilmembers have told me personally - -and I want to put this on the record —they actually told me before this discussion that they were noticing that our Planning Commission was not requesting -- -these were two Councilmembers that were on the Planning Commission, have told me that they thought when they were on the Planning Commission their team had requested story poles much more frequently. They specifically said Phil Blank insisted that story poles and strong 3 -D renderings be an important element of key projects where there could be a risk of view compatibility, and they were noticing that we actually as a Planning Commission had not been requesting those as much as they believed they had. So I do believe that they're expecting us to do that due diligence where we think we're not sure. So, thank you. Thanks for the discussion you all. I appreciate it. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, September 14, 2016 Page 6 of 22