CCMIN112905 - Laserfiche WebLink

a 300-500 reserve of units would be a good thing. It could be based on surrounding infrastructure improvements and development in surrounding communities. He noted Tracy has stopped issuing building permits until the year 2013. He noted in the summary of Planning Commission meetings, the highest priority was to reduce the housing cap. He felt the reserve could address that issue. He noted how many people comment and said many people went to multiple meetings and were therefore counted multiple times. For example, if five people went to five meetings, they were counted as 25 people. He wanted to look at the comments, but did not think the ranking made sense. Mr. Arkin indicated the meetings were in different neighborhoods and different times of the day. He felt the number of repeaters was very small. Cindy McGovern had the same idea as Mr. Brozosky about repeat comments. She asked if Castro Valley decided to become a city and had five councilmembers who wanted to set a policy in their General Plan that there would be no building on 25% slopes, how could any councilmember vote on that, because they all would live next to a piece of property affected by the policy? Mr. Roush recognized how difficult it is for councilmembers to recuse themselves from an issue because they were elected to represent the people and commissioners are appointed to carry out the planning goals of a community. He explained that when there are broad policy issues for discussion by the Council or Commission, that can take place without any recusals; for example, policies for level of service at intersections generally. Where it gets complicated is when there is focus on specifics. When there are specific intersections, pieces of property, or projects for which a persons home is within 500 feet, the city attorney's office has advised recusal because of the conflict of interest rules. It may be possible to show that a particular decision on a particular piece of property would have no financial impact and in that case, that would allow participation. Ms. McGovern summarized that she believed she could vote on the policy of gross developable acreage because it is a general policy in the General Plan and is not dealing with specifics. Mr. Roush said there is a general public exception that sometimes applies, but there has to be a large enough number of people of the public for which that exception to apply in order to make it work. In this case, the city attorney's office did not feel it applied here. In the absence of an opinion letter that says that decision would have no impact on your property, staff would have to separate out the General Plan policies or issues that a commissioner or councilmember had a conflict on. Once that had been decided as a total, and then everyone could vote on it as a whole. It may be unwieldy, but that is how the Fair Political Practices Commission regulations provide. Joint Workshop City Council/Planning Commission 16 11/29/05