75A - LETTER REGARDING ITEM 75A - Laserfiche WebLink

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November 15, 2009 Attn: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council Cc: City Clerk The purpose of this letter is regarding Item No. 75 A. on the 11/16 City Council agenda. Please make this part of the record for this item. The Zoning Administrator and Planning Commission were wrong to have denied a proposed subdivision at 1013 South Elliott Place per the recommendation of the City Planning Department. Please do not Please do not deny the property rights of the applicant make the same mistake. simply because a The proposed handful of NIMBYs influenced the Planning Department’s recommendation for denial. subdivision meets the legal requirements pursuant to the Subdivision Map Act and the City’s own Zoning and General Plan land use regulations. If the City Council does not believe that the design of the homes is characteristic of the neighborhood, then at the very least direct staff to work with the applicant in achieving a design that would be acceptable to the City. The City Council does not have to accept the design of the homes in conjunction with approval of the subdivision of the property. As a City planner having worked in various cities over the course of my career I have not seen such a lack of customer service. The applicant first brought a proposal to subdivide the property to the 2 years ago Planning Department !! The Planning Department asked for plans (which are not required for a simple subdivision) and then rejected the plans of the proposed homes and asked the applicant to re-design the homes. The applicant submitted a re-design of the homes and again was rejected. Two years and a lot of wasted money later, the Planning Department recommended denial of the subdivision. If the Planning Department was going to recommend denial of the subdivision (based on public health and incompatibility of the lots), then why did they waste the applicant’s time and money in asking for WORKwith the applicant plans for the homes in the first place?? Why not on the design of the homes?? Instead, the Planning Department cites public health and environmental concerns the subdivision would have. Why didn’t the Planning Department initially relate these concerns to the applicant?? Could it be that these are not legitimate concerns and that the Planning Department just does not want to allow the applicant to build the proposed homes, which, by the way, are similar to other recently constructed homes in the tract?? ? The staff report states that “there are both environmental and public health impacts associated with this subdivision.” However, the staff report fails to indicate anywhere what the environmental impacts are. In fact, the staff report conflicts with the findings in the will not cause any substantial resolution that state that the proposed subdivision “ environmental damage.” This again conflicts with a statement in the staff report that indicates that further environmental review may be required pursuant to CEQA if the In one staff report, on just one of several issues, there are 3 subdivision is approved. conflicting statements!!! It should be noted that CEQA guidelines allow for a project of this scope to be categorically exempt. As you can see, as evidenced by this one issue alone, the analysis is flawed and inconsistent. This should be reason enough for the Council to question staff’s recommendation for denial and direct staff to go back to the drawing board on this one.