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WSL and JPA RACs 2 April 22, 2008 <br />provide direction to the Council on similar implementation documents, such as the General Plan <br />and Zoning Code. The City Council Business and Housing Development Committee also <br />provides input on redevelopment activities. Arguably, it is unnecessary redundancy to have <br />three bodies reviewing the same issues. <br />Initially, the RACs met on a monthly basis. Now that the two Redevelopment Plans have <br />matured, the initial need for RAC involvement in planning the project areas has diminished. In <br />2006, due to staff reductions and a decline in the number of issues, the RAC meeting schedules <br />changed from monthly to bi-monthly. At this time, bi-monthly meetings are sometimes <br />cancelled due to lack of agenda items and in the past year, the WSL RAC and the JPA RAC each <br />convened only four times. <br />Given that the RACs responsibilities, as detailed in the attached guidelines, are similar in nature <br />to the responsibilities to the Planning Commission, the significant time required to manage two <br />RACs and the limited staffmg in the Office of Business Development, in addition to the <br />difficultly in finding replacement RAC members, staff recommends assigning the RAC <br />responsibilities not currently reviewed by the Planning Commission to the Commission. The <br />two additional responsibilities to be assigned to the Planning Commission would be to review <br />and make recommendation on the following matters of the Agency business affecting the <br />relevant project areas: <br />• Redevelopment Plan amendments or other substantive changes in the Redevelopment <br />Plan; and <br />• Preparation and adoption of the Five-Year Implementation Plan and Mid-Term Review. <br />Another benefit of transferring these responsibilities to the Planning Commission is that, in <br />addition to considering issues related to the West San Leandro/MacArthur Boulevard Project <br />Area and the Joint Project Area, the Commission could also review redevelopment plan <br />amendments and implementation plans for the Plaza Project area. <br />The Commission holds regularly scheduled twice monthly meetings and has the ability to take on <br />these additional responsibilities. Fortuitously, one member from the WSL RAC and one member <br />of the JPA RAC currently sit on the seven member Planning Commission. This will provide <br />valuable consistency as well as ensure representation of both RACs' concerns. <br />CONCLUSION <br />The RACs and the Planning Commission have similar duties and responsibilities. Given this, the <br />declining number of issues to be reviewed by the RACs, the difficulty of supporting the RACs <br />with current staffing levels, and difficulty in filling the current vacancies, we are recommending <br />that the Rules and Communication Committee consider dissolving the RACs and assigning their <br />duties to the Planning Commission. Should the RACs be dissolved, in recognition of the <br />significant volunteer time and effort provided by RAC members over the past ten years, staff <br />recommends the Council recognize their contribution in an appropriate way. <br />CB:mmc <br />Attachments: <br />A -Duties of the RACs <br />B -Roster of the WSL and JPA RACs <br />G:~EPT~O~ce of Business Development~F'iles RDAUointProjectArea~RACUPA-WSL RACsto Rules5-1-OS.doc <br />