HACIENDA REPORT - Laserfiche WebLink

MORRI30N I FOERSTER Mayor Jennifer Hosterman and Members of the Pleasanton City Council August 13, 2008 Page Two Hacienda is more than 90% developed today, based on a ratio of vacant land in relation to Hacienda's total acreage. However, Hacienda in general and the Corporate Campus in particular currently are underutilized, creating an opportunity to advance the sustainable development and energy efficient goals and policies of the Draft General Plan Update ("GPU") Land Use Element. To date, the Corporate Campus has been used primarily for a single purpose (i.e., office uses). It would now become amixed-use site that also includes hotel and retail uses. While the owners of the Corporate Campus support new residential growth within Hacienda, the Corporate Campus does not propose any residential uses on this site. However, the new office, hotel, and retail uses would be compatible with denser residential uses on other Hacienda properties proximate to the BART station. Other communities have actually implemented their TOD visions near their BART stations or within older conventional business parks. Hacienda is eager to actually realize your vision for Hacienda, not risk losing jobs and momentum by unnecessary and burdensome planning efforts. A PUD Modification Would Be Mare Appropriate for Hacienda than a Specific Plan. We believe that it would be more appropriate for the Corporate Campus, BRE, and WP Carey project applications to be processed through modification of the existing PUD approval for Hacienda, ratherthan aspart of aHacienda-wide Specific Plan, for several reasons. A. The GPU Already Provides a Vision and Guidance for Transit-Oriented, Mixed Use Protects Equivalent to What a Specific Plan Would Provide A PUD Modification is simply a better fit for an existing business park, particularly given that the new GPU will set forth the City Council's new smart-growth vision for mixed-use infill and transit-oriented development. All proposed projects within Hacienda will need to be consistent with the new GPU as well as the PUD Modification. The Draft GPU Land Use Element already provides strong guidance as to the character of future development within Hacienda by encouraging the related concepts of smart growth, transit-oriented development, and mixed-use development, as the following examples indicate: • The Land Use Element explains on page 2-20 that smart growth "encourage[es] more compact, mixed-use development within existing urban areas" and facilitates the access of local services such as retail through alternative modes of travel. • The GPU's Mixed-Use designation "allows any combination of business park, office, retail, community facilities, research and development, and residential uses ... on a wc-138373