WSA - SUNSHINE ORDINANCE - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Sunshine Ordinance September 17, 2012 Page 2 4. Budget Outreach and Strategic Plan 5. Open Calendars 6. Lobbyist Registrations 1. Site Plan Review Pre-Application Meetings The Santa Ana Coalition for Responsible Development (SACReD) has requested that the City consider requiring early community meetings for significant development projects, and the City Council has directed staff to make recommendations in this regard. Existing Transparency It is important to note that the City has informally implemented similar types of measures for a number of years. Most recently, for example, the City worked with Orangewood Children's Foundation to ensure that the community was involved in the approval process for the Academy Charter High School. Any New Requirements Should Meet Certain Goals So long as the requirements are balanced, staff is supportive of formalizing the existing community meeting practices. Four goals have guided this analysis and staff recommendation. Staff believes that the requirements should not: 1. Lengthen the development process 2. Add significant new costs for applicants 3. Require significant additional City resources, staffing or otherwise 4. Be overly complicated to implement Community Meeting Should Only Apply to Larger, More Complex Projects The recommended ordinance requires one community meeting be conducted at the beginning of the development review process. This requirement would apply only to the larger, more complex projects such as: City-sponsored projects (including but not limited to those that involve a development agreement or a disposition and development agreement), new residential projects with 25 or more units; new non-residential projects with buildings that are greater than 10,000 square feet in size and involve a Negative Declaration or Environmental Impact Report; projects that involve changes to General Plan, zoning, or Specific Plan. WSA-2