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environment, and emails she continues to receive involve pesticide use, water and energy <br />issues, use of leaf blowers, use of excessive plastics and Styrofoam. She sees the commission <br />and one staff person working on these issues and bringing advice to the City Council. <br />Councilmember Thorne felt the City had done a good job in building the cultural of <br />environmental concerns within Pleasanton and all commissions have some responsibility of <br />reviewing environmental impacts of projects they review. He did not want to create a situation <br />where one commission was throwing work to another commission and agreed there was also no <br />need to delay the City's permitting processes. <br />Councilmember Sullivan said the energy and environment commission had been discussed for <br />three years, it had not yet been brought forward, but he would examine these types of questions <br />as part of scoping out of what needed to be done. He believes energy and the environment was <br />a critical part of reviewing development, and said he was supportive of using the word, <br />"consider". <br />Councilmember McGovern agreed with changing the word, "establish" to "consider'. She felt <br />there were things the Council should look closer at. If the Council was not going to look at gross <br />developable acres with slopes of 25%, then it needs to make sure that when going back to the <br />public and safety section of the general plan, the verbiage is kept. Regarding housing units, she <br />cited a staff report which discussed the options for the CLC, and quoted; "Option One: Count all <br />690 units as residential units toward the cap. This option is based on the fact that all of the units, <br />with the exception of the assisted living, would most likely meet the US census definition of a <br />living unit which is a house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, a group of rooms or a single <br />room occupied as separate living quarters, or if vacant and intended for occupancy as separate <br />living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live separately from <br />any other individuals in the building and which have direct access from the outside of the <br />building or through a common hall. This 690 apartment style and attached home style units <br />meets the definition in that each have separate living, bathing and cooking facilities and <br />therefore would support independent living. Further, these units could be counted as meeting <br />the ABAG Regional Housing needs. She referred to holding capacity and said when the <br />Council starts looking at Hacienda Business Park; she confirmed with Mr. Iserson that the areas <br />already developed as residential would be changed to mixed use. She did not feel this was right <br />due to it being a business park and she did not believe it all should be changed to mixed use. <br />Mr. Iserson said the idea was to create an opportunity and flexibility, said Hacienda is governed <br />by a development agreement and a PUD and it does not at all indicate the City would be looking <br />at every parcel. However, the mixed use provides for the flexibility. She believed this would <br />direct the City to put all of its "eggs into the Hacienda basket" and did not understand why the <br />additional units would be taken just to Hacienda. She felt if the City has a plan for mixed use, <br />then it should be able to look at mixed use anytime it comes forward and felt there were other <br />developers, land owners and areas where mixed use or TOD could be done. She also felt the <br />City should go back to its general plan and define what a "housing unit" was. Regarding mixed <br />use and she indicated it stated, "higher density residential uses, 30 units per acre or more are <br />encouraged adjacent to BART stations." She felt the City has no bottom line of what "or more" <br />was, and in the chart approved for land use it states the West BART station is 350 units on 7 <br />acres. This comes out to 50 units per acre which she felt was enormous. She said the City has <br />not looked at buildings of this scale and felt this was a philosophical change the community <br />needed to be aware of. She also confirmed 50 units per acre would be a three-story building. <br />For high density and mixed use, she felt the City needed to have some type of mid-point in <br />those and asked not to leave it open-ended. She also referred to the section which talked about <br />jobs going up to 88,000. She said if 10 million square feet were left to build in commercial, the <br />City Council Minutes 13 August 21, 2007 <br />