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without any discretionary review); and for other types of projects, to the extent the City may have discretion to approve or deny an application, such approval or denial may only be based on conformance to objective, uniformly verifiable standards. As mentioned in the Executive Summary section of this report, the City is undertaking the effort to modify existing subjective standards into those that are objective, starting with the 2012 Housing DG, which are anticipated to ultimately include sites that are rezoned as part of the current (6th Cycle) Housing Element update. Additionally, having applied these existing Housing DG to a number of projects since adoption of the document, there are areas where staff and the consultants suggest guidance could be improved or augmented to ensure that the document is comprehensive. Because additional sites for 6th Cycle Housing Element have not yet been selected, and because they may warrant some site-specific considerations to be reflected in the updated Housing DG, staff recommends waiting to adopt the comprehensive set of revised guidelines until the list of 6th Cycle sites is finalized. As noted, it is also a key goal of this effort to ensure an appropriate set of objective standards are in place for smaller-scale multifamily residential development, since similar requirements of state law limit (or are expected to further limit) the City's discretionary review authority. Thus, in the near future, staff will be bringing forward to the Commission objective design standards for other types of residential development, such as two-, three-, and four-plexes. Although staff believes it would be advisable to develop and adopt a comprehensive set of standards for smaller-scale projects, along with the above-mentioned larger multifamily project standards, it may make sense to accelerate some selected standards, such as those applicable to projects developed under SB 9 if it is passed into law. Design Training The Planning Commission participated in a design training led by VMWP in January 2019 that focused on critical issues and best practices for project review, including site planning, design concepts and architectural design considerations for both larger-scale and smaller-scale infill projects. As part of the exercise, VMWP provided a critique of recent projects in Pleasanton. This critique generally found that most projects had met the goal and intent of the 2012 Housing DG and were generally well-designed and livable projects, a point of view with which the Commission concurred. However, VWMP did note a few areas of possible improvement in some projects, such as paying more attention to transitions/interface between commercial and residential portions of mixed-use projects, upholding the hierarchy of streets and thoroughfares that was compromised in some instances, and recognizing tradeoffs in site planning, vehicular parking, and range of unit types and densities. Self-Guided Tour As noted above, the Planning Commission and members of the public were invited to participate in a self-guided tour of recently constructed projects of varying size and density, with the goal of determining key area of interest and concern for the development of the objective design standards. The tour also provided an opportunity for in-person observations of the projects and provide both general feedback and respond to specific questions about each site. P20-0989, Objective Design Standards Planning Commission 3 of 14