01a - Laserfiche WebLink

and a subsequent Council or voter Initiative could not change it without approval by the property owner. He said the community has 30 days after the second reading of both the PUD ordinance and the development agreement. Councilmember McGovern confirmed that the project was in the southeast hills and the developed areas would generally be on top of the ridges on the site for a variety of reasons. She looked at the 1996 General Plan and it states that, "in unstable areas the City seeks to minimize grading of slopes for construction or slope stability repairs, limits grading only where it is essential for development and prohibits major grading where existing slopes are 25% or greater". It also talks about areas prone to landslide or instability, stating these areas are generally designated on the General Plan as Public Health and Safety, and it looks like 80% of lots have a 25% slope. Mr. Iserson said the site is Rural Density Residential and Public Health and Safety and development is occurring on the Rural Density Residential portion. Staff did an analysis of all of the many policies in the General Plan and in approving a project, there are somewhat conflicting policies. Staff tried to come up with a rationale that demonstrates that this project actually fulfills a number of General Plan policies and this was one of the reasons the ridge top area was chosen--because they were the safest areas in terms of landslides and erosion. So, it was a balancing of issues, and staff felt that overall, the majority of policies were complied with. Councilmember McGovern said she disagreed; that also on 13 lots, 80% or more of the surface area exceeds a slope of 25%. Regarding Valley at Santa Rita and Bernal at Southbound I-680 which are the two intersections without any mitigations being done, Councilmember McGovern believed any development coming forward should put funds in an account to mitigate them. Mr. Iserson said Bernal property development was included within the traffic analysis, the City will be receiving $1 million all of which would not be used, which would go into an account and could help in mitigating other intersections. Councilmember McGovern questioned if the General Plan entitles certain properties to certain numbers of housing units, and Mr. Iserson said the General Plan holding capacity for the site is 98 units which is based on the land use designation of Rural Density Residential and the amount of acreage. The entitlement is what the Council approves on the project-specific level. She felt there were an additional 47 units to be used somewhere else in Pleasanton so the developer was not truly losing any units. Mr. Iserson said the developer would have to build the units on land that has a General Plan designation that could support the density, it would have to go through the normal process, and the developer is requesting the opportunity to use those units elsewhere to meet their affordable housing obligations at the same time. Councilmember McGovern questioned if the Council was forced to approve the 47 units to the developer by law, and Mr. Roush said because the 98 units are shown in the Housing Element as part of the holding capacity, the Council cannot ignore those 47 units and could unilaterally reduce the number from 98 to 51. They would have to make a finding of where those 47 units were going to go. The current proposal for the 47 units is to allow the developer the opportunity to develop those units as affordable housing somewhere in the community, which is part of a trade-off under the development agreement. If the Council does not wish to go in that direction, the development and housing agreements can be modified accordingly. The developer has five years by which they could identify another site and apply for those 47 units elsewhere. City Council Minutes 17 September 4, 2007