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Joint meeting: Planning Commission/City Council May 29, 1991 Paget The staff role is most important, because they have to make sure the developer understands the regulations and understands what is necessary and what will be required and that they present an application that is complete. This encourages the developer to get their act together because they know that no one will look at the proposal until all those things are in the City file. But we don't have the staff to hold the developers hand. Staff should get a lot of support from the City Council and Planning Commission. The City should make it very clear to developers how we do things, and not give into pressure. Developers have to understand that unless they do what is required then their application will not be processed, in other words the City will be fair in reviewing applications if the developer is diligent in presenting them with all the details required. This message gets to the developer through Mary, Mike, Tom or Jerry. Issues should be sorted out before the application goes to the Planning Commission. A developer application should not come back to the City Council four or five times. When an application is complete, it must be submitted to the Planning Commission and Council in an orderly manner. It should be submitted with some objective recommendations as in stating which Sections of the code it satisfies and which Sections it doesn't if any, and if any p+ variances are required. These objective recommendations must come e, from staff (Mary, Mike, Tom or Jerry). The City's option, if a development proposal does not satisfy the codes and regulations, is to turn it down, but you must be fair and let the developer know upfront what is required. The Planning Commissions job is to give recommendations. The Planning Commission should be a little more concerned about the overall development and how it fits in with the Comprehensive Plan. These recommendations must be based on facts, and make sure they are not just conclusions. For example: the commission cannot say a proposal is going to create a traffic hazard, this does not help the council. It is better for the commission to say this proposal is going to be a traffice hazard because it will generate 7,000 additional trips per day for a road that is only designed to carry 5,000 vehicles per day. The City should not be afraid to ask a developer for an appraisal, a traffic study, or an engineering study to establish a fact. Don't be afraid to ask for these things right away as necessary. The developer knows that if he/she doesn't comply with these requests, their application can be denied on the basis the City does not have enough information to determine what the impact will be. The Council needs good data, good recommendations, needs everybody that looks at something before them to be prepared so that ultimately they can make a "reasonable" decision. The council's ability to make a reasonable recommendation is hampered if they have bad data and incomplete recommendations. We should all be striving toward a fair decision by the City Council.