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Plan, and so it was timely for a couple of reasons. Obviously, Dyett and Bhatia talking about sign regulations is what we'll be doing next with our zoning code update and having them also as experts helping us out with professional services for our downtown plan. It was great to get to talk with Vivian while she was there. I'll turn it back, but I can certainly add some color to each of those topics if the Commission wants me to do that. I thought it was time well spent and I hope we can make it an annual pilgrimage and bring a few people up there. I think this was the 33`d Annual Planning Conference at Sonoma State, so yeah, I went up with Commissioner Allen and Commissioner Brown. Chair Ritter: Great. Do you want to add anything to that? You've been to one of these before? Commissioner Allen: This was the first one I went to at Sonoma State and I actually found the presentations to be very helpful. I had two take -a -ways on the first presenter. The greatest learning I had was a theme about how we should be finding creative ways to visualize, in our plans, a place. The comment was the purpose of doing a plan is not to complete a plan but it's to really build a place. You know, when we create a plan for Downtown, it's not about finishing the plan. It's about really creating a place and creating an experience. So there was quite a bit of discussion about visualization and some techniques consultants are using to help the task force members and the public really walk through —using video and other schemes —walk through what the experience is of this place that one's building. It applies to projects as well. So, it was a take -off too on some of the discussions we've been having, for example, we struggle with it in some of our projects when we talk about story poles and we talk about visualizations. We're talking about tactical elements, but it was all around as helping us as Commissioners to really not just read something on paper but visualize what the experience of what the viewer will be from the street as they look at this building. So that was a really important theme that everyone spending a lot of money and time about creating an experience. Now, my second learning was related to the presenter from ABAG. It was my first time hearing someone from ABAG talk about how they do forecasting, why they do it and what their vision is. The bottom line is, in the Bay Area, we've created so many jobs and we don't have enough houses, which we all know, right? But, then she talked about how they're trying to create forecasts for each of the areas and about how that might be balanced and create more housing. Some of the presenters from the audience who were planning commissioners or staff members brought up things like creating houses in places where the jobs are not, and so that creates freeway congestion. There were people from the audience that would talk about challenging some of the assumptions they're doing. But, the bottom line for me is, I appreciated that I got a better understanding of where they're coming from because at a global level, we do need to have more balance of jobs and houses. Globally we do, but very tactically, if we end up putting the jobs in different places than the houses, we've created a nightmare that could get worse through the gridlock we create, and so there wasn't quite an answer to that. But, I got a better appreciation for the challenges that are going on, and it prompted to me the question, are we creating too many jobs? Some other people I sat around started asking that question too—do PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, December 14, 2016 Page 34 of 49