Statement and Supporting Brown Act Request to Planning Commission and City Council

Dear City Council and Planning Commission,

This email includes a formal request to correct the public record, attached and mailed to the City Clerk by certified mail (Brown Act Request.pdf), requested to better understand how the following issues still persist with the Development Code Update (DCU):

The latest draft of the DCU still moves far too much approval authority from the City Council, Planning Commission, and the now eliminated Architectural Review Committee to Staff and I strongly suggest it not be passed as written.

Some of this shift is the ministerial review that state housing law requires, and I don't ask that this be revisited. But a substantial portion is new administrative, staff-level discretionary review, decisions still made case-by-case, on subjective judgment calls like whether a use is "compatible" with the surrounding area, but now made by the Director alone, with no hearing and no elected or appointed body able to weigh in. As Staff are unelected, their decisions are beyond power of recall or referendum, effectively removing our voices (Planning Commissioners, City Councilmembers, and the public alike) from the democratic process in what gets built in our city.

I understand that portions of the code update were under direction of the 5-Year-Plan [F1] to streamline approval processes. However, moving this much approval authority to administrative, staff-level discretionary review overreaches that mandate. Rather than streamlining, it retains subjective decision making just under a different authority providing for a loss of accountability and democratic involvement.

While it was stated by Staff in the June 9 Community Workshop that this was an effort to bring us in line with SB 8, SB 9, SB 35, SB 330, and AB 2011 those bills are explicitly meant to fast-track housing supply, not the entire approval process as this draft does. What’s more, Planning Commissioners' and the public's comments on the previous draft have expressed severe reservations about this increased authority granted to unelected officials but their objections have gone largely unheeded.

Further attached to this email is a memo setting out specific findings and recommended amendments (Findings and Recommendations.pdf) to rectify these issues. Lastly, I’m including a document outlining general drafting errors in the text (Errors in the Draft.pdf).

I will be bringing these comments to the upcoming Planning Commission public review meetings, and would welcome an opportunity to speak with each of you individually about these concerns before either the Planning Commission or City Council takes eventual action.

Thank you,
The Cathedral City Downtown Alliance