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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11 - General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report - CorrespondenceReceived After Agenda Printed March 27, 2018 Item No. 11 March 27, 2018, City Council Item 11 Comments The following comments on an item on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmosher(c)yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item 11. General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report (PA20O7-195) Background This is a supplement to the 10 pages of comments I submitted when this item was before the Planning Commission for a recommendation to the Council about them on March 8. Although mislabeled "8b Additional Materials Received _SPON_PA2007-195," those comments are still available in their original form here (with operable links to City documents). They have also been permanently archived with the meeting materials in "Laserfiche" starting here, although, as with my written Council comments, the links are inoperable, contrary to what seem to be the state -mandated requirements for something calling itself "open data" (per Gov. Code Sec. 6253.10). Since the March 8 Planning Commission meeting was fairly well attended, it is a bit surprising the comments received there, as well as the Commission's recommendation and minutes of that meeting, are not being passed on to the Council in the present report. For the Council's edification, the Commission directed staff to correct the "scrivener's errors" in the report as presented to them. About half those pointed out in my comments were corrected, and about half remain. Commissioner Lauren Kleiman suggested that under Imp 1.2 the report should mention that in 2017 the Council started considering the need for a comprehensive update of the General Plan. That suggestion was ignored, as well. In apparent response to my comment about the apparent error (which remains — along with many other questionable statements in the report) of saying in Imp 1.1 that in approving the budget the Council reviewed the Capital Improvement Program for consistency with the General Plan, staff has, on its own initiative, inserted a paragraph about Measure EE in 2012. While it is true that Measure EE, in addition to 37 other, unrelated, things, did remove from Charter Section 707 ("Planning Commission. Powers and Duties.") the original passage that had given the Commission the power and duty to "Make recommendations to the City Council concerning proposed public works and for the clearance and rebuilding of blighted or substandard areas within the City," Measure EE did not change the General Plan, and the General Plan still requires the Planning Commission to review the CIP for consistency with the GP, specifically in Imp 1.1. As Imp 1.1 itself says, the PC review of the CIP is an effort to comply with Gov. Code Sec. 65401, which additionally calls on the local "planning agency" to review and report on the consistency of outside agency's proposed public works within the city. Not only is this not done here, but the structure of what constitutes the "planning agency" in Newport Beach has never been clearly defined. March 27, 2018, Council Item 11 Comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2 Key Takeaways In view of the lateness of this comment, I will provide just some key points that the Council may wish to consider: 1. The City's announcement, last year, that it might be initiating a comprehensive update of its General Plan created renewed interest in that plan. 2. The General Plan, especially its Implementation Program, is supposed to be a living document, subject to continual change. 3. Under the IP, the present report is supposed to be the vehicle for that annual introspection, but it has failed to do so, with Planning Commission and Council rubberstamping for many years a perfunctory, and not always accurate, staff self- assessment without themselves questioning whether the Plan is actually working as promised and if parts of it have been neglected. 4. 2018 is the first year in which charter cities are actually required to submit these reports per the new Gov. Code Sec. 65700(b), which reports, incidentally, must include new information per extensive revisions to Gov. Code Sec. 65400, on which the report is based. 5. Yet the City's report, which the Council is being asked to authorize, does not appear to have evolved with the changing state requirements (see 6(f), below). One would think that would be further cause for pause reflection. 6. As a somewhat random sampling, if the Council independently reads the Implementation Program (as some of the public now have), it might want to ask itself if it should be concerned about these: a. While the City's Zoning Code was eventually updated to be consistent with the 2006 General Plan (an estimated 12-18 month process that actually took 4 years to complete), have the City's many Planned Community Texts (which are an adjunct to the Zoning Code) ever been reviewed and updated as promised in Imp 1.2? b. Has the Council Policy Manual ever been reviewed for consistency with the General Plan as promised in Imp 9.1? c. Why has the City's Strategic Plan for Fiscal and Economic Sustainability not been reviewed and updated annually (or even remembered?), as promised in Imp 24.1? d. Why have development impact fees not been reviewed and updated as promised by Imp 30.2? e. Why was nothing in the General Plan updated in the aftermath of the Banning Ranch litigation last year? f. Where are the statistics required