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Becky Dennis questioned what the workforce of Pleasanton at build-out would be, felt the land <br />use element was not sustainable because there was so much commuting that was necessary. <br />She distributed information to the Council and said she prepared calculations by using the <br />information in the land use element about employee density and square footage for each type of <br />business park area. She believes the public did not want Pleasanton to be generating an <br />environmental problem for the remainder of the region. <br />James Paxson supported staff's recommendations and urged the Council to support the plan. <br />They like the approach taken with the mixed use said the idea of flexibility was also very <br />important to him and asked to look at a different allocation for units newly calculated under the <br />revised assessment as well as the assisted living units. He stated if those were re-allocated to <br />the Hacienda Specific Plan a planning allocation of about 900 units would be in place. He asked <br />that for the purposes of defining the preferred plan, the Council look to do a re-allocation to their <br />project. He felt it could be done without making any other changes to other commitments. They <br />have had very important endorsements--they received a planning designation from the <br />Greenbelt Alliance, and if successful getting a plan approved it would attract financing for <br />improvements for their planned area. They also received a second tier placement within the <br />Great Communities Initiative. <br />Bill Hirst said he was interested in the slope density provision recommended by the Planning <br />Commission, said he and 7 other families have owned a piece of property west of Foothill Road <br />since 1972 and they feel strongly that it would be unfair to effectuate the Planning Commission's <br />recommendation. They encouraged the Council to retain the current general plan land use <br />application to these properties on Foothill Road and look at them on a case-by-case basis. <br />Mary Roberts felt the new designations were excellent, thanked everyone for the mixed use and <br />water management and recreation designation, felt current mixed use was open-ended in its <br />number of units due to density problems, felt the rural density residential should be changed, felt <br />all RDR was up against the urban growth boundary and in south Pleasanton, felt it was an <br />antiquated county designation of 1 home per 5 acres, felt the City did PUD's to put houses <br />where they fit and she requested a hillside residential designation be formulated. <br />Councilmember Sullivan referred to Policy 7 and 8, page 229 and 230, and questioned if these <br />were new policies. Mr. Iserson said they are new policies but they were taken from the text of <br />the old General Plan land use element and they felt it was more appropriate to move them to <br />policies because they were policy-like in their approach. <br />Councilmember McGovern said she could not find this and the open-endedness of "any housing <br />type". Mr. Iserson referred to page 2-5 of the marked up version of the existing 1996 general <br />plan, stating the intent was to cluster development and to say that the General Plan, like Rural <br />Residential, gives it an overall density number or calculation for a property to get the number of <br />units. And, it encourages clustering units away from steep sloped areas, areas where there are <br />many trees or creeks, and moving it toward the areas of the site that are more developable, <br />flatter and easier to access with less environmental issues. In order to do this, the plan provides <br />for a higher density type of housing product. However, it would work out to the average density <br />over the entire property the same if you did 5-acre lots. He confirmed the "any housing type" <br />wording was in the existing General Plan. <br />Peter MacDonald, addressed the City Council, representing Rumi and Barbara Liason, said the <br />Planning Commission has recommended a last minute change to the land use element and <br />requested changing the definition of gross developable acreage to exclude 25% sloped land. He <br />City Council Minutes 10 August 21, 2007 <br />