CITY COUNCIL MEETING AGENDA PACKET

Page 3 of 8 it protects neighborhood character, scale, and privacy. However, current regulations require the DR process for very minor projects (e.g., changing a window to a door on a commercial building or a backyard residential accessory structure) that are objectively likely to have little to no impact on the community. Based on a review of 10 years of data, staff has processed an average of 110 ADRs annually. A typical ADR takes between 3.5 and 7.5 hours to process; on aggregate, this accounts for the equivalent of 20 to 40 percent of one full-time employee (FTE, Associate Planner). This figure does not include hours spent by other City divisions and administrative staff. The application fee for an ADR is currently set at $345, which is significantly lower than the actual cost of staff time to process a typical application. Over the past five years, staff has processed an average of 42 Design Review applications annually. While hours spent processing DR applications are harder to quantify, since they can vary widely from project to project, and are often processed in tandem with other land use entitlements, a DR application typically takes a similar or greater number of hours to process than an ADR. A breakdown of the data is included in Exhibit B of Attachment 3. With a high workload, review of small DR and ADR projects detracts from staff’s ability to efficiently process larger project applications that reflect more significant investments in the community. DR for small residential and commercial projects, which form the largest share of applications processed, can demand almost as much time and resources to process as larger projects. The DR process particularly burdens homeowners and small business owners by adding months to the review process and requiring additional sets of professionally prepared plans, beyond those required for the issuance of a Building Permit. Noticing Currently, the public notification radius requirements are outlined in PMC Chapter 18.12, throughout PMC Title 18, and specified by City Council Resolution No. 91-132, (Attachment 2). Generally, local requirements far exceed those specified in the Government Code. For example, for projects subject to Planning Commission (PC) review and approval, a 1,000-foot radius is used for public noticing per City standards, where a 300-foot radius is required by Government Code. More recently, the City adopted an administrative policy for on-site project notification. This requires on-site project notifications for projects or applications that are subject to a public hearing before the PC or City Council, projects that add one or more dwelling units, excluding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), or other projects at the determination of the Zoning Administrator (ZA). For many projects where no public hearing is required by the PMC or Government Code (e.g., residential additions subject to ADR), the City’s current practice is to send out project notification cards to immediately adjacent neighbors. The mailed project notification radius is determined on a project-by-project basis by the ZA. Project notification is intended to allow an opportunity for neighbors near a project to identify concerns or request public hearings prior to ZA approval. Requests for ZA hearings are infrequent (typically five or fewer per year), out of 100+ ADRs processed annually. In staff’s review, hearing requests were most often made for projects involving second-story additions, balconies where there is a perceived impact on privacy, or where there have been pre-existing conflicts or disagreements between neighbors. Page 132 of 200