City Council

City of Sunnyvale Meeting Minutes City Council Tuesday, May 20, 2014 6:00 PM Joint Study Session with Planning Commission (Audio only) 6 P.M. SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING (Joint Study Session with Planning Commission) 1 Call to Order in the West Conference Room (Open to the Public) Vice Mayor Davis called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. 2 Roll Call Present: 7 - Mayor Jim Griffith Vice Mayor Jim Davis Councilmember David Whittum Councilmember Pat Meyering Councilmember Tara Martin-Milius Councilmember Glenn Hendricks Councilmember Gustav Larsson Planning Commissioners Present: Chair Russell Melton Vice Chair Ken Olevson Commissioner Ralph Durham Commissioner Sue Harrison Commissioner Larry Klein Planning Commissioners Absent: Commissioner Ken Rheaume Commissioner Dave Simons 3 Study Session City of Sunnyvale Page 1 City Council Meeting Minutes May 20, 2014 14-0289 Joint Study Session with the Planning Commission to Discuss the Balanced Growth Profile Study Session Summary: Interim City Manager Robert Walker introduced topic noting that Balanced Growth Profile was prepared with the assumption that year 2005 was in balance (based on a citizen survey regarding city services) and that the growth rate would remain similar to the past, thus maintaining balance. He noted that the balance would not be the same. Planning Officer, Trudi Ryan and Community Development Director, Hanson Hom, made a presentation on the Balanced Growth profile, reviewing its history and use. Mr. Hom discussed the Balanced Growth Profile (BGP) as a planning tool vs. adopted policy. He illustrated different ways the current or a future BGP could be used. Councilmembers and Planning Commissioners asked questions and made comments about the Balanced Growth Profile as well as development trends in the City. Observations, comments and questions included: • Community has concerns about growth and its effects and whether the City can appropriately handle/deal with the effects • City should request more of developers requesting General Plan land use designation amendments and rezonings of properties. • City should request more off-site improvements in development approvals • Schools are also affected by development • City should look at factors beyond specific development applications • BGP is more of a blunt instrument and finer grain information is needed to understand all the impacts of development • City has no control over school capacity • Would like to see the BGP better developed to use as a planning tool • BGP has interesting data but should not be the sole source for decision making • “Ideal state” as a term is misleading • Consider changing name of this tool (e.g. forecast tool) • Core issue in the community is discontent with high density high growth development • Are these thresholds that should be employed for decisions or is it just general information? • Concern with community members using BGP to vent their discontent • An important consideration is where and how we handle growth (logical locations—not overburdening some areas) • Statistics provide a good measure of performance, but we are not responsible to the statistics. What should keep tabs of items even if we cannot control (e.g. population per housing unit, or school age children per housing unit). City of Sunnyvale Page 2 City Council Meeting Minutes May 20, 2014 • Keep quality services • Looking back, we should have more diligently pursued the missing data for the BGP • No matter what tool is used we should monitor issues in the City • Planning Commission needs to apply the policies set by the City Council; not create new data, take care when looking at approved not built. Need to understand how the City Council would like the Planning Commission to use the BGP • Maybe the BGP is better as a policy tool than a development review tool. • General Plan is policy, Balance Growth Profile is not policy • Be cautious in the use of the BGP 4 Public Comment • What is the City’s policy/tools to manage growth? • Echo the Councilmember’s comment that residents are not happy about what they see/experience, the issue is not with the Balanced Growth Profile • Other cities are dealing with the same issues of growth, fair share of housing (RHNA), housing costs • Good discussion—still to be determined are what we want our future to be and what we want to look like • We have no control over school growth • The City Council is like a Board of Directors of a corporation and needs to develop a vision and is not limited to a vision from 10 years ago 5 Adjourn Special Meeting Vice Mayor Davis adjourned the meeting at 6:55 p.m. City of Sunnyvale Page 3