Planning Commission Proposes New Review Process

By Olin Erickson
Staff Writer

March 26 -- The Planning Commission Wednesday proposed a new review process that retains public input, but remained divided over the details of a plan to guide Downtown’s design future, while agreeing to encourage courtyard buildings.

Commissioners hitched more than half a dozen “recommendations” to the item before voting 6 to 0 to reluctantly endorse the entire amendment, which is now set to go before the City Council April 7.

Most significantly, the commission approved an alternative to staff’s proposal that would eliminate review by the Planning Commission and Architectural Review Board of projects less than 30,000 square feet -- or roughly the size of a 50-unit building -- if they meet the new Downtown design guidelines.

The commission’s proposal allows the public to meet with developers before staff reviews a project. If a proposed project fails to meet community expectations, it would ultimately go to the Planning Commission and ARB.

It was this part of staff’s general proposal that raised the ire of both the ARB and planning commission when it was presented with no advance warning earlier this month.

“I think I speak for all on the commission when I say we are explicitly rejecting the loss of oversight,” said Commission Chair Darrell Clarke. “It would just be the wrong direction for the City to give that much authority away to staff.”

“Nobody is in favor of removing the discretionary review,” said Commissioner Barbara Brown. “Since the very beginning (of the proposed Downtown design changes) there has been an option for discretionary review. What is it that changed?” Brown asked staff.

Amanda Schachter, filling in for Community and Planning Director Suzanne Frick, said staff “reevaluated public process standards” after huddling with Roma Design -- the architectural firm hired by the City to implement the changes to the Downtown standards.

After the meeting, City Planner Paul Foley added that the City Council first directed staff in July of 2003 to find a way to streamline the development process.

Brown responded that staff and Roma Design decided on an approach that “has generated quite a bit of interest.”

Calling it a “horrible idea,” ARB member Joan Charles told the commission that “there are no projects that would come before” the board larger than 30,000 square feet, effectively stripping it of its powers.

“Silencing voices is a very important thing,” she said, “because the next voice silenced may be yours.”

Commissioners did acknowledge the need to speed up the development process however, and suggested a different approach.

Commissioners Gwynne Pugh, Arlene Hopkins and Jay Johnson met with staff and consultants Monday and hammered out a two-page draft document that outlines a three-step plan to streamline the process.

First, developers would host a public meeting, giving notices and project details to those within 500 feet of the proposed site. The meeting would be a way to solicit public input and “establish positive and mutually respectful lines of communication between the developer and the community.” The public would then have 30 days to respond with further input. (Three of the developers at the meeting laughed at the proposal.)

Second, information would be posted at the site and mailed to “all tenants and property owners” within 500 feet. It is during this stage that the public may “file a request for a public hearing on the proposed project before the Planning Commission. The developer may in turn file a modification to the project to “resolve the concerns raised by the appeal.” If the public remains concerned, the “proposed project application will be set for a hearing before the Planning Commission and the Architectural Review Board,” according to the draft.

The Planning Commission could then “hold a public hearing with full discretionary review… within 60 days of the date the appeal was filed.”

Aside from providing an alternative to eliminating all public review, the commission unanimously approved a basic design -- with a few minor modifications suggested by Commissioner Pugh -- that would make residential courtyard buildings predominant Downtown.

The commission, however, split 3 to 3 on a proposal to increase building heights to 65 feet and voted 4 to 2 against changing existing step backs.

The commission also voted to follow a subcommittee recommendation that would allow developers to add 7,500 feet for sustainable buildings and another 7,500 for affordable buildings. The total square footage, however, could not exceed 30,000.

The most heated exchanges involved the scaling back of square footage. Commissioner Clarke thought the design standards “need to be scaled back a bit.”

Such calls prompted prominent Downtown developer, Craig Jones, to lambaste the commission’s idea, saying scaling back the design, even a bit, would result in no affordable housing Downtown because the courtyard buildings are already close to being prohibitively expensive.

“This is a body that is so anti-housing. If you try and scale this back that means no affordable housing,” said Jones, noting he was the only developer building residential units Downtown. “If you do this, then nobody will build anything except commercial projects Downtown.”

Commissioner Hopkins asked Jones if he was, in effect, trying to “blackmail” the commission. Jones denied the accusations and the verbal assaults continued until Commissioner Lopez-Dad threatened to leave if civility did not return to the proceedings.

By the end of the four-hour ordeal, two public input sessions and an hour spent deliberating whether or not to continue the item, the commission brought around the single motion on the issue. Commissioner Hopkins called it the most important issue to come before the group since her appointment to the commission nearly three years ago.