Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type:
To: City Council
Subject: DISCUSSION OF POTENTIAL ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING CITY
COUNCIL APPEALS OF APPROVALS UNDER ZONING ORDINANCE
Date: May 24, 2022
Written by: Noah Housh, Director of Community Development Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council review the information provided by staff, consider the various options identified and provide direction on a potential ordinance.
Background
On April 26, 2022, staff from the Community Development Department presented an Ordinance which included suite of proposed changes to the City’s land use code, implementing several General Plan and Housing Element policy and programs. These policies and programs provided direction to make changes regarding the City’s development review process for housing projects.
Housing Element Program 2-6 directed the removal of the Use Permit requirement for multi- family housing in the Neighborhood Urban (NU) Zoning District. As a separate component of this Ordinance, staff had included another recommended change to remove the Use Permit requirement for multi-family housing in the Neighborhood Medium (NM) Density Zoning District. Design Review approval from the Planning Commission in a fully noticed public hearing would remain under proposed changes.
Analysis/Discussion
In discussing the removal of the Use Permit requirement for multi-family housing in the NU and NM zoning districts, a majority of the City Council expressed a desire to explore options to mitigate the potential for problematic projects to move forward absent additional public input.
Specifically, they requested further discussion on the following options:
1. Not implementing Housing Element Program 2-6, which would remove the Use Permit requirement for multi-family housing in the NU District, or
2. Elevating all multi-family Design Review decisions to the City Council.
As indicated in the hearing, one of the goals in implementing this program is to assist the City in the adoption and approval of the City’s pending 6th Cycle Housing Element by the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Given the recent experiences of Southern California cities, many of which had their Housing Elements rejected, it is believed that the City will be better positioned to get certified by completing a program that was committed to in the existing Housing Element.
In response, staff has researched the potential impacts from the implementation of either of these directions with our Housing Element consultant (Jane Riley, 4Leaf), who was of the opinion (of the two choices above) that the identified targeted change in the Design Review process would likely be viewed as an added “impediment’ to the development of housing units, making rejection of the City’s 6th Cycle Housing Element more likely. If this was the only option, our Housing Element Consultant suggested that it would be better to not implement Program 2-6.
While staff sees full implementation of Housing Element 2-6 as an important step, given the concerns raised by a majority of the City Council, staff has sought to identify a third option.
Option 3: Changes to the general Appeal Process
In jurisdictions throughout the State, it is common for the appeal chapter of the municipal code to include a provision that allows the City Council to appeal any land use action of a lower decisionmaking authority. In Sonoma County, the Town of Windsor and City of Sonoma have similar provisions. These policies are generally intended to ensure decisions that are deemed to have a significant or material impact on the quality of life of members of the community are thoroughly vetted and decided by those directly elected to represent those community members. The Cotati Municipal Code currently has an allowance, but staff is recommending new language and deleting existing problematic language.
Given direction from the City Council, staff has proposed new language to create a process for a majority of City Council members to appeal any land use decision of a lower decision body within a given time frame. Draft ordinance language is provided below, and the existing Appeal Code language is attached for context.
17.84.030(A)(3)
City Council. The City Council may appeal any action of the Director of Community Development or Planning Commission. The decision to appeal an action must be made within 30-days following the action of the Director of Community Development or Planning Commission and shall require a majority vote of the City Council. The decision to appeal shall be made at the time the City Council agenda grants the City Council the opportunity to provide direction on future agenda items. If an appeal is made by the City Council, there shall be a presumption that the appeal is based on the concern that the appealed action may have significant and/or material effects on the quality of life of the citizens residing within the City of Cotati. No other reason need be or shall be stated by the City Council. No inference of bias shall be made because of such an appeal. Such an appeal shall be a de novo decision.
Additionally, in researching this item, staff discovered existing text in the appeals section that is recommended for removal, as it is problematic from a process standpoint and may trigger legal challenges if used. Therefore, in the existing Appeal Code language, staff recommends also striking the entirety of section “17.84.050 Directed Referral”.
It is believed that these proposed changes will both remove a potential existing impediment to housing and broadly ensure that decisions that are deemed to have a significant or material impact on the quality of life of members of the community are thoroughly vetted and decided by those directly elected to represent those community members.
Permitted or Conditional Use Permit?
Finally, it should be clarified that the Housing Element Program 2-6 specifically focused on removal of the use permit for multifamily development in the NU zone. Staff suggested that this also be extended to the NM zone, under the general policy to remove impediments, and this seemed to be consistent with the change to NU. Additionally, the use permit is not believed to add much value over the existing design review process. However, the City Council has the option to not take the staff recommendation on NM and only remove the use permit requirement for the NU zone, consistent with the specific program language.
Staff requests City Council direction and feed back on the proposed ordinance changes.
Financial Considerations
The direct and quantifiable impacts of this decision are identified as the cost of the staff time to the general fund in working on the proposed Ordinance and code revisions. This is generally anticipated to be between 20-40 hours to bring such an ordinance before the City Council. There may be indirect or un-anticipated costs associated with not implementing the adopted Housing Element programs, however, these are uncertain and unable to be quantified.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.
Attachments:
Chapter 17.84 APPEALS (PDF)