by the new subsections C through I of Gov. Code Sec. 65400? g. Why has the Implementation Program itself not been reviewed and updated as promised by Imp 1.2? Surely not everything is just as it was in 2006. Received After Agenda Printed March 27, 2018 Item #11 Subject: FW: General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report (PA2007-195) -------- Original Message -------- Subject: General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report (PA2007-195) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 18:59:07 -0400 From: SPON: Stop Polluting Our Newport <infoCcDspon-newportbeach.org> To: CityCouncil -newportbeachca.gov, CityClerk newportbeachca.gov Dear Mayor Duffield and Members of the City Council, The SPON General Plan Advisory Committee has been meeting monthly since November. We've had good turnout and enthusiastic engagement. The focus of a recent workshop was to study Chapter 13, the Implementation Program of the 2006 General Plan. There are 31 implementation programs that make up this chapter of the General Plan and the introduction states: The following implementation programs constitute the principal set of actions and procedures necessary to carry out the goals and policies of the City of Newport Beach General Plan. It goes on to state: "... in implementing the programs it is necessary to review the Plan's policies to assure that they are fully addressed. For the convenience of the General Plan's users, each implementation program is numbered and referenced at the close of each relevant Element policy (Imp _)". In the workshop we examined a number of Land Use Element policies to determine if they were being "fully addressed" per the referenced Implementation Program number. In the process of this exercise we came up with a number of questions and inconsistencies with the "General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report". We were relying on the March 8 Planning Commission meeting to have our questions and concerns addressed but when at the podium to speak we were told that it was not a public hearing but just a discussion item between the Commission and staff. Here are only a few examples of where we have questions: • The Development Management System described beginning on the first page of Implementation Program is supposed to "encompass the policy and regulatory documents and procedures that guide land use development and resource conservation in accordance with the goals and policies specified by the General Plan." The word System implies a systematic approach. Yet we understand our planning staff has no systematic checklist. How, under those circumstances, can the public feel assured that every aspect of consistency with the General Plan has been considered? As one example of many that could be cited, the report on Imp 1.1 tells readers the City's plan for capital expenditures was checked for consistency with the General Plan by the City Council when it approved the budget in June 2017. Yet there is no statement about such a check in the budget adoption resolution. Was this consistency check conducted? Imp 10.2 Maintain Development Tracking and Monitoring Program states that "As new development is approved and implemented, the number of dwelling units and building area of non-residential development should be tracked to enable the City to inform property owners, developers, and decision -makers regarding the amount of remaining development capacity for pertinent Statistical Areas and individual parcels. This will facilitate the City's compliance with the development thresholds and limits required by Charter Section 423." The General Plan Annual Status Report states that "City staff is available to provide data on the GIS to provide site-specific information on each property's development limits", but to SPON "tracked" suggests a report or balance sheet that reflects beginning "development limits" per the 2006 General Plan, a chronology of any changes made to those, and clear information on the amounts remaining. Even though the General Plan is supposed to be the governing document, SPON believes the development limit tables in the General Plan do not, at present, accurately reflect many changes to those development allocations approved by past Councils. That not only makes it impossible to explain in any clear way the amounts remaining, but raises serious questions of whether or not the people's Greenlight Measure has been correctly complied with (since Greenlight assumes the development limits stated in the General Plan are indeed the limits). Issues of General Plan consistency with the City's goals and policies as outlined in the Implementation Program are of utmost importance to SPON, the SPON GPAC, and the public. At the very least, the annual report should provide an occasion to reflect on the continued relevancy of, and need to update, the Implementation Program, as expected in Imp 1.2. This report may be considered by many as only a "receive and file" item, but we feel it serves as a critical measurement of how well the City is doing to fulfill the promises made in the 2006 General Plan. SPON believes the "General Plan and Housing Element Annual Status Report" needs more work and should be put on pause to resolve the questions and inconsistencies raised by us and others of the public. Thank you. Sincerely, Dorothy Kraus Vice President Still Protecting Our Newport Inspiring The Next Generation SPON PO Box 102 1 Balboa Island, CA 92662 1 www.SPON-NewportBeach.org I InfoCa)-SPON-NewportBeach.org Facebook SPON-Newport Beach I Twitter @SPONNewport