2_Exhibits A-C - Laserfiche WebLink

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 facade articulation). Page 10 of 15 these two properties but not opening up the option to other property owners. Staff Recommendation/City Council Direction Staff recommends following the Task Force's direction, to assign or annotate the Specific Plan Land Use map to indicate that residential, in addition to commercial uses, may be considered for these two sites Staff further recommends inclusion of policy language in the DSP that clearly specifies such consideration would be discretionary and would necessitate a legislative review and approval process, through a PUD application, and would be subject to site-specific California Environmental Quality Act review and analysis. Page 9 of 15 properties are included on a "Map B" of the draft DSP. Page 8 of 15 lding height in PUD's to be 30-feet which may need to be removed if the goal is to allow additional flexibility in PUDs. Public Comments and Questions The Task Force opened up the meeting to the public. Three members from the public provided comments. One comment noted we should maximize value and volume of use we can get on the land of this downtown (MU-D) area. Construction today tends to have higher plate heights and limited this area to 40-feet will only yield two-stories and really restrict any additional height/floors. However, given the right location and design, the Council may want to allow three-stories in some instances. Another comment agrees with the Task Force recommendation in terms of allowing additional heights so the projects can be reviewed on an individual basis. The final comment requested the note about limiting PUDs to 30-feet be stricken from the DSP to allow additional flexibility especially given modern construction. Summary of February 26, 2019 Downtown Specific Plan Update Task Force Meeting Page 6 of 7 c Plan Update Task Force Meeting Page 5 of 7