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Planners ruffle at the idea that the process is broken
By Nathan R. Huff
Planning commissioners mulled over suggestions on June 7, on ways to cut the length of meetings and reduce the planning department's project backlog, but declined to adopt a strategy then and there.
Instead, the commission asked town staff to list possible solutions, including adding extra meetings, shortening audience- and commissioner-comment times, informing applicants of the delay early on, and limiting the number of items on the agenda.
Community development director Paul Curtis will prepare the list, from which commissioners will select the options with which they are willing to experiment. Those ideas will then be forwarded to the town council, which will have the final say.
The council has expressed its desire to see the project backlog reduced and the meetings, which often run past midnight, shortened. It met on May 31, in a joint session with the planning commission to brainstorm ideas--including reducing the commission from seven to five members--but declined to make any specific recommendations. Commissioners, the council said, should try to solve the problem themselves.
Commissioners at the June 7 meeting rejected the notion that the process was "broken" as has been suggested by council members. However, they acknowledged that the booming economy has generated a similar boom of building projects. Many of the current and upcoming agendas are nearly twice as long as those from seven years ago.
"There is this new assault of wealth on the community," commissioner Jim Lyon said, "that has really driven significantly more development than we had ever anticipated."
Other commissioners agreed on the root of the problem, but not necessarily on the approach that should be taken to mitigate it. Several commissioners suggested that the group could work on discussing less with applicants over minute details of architecture, but other commissioners strongly opposed that idea.
"The time spent on those details--the look of the structure, the compatibility with the neighborhood--is necessary, appropriate, and I think it is critical to maintaining the character of the town," commissioner Paul Bruno said.
Chairwoman Laura Nachison, who favors of shifting some of the design review responsibility to a lower committee, said she believed the commission was counterproductive arguing among themselves.
"It's a difficult-at-best process to continue working ourselves over while trying to do the job as a commission," Nachison said.
Curtis' suggestion to return with a list of ideas commissioners could vote on was well received. However, he added that some suggestions, such as reducing the number of items on the agenda, would not help solve the backlog problem.
"I think that we may have to bite the bullet and schedule some extra meetings," Curtis said. Additional meetings could be held the Thursday after regular commission meetings, or on off-weeks.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
