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Alternatively, the City Council may direct staff and the Task Force to omit the requests as part of the DSP update, which will require the property owners to pursue DSP amendments at the time they submit for a Planned Unit Development to develop the properties. The City Council may also direct that the zoning changes to allow residential development be made as part of the DSP update. If the Council decides to move forward with re-zoning the properties at the time of Specific Plan adoption, the properties will be assigned residential densities, which may limit the City's discretion to negotiate community benefits and project density when they develop. Additionally, it may create a scenario where the existing commercial uses will be non-conforming, which may not desirable at this time. 5. Development Standards Background At the February 26 Task Force meeting, development standards, including height and Floor Area Ratio (or FAR) were discussed for various districts including the Downtown Commercial district, Mixed-Use Downtown district, Mixed-Use Transitional district, and residential districts. For reference, floor area ratio is a measure of building size or intensity, based on the total square footage of the building, relative to the size of the site or parcel it occupies, and is often expressed as a percentage. By way of example, a 10,000 square-foot lot, with a maximum FAR of 100-percent, would permit a 10,000 square-foot building. The same site with a 50-percent FAR would allow for a 5,000 square-foot building. FAR does not dictate how a building is built or arranged on a site — as shown in the example below, which illustrates a building with a 100-percent FAR as either a one or two-story building, and a building with 300-percent FAR as a three or four-story building. Additionally, just because a site has a maximum FAR of 300-percent (as is allowed in the existing Central-Commercial zoning district), does not mean the site can accommodate a building occupying 300-percent of the lot due to other zoning requirements (i.e., parking, landscaping, and other amenities) and design criteria (i.e. neighborhood compatibility and façade articulation). Page 10 of 15