RulesCommunications Highlights 2009 0526

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Excerpts of Planning Commission Minutes UNAPPROVED/DRAFT April 23, 2009 Agenda No. 09-08 Page 1 of S Item 7: Miscellaneous a). Discussion of possible proposal to merge the Board of Zoning Adjustments and Planning Commission Mr. Sims began by explaining that the City Council asked for this item to be scheduled on the Planning Commission's agenda as a way of beginning a dialog about whether it makes sense to merge the Planning Commission and the BZA. This idea has come and gone over the years; the Mayor recalled talking about it as far back as the early 1980s. It has come up again primarily due to budget issues. Mr. Sims continued by putting Community Development and the budget situation in context to help Commissioners understand why the issue has been raised and bringing up some pros and cons. He said he will take the Commissioners' feedback to the City Council and that he also will make the presentation to the BZA on May 7 for its member input. To set the stage for the conversation, he provided an overview of the Community Development Department. San Leandro's legacy of community development goes back to the City's incorporation, but more recently in the mid-20th Century, when planning became more prominent in local government. At that time, San Leandro faced significant challenges around land use, growth and other issues -issues that planning is intended to address. Among those issues: inadequate housing, abandoned properties, deteriorating strip commercial areas, contaminated industrial sites -things that had to be dealt with through general plans, land use decisions, etc. San Leandro has addressed such issues in various ways, much of it through the Planning Commission, the BZA and the Redevelopment Agency. These efforts helped redevelop the downtown area in the late 1960s and early 1970s and strip commercial areas, as well as creating business parks out of previously abandoned and contaminated industrial properties, and transforming brownfield properties on the north end into the Cherrywood subdivision that now houses more than 350 families. More recently, these efforts have transformed the old Islander Motel into the 67-unit Casa Verde affordable housing complex, created the Auto Mall and revived Bayfair Mall as Bayfair Center. Other efforts have led to the construction of new corporate office development, downtown improvements in connection with the TOD strategy and so forth. Construction is underway on the Creekside Office Building at the corner of Davis Street and San Leandro Boulevard, downtown pedestrian improvements and San Leandro Plaza. work is in progress on West Joaquin Avenue, the new senior center is under construction on East 14th Street and San Leandro High School's ninth grade campus across the street is under construction as well. A new downtown parking garage to replace the seismically unsound Estudillo Parking Garage behind Wells Fargo Bank is in the planning stages, as is the Kaiser Medical Center project and San Leandro Crossings. The Community Development Department is involved in facilitating all such projects and providing the staff support the Planning Commission needs to make its decisions. The Community Development Department comprises four divisions: • Building Services -plan checking, inspections, building code enforcement, amulti-million-dollar airport noise insulation program, green building standards development, FEMA flood mapping and regulation and urban wildland interface (in the Bay-O-Vista area) in coordination with the Fire Department • Business Development -redevelopment activities, attracting and marketing restaurant and retail businesses, engineering improvements in the downtown area, event support such as the Farmers' Market and other downtown activities, oversight of the LINKS shuttle program, parking garage operations management and marina leases • Housing Services -affordable housing financing and development, Block Grant program oversight (including federal funds), housing policy (with City Council and Planning Commission)