Title
Consider Reforming the Council Review Process of Planning Board Decisions. (Councilmember Oddie)
Body
COUNCIL REFERRAL FORM
Name of Councilmember requesting referral: Jim Oddie
Date of submission to City Clerk (must be submitted before 5:00 p.m. on the Monday two weeks before the Council meeting requested): May 5, 2016
Council Meeting date: May 17, 2016
Brief description of the subject to be printed on the agenda, sufficient to inform the City Council and public of the nature of the referral:
Consider Reforming the Council Review Process of Planning Board Decisions
Calls for review represent an important check and balance in the City process and ensure that a majority of the elected City Council have the ability to ensure that the work generated by the Planning Board and other bodies rise to the expected quality and appropriateness.
Of late, this process has been increasingly used by a minority of Councilmembers with little impact on the final outcome. These calls for review not only cost applicants money, but also tie up staff time and diminish the ability of our planning staff to address priority items such as the city’s Universal Design Ordinance and other long-term planning efforts. And, members of the business community have begun to express concern that Alameda is garnering “a reputation for decision-making that cannot be predicted, cannot be counted on, and cannot be depended on.” [See attached letter from Chamber of Commerce.] The Chamber also noted that these frequent calls for review are detrimental to their daily efforts to recruit and retain businesses.
As such, I propose that we adopt a reporting and call-for-review process that will both keep the City Council better informed about the actions that our Planning Board takes, and provide a call-for-review process that ensures that actions that are called for review rise to a level of concern for a majority of the Council.
In approving this referral, staff is directed to identify a process to report on the actions of the Planning Board at the first City Council meeting after each Planning Board. At that meeting, without discussing the project, a member of the Council could make a motion to call a specific item from the list of Planning Board actions for a full, de novo hearing at a future Council meeting, the motion could include a statement of concern for why the Council should call this for review and once seconded, Councilmembers would be allowed to ask questions of staff before voting. This motion would need both a second and a vote of the majority of the Council to be called for review.
1) Notwithstanding any appeal procedures or any other call-up procedures provided by law, the City Council may call for the review of the following decisions of the Planning Board at the meeting at which the Planning Board’s decision is reported to the City Council:
a) Any conditional use permit, or
b) Any design review final action.
2) If called-up for review by a majority vote of the City Council, the item will be heard de novo at a future City Council meeting following notice pursuant to subsection 3. If the City Council does not so vote, the decision of the Planning Board shall be final for City Council call-up.
3) All provisions for notice and hearing applicable to the Planning Board for that type of decision, shall apply to the City Council in conducting its review; provided, however, that if an appeal from a decision has been properly filed, the matter shall be conducted as an appeal subject to all applicable requirements for such appeals, rather than a review subject to this section.
4) The process costs for items called for review would be identified in the City Council budget and would not be borne by the applicant. Once this budget line item is exhausted, Council would need to seek additional funding and identify a source of revenue or offsetting budget cut before authorizing additional funding.
In approving this referral, the City Council would provide a more nuanced review that would ensure that all projects go through a full-vetting before being brought to the Council for a re-hearing, and that a review has a likelihood of actually being overturned if brought to the Council.