CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING AGENDA PACKET 2-3-26

Page 3 of 4 project, can provide the City with much greater ability to shape and define a project, negotiate community benefits, and achieve greater certainty in project outcomes. These types of legislative approvals provide the City with discretion to approve, modify, or impose conditions of approval in conjunction with these applications and any associated development. The City can also negotiate Development Agreements that secure vesting for the applicant, often in exchange for community benefits to the City, and to collaboratively work with the developer to shape the development and deliver a high-quality project. DISCUSSION Based on the above considerations, and amount of active interest in re-zoning / redesignating properties, staff believes it would be beneficial to create a structured process for considering development-related General Plan amendment and re-zone requests in the near term. The recommended approach would create an early input and review process, during which the City Council would have the opportunity to evaluate initial proposals for developer-initiated land use requests, and authorize submittal of a formal application. It is recommended that this process be applied to both residential and commercial re-zone requests, since it may be problematic to single out residential-only applications as needing special approval to move forward, rather than re-zone requests more generally. The process is recommended to include: • At least a once-yearly intake and review process, which would be intended to allow one or more development proposals to be reviewed and provided early feedback at the same time by City Council in a workshop format. Conceptually, this process could be aligned with the budget cycle, whether the 2-year update, mid-term or mid-year assessment, or more flexibly based on timing of developer interest / proposals. • A standardized set of required application materials, including: o Project description/narrative describing existing and proposed land use/zoning; proposed land uses. o A project site plan, elevations/architectural concept and project narrative o Initial technical studies (e.g. a preliminary Traffic Impact Assessment if deemed necessary by the City Traffic Engineer, assessment of utility capacity, environmental constraints report) o Statement and assessment of any proposed community benefits o Affordable Housing approach (for residential projects) o Economic and Fiscal Evaluation • An assessment of staff capacity/resources, and recommendation for use of third-party resources if appropriate, with any direct costs paid by the applicant. At the early input workshop, the City Council would have the opportunity to: • Authorize the submittal of a formal planning application • Authorize submittal of a planning application but defer submission and processing until a specified date • Decline to authorize submitting the application, in which case the applicant would be Page 75 of 80