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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 5.1 - 1247 Development Pool Page 1 of 2 STAFF REPORT CITY COUNCIL DATE: December 6, 2016 TO: Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers FROM: Christopher L. Foss, City Manager SUBJECT: Downtown Development Pool Implementation Prepared by: Linda Smith, Assistant City Manager EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The City Council will consider options related to the implementation of the City's Downtown Development Pool. This item is being brought back to the City Council at their request. STAFF RECOMMENDATION: Consider the options presented and provide direction to Staff. FINANCIAL IMPACT: None DESCRIPTION: The City of Dublin, as part of the Downtown Dublin Specific Plan, holds a Development Pool of units and square footage to allocate within the Plan area. Currently, Staff presents a letter request to the City Council from the applicant to make a reservation of residential units or square footage from the Development Pool. The report would typically include an initial offer related to the Community Benefit for the project. The City Council is then asked to “reserve” units or square footage from the Development Pool for that project for a period of time in order to give the applicant some certainty that the units or square footage will be there when their project is formally presented t o the Planning Commission for review. This is a practice and not an adopted policy of the City Council. The practice has been in place now for five years and Staff has found that there are some challenges. First, the City Council, in its review of past potential projects, has found that there is very little information to help guide their decision in the reservation of units or commercial square footage. Two, the reservation of units or square footage Page 2 of 2 was designed for a time when the City Council would be challenged to allocate a limited number of units/sf left in the Pool. At this time, that is not an issue. Staff is seeking direction on the practice and offers up the following options and Staff recommendations for the City Council’s consideration: 1. Keep the current practice Staff does not recommend maintaining the existing practice at this time. Certainly, as the Plan area builds out, Staff would recommend a more deliberate process to evaluate requests for units/sf. 2. Modify the reservation process Staff recommends a modification to the existing practice. Staff would like an opportunity to further refine the requests in order to present a more detailed proposal for the City Council’s consideration. Staff would recommend the use of the Study Session process once Staff believes that an applicant’s proposal is appropriate to seek feedback (ie. Initial design and site plan as a basic requirement). This would typically take between three to six months from initial preliminary application. This Study Session will also include the options for Community Benefit for the City Council’s consideration. The City Council can, at that time, direct Staff to continue or discontinue work on the project. All costs associated with the preliminary review will be borne by the applicant. 3. Eliminate the reservation process entirely Because this is a practice and not a policy, the City Council could eliminate the reservation process entirely. Staff believes that this option is less desirable than Option 2, as it would be challenging to a prospective applicant to invest the time and resources into full-blown project plans. NOTICING REQUIREMENTS/PUBLIC OUTREACH: None. ATTACHMENTS: None.