01 06-26-08 - Laserfiche WebLink

disagrees with the initiative or because they differ politically with the proponents. If the Council disagrees with the Initiative, you should get engaged in the election campaign, debate the pros and cons of the issue and let the public vote, not try to undermine the Initiative or the process by putting a competing Initiative on the ballot. He thinks the Council should use its power of 3 votes very carefully but if we disagree with the Initiative, to try and defeat it by putting something else on the ballot is wrong. Councilmember McGovern thinks that on July 15 when the report returns, there should be an ,amended report, on the fiscal impacts-defining what an impact fee is, why it is used, and the fact that if growth is not there, the impact fee is not needed for whatever the mitigation was it was assigned for originally. Also, there are growth induced negatives not always measurable from a fiscal aspect when it comes to quality of life issues whether it is traffic congestion or need for additional services of any particular kind. She thinks Council needs to be clear to the voters that impacts are not true losses to the City if growth does not develop. She said she asked the City Manager what his recommendation would be to her and to Council as to what direction should be given and his advice was to receive the report and to take no further action. She said twice staff has recommended something to the Council which had not been followed; one was to appeal the decision in the referendum challenge and now tonight is to take no further action. She thinks the Council should therefore consider what staff has recommended. She feels sad about some of the things that are going on because there are some actual positives about the Initiative in the staff report, which do not come to the top such as, "Transferring residential development from hillside property to infill properties would not impact the city's ability to meet its current regional housing needs since the self-imposed limit to our regional need housing allocation is 29,000 units; the housing cap. However, to the extent that that 224 hillside units are developed in infill areas of the city rather than the hillsides, it is likely that such units would be higher density, multi-family dwellings or smaller single family homes. Some would likely be able to qualify for very low, low or moderate income units." She said this would help Pleasanton in attaining our lower income share of the RHNA numbers, which is a positive. She said another one is section 4.5, page 10, "If the Initiative is adopted, there will be less development than anticipated in the General Plan in those hill properties. This will result in more open space on those properties than has been expected, although some development will still occur. To the extent that the development on those properties is located on the relatively flat portions of the site, the remaining open space may continue to be used for grazing purposes, thus increasing the amount of agricultural land in the hill areas." She said those are positive things that should not be negated in the discussion. Therefore, we should be looking for both negative and positive things said. Councilmember McGovern said that the reason the Initiative is more protection for the public is that it is voted on by the citizen and cannot be changed without further voter approval. In the General Plan, there are more protections for the environment, open space, agricultural land, and who knows what the new one will look like. Yet, the Council has the discretion through a majority vote of saying the flexibility is there to change that. When there is a vote, it is much clearer that that vote has to be followed and the flexibility is not as great. Therefore, she would say to the majority of the Council that if you are going to put something on for July 15 to review, it should include something to be voted on by the people, and secondly, that there should be a moratorium on development in the hillsides until any vote of the people is taken on any other Initiative. She said this has come down to two developments; Oak Grove-51 large homes on the top of hillsides, and the Sarich home, with removal of a top of a hill, a 14,000 square foot home and 28 trees so it can be covered. Therefore, she felt this is an important issue to the people of Pleasanton. The Initiative offers positive things for the community and ensures there Special Meeting Minutes 14 June 26, 2008