Laserfiche WebLink
of development will assist the City in the future in its housing assignments and in preparation of <br />its Housing Element. <br />Vice Mayor Thorne said the plans outlined in the staff report are very aggressive, the City also <br />has some very important priorities like Staples Ranch and completion of the General Plan, and <br />he questioned how staff felt about fitting all of the work into their schedule and having it <br />completed in a timely manner. City Manager Fialho said public participation and quality would <br />obviously drive the outcome of this planning effort, and from his perspective, the Council's <br />direction to date is completion of the General Plan Update and staff is moving towards putting <br />its resources there. Staff anticipates bringing that forward sometime in January/March 2009. <br />Tracking equally with that is the Staples Ranch project, the EIR process was just completed, <br />and staff is close to finishing off the specific plan amendment and hopefully will bring it to the <br />Planning Commission by the end of the year with the entitlement process occurring with the <br />Council in early 2009. <br />Councilmember McGovern said she believed this was an extremely complex issue to try and <br />make decisions about it tonight. She said the business park has a development plan, <br />development agreement, design guidelines, and site plan criteria, all of which she has not seen. <br />She questioned whether or not the Planning Commission has reviewed them lately. Mr. Iserson <br />said the documents have been in effect for a long time, they have not been changed for a long <br />time, when they have a project in Hacienda that addresses those documents, staff tries to cite <br />the applicable sections and requirements from the PUD and design guidelines, but a <br />comprehensive view has not yet been brought forward. <br />Councilmember McGovern voiced concerns also over the many market, opportunities, and <br />traffic reports done on the area which have not be received by the Planning Commission or <br />Council.. She felt this was a very big step to take without having a full understanding of where <br />the park is today. She was not sure what FAR was assigned to any of the parcels. She <br />confirmed Hacienda was designated currently as a business park, that there were sites within <br />the park designated for retail, office, R&D, and for residential, and there is a zone that <br />incorporates office and industrial and commercial within certain sites. She felt the business park <br />designation could be left as is, and if TOD was to be done in certain areas, the City could <br />designate some parcels for TOD, and therefore, the entire park did not need to be made a <br />mixed use. She questioned and confirmed that each designation has an FAR maximum, which <br />would need to be looked at within the design guidelines on aparcel-by-parcel basis. <br />Councilmember McGovern questioned where the 1,271 unit alternative came from, and City <br />Manager Fialho said the Council was given three options to consider before embarking on the <br />EIR process. A majority of the Council expressed interest in the lower dense option; or the <br />preferred option, and directed staff to analyze this as the preferred land use option in the <br />General Plan at 333 units. But the Council also wanted to study the impact of a couple of other <br />options. The extreme option was 1200 units. Therefore, in the EIR document, it will show an <br />alternative that includes 1200 units in the business park, but it will not be reflected as the <br />preferred plan. <br />Councilmember McGovern said she read there is 1 million square feet of development available <br />to Hacienda currently, and Mr. Iserson said if the residential development is included, this would <br />leave 1 million remaining, and adding in commercial and office would total about 2 million. She <br />confirmed what the Council was therefore looking at was 1,271 units, even though it is the <br />extreme. Mr. Iserson said they are considering this in light of the Hacienda stakeholders' desires <br />to maximize units and of the City's perspective in what a TOD development would look like. <br />CC/PC Joint Workshop Minutes 7 August 27, 2008 <br />