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Council asks commission to add two more meetings to catch up
By Nathan R. Huff
The planning commission, under pressure from the Town Council to reduce the backlog of projects, agreed on June 28, to schedule two additional meetings over the next two months.
The commission will add a meeting in July and Aug with the intent of catching up on old applications and creating room on future agendas for new applications.
"This should assist us in eliminating all the applications that run the risk of [exceeding] the Permit Streamlining Act," commissioner Paul Bruno said. The Streamlining Act mandates that action on development applications must occur within a set amount of time, which varies according to the type of application.
Bruno will take over as chairman of the commission effective July 1. Former chairwoman Laura Nachison is taking a leave of absence for an undetermined length of time for health reasons.
The seven-member commission is now down to five members, as the council has yet to appoint a replacement for former commissioner Sandy Decker, who resigned in March. The council had considered reducing the commission to five, but failed to find majority support for the idea.
The number of commissioners has been part of an ongoing discussion between the council and commission over the marathon- like planning meetings and the backlog of development projects. The council asked the commission to work on ways to shorten meetings and speed up the process. Among the ideas for doing so were reducing the number of commissioners, adding meetings and changing the role of town staff and lower committees to reduce the time spent on architectural review at the commission level.
Commissioners, in turn, rejected the idea that the process was "broken," saying the driving force behind packed agendas and late meetings was the booming economy and subsequent increase in building applications. Commissioners also unanimously rejected the idea of reducing the number of commissioners, arguing more perspectives offered a better review of projects.
However, adding meetings on a temporary basis was seen as a reasonable solution that would not actually change the process.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
