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<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The Planning Commission is, of course, familiar with zoning changes. And the normal process <br /> for a zoning change is that it comes to the Planning Commission. After being reviewed by the <br /> Planning Department, it comes to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission looks at <br /> it, makes a recommendation, sends it up to the County Council; and the County Council acts on <br /> it. So it's a very public process. And I think we've seen that even relatively small land use <br /> changes require this kind of public process. We've seen zoning changes that may cover, say, a <br /> lot of 10,000 square feet or 20,000 square feet, it may change it from a Residential 15,000 square <br /> foot zone to a Residential 10,000 square foot zone. And these kinds of even relatively small <br /> changes go through zoning up to the County Council. So the wording of the nonsignificant zone <br /> change was itself amended in the 1996 Zoning Code changes; and it was amended in a way that <br /> has been interpreted to make it possible to do fairly large moves of zoning from one spot to <br /> another as long as the overall density is not changed on the property. <br /> So as a policy matter we think that these kinds of changes should generally be done through the <br /> normal zoning process, that actually the kinds of things that I just described can be done through <br /> what's called Project District Zoning where you zone a large area and then you move uses <br /> around within that area. But it shouldn't be done just administratively by the Planning <br /> Department. <br /> <br /> So the amendment that's here would change the wording back to the way it was before <br /> December 1996 and it would limit the extent of any nonsignificant zone change to a half an acre, <br /> I'm sorry, an acre or the lesser of an acre, or a 5 percent increase or decrease in the area, of a <br /> zoning district. So if you had adjacent Commercial and Residential properties of an acre, for <br /> example, you could do a boundary change that affected 5 percent of that acre and <br /> administratively adjust the boundaries. <br /> <br /> There are a lot of situations where it's useful to do this. The most common type of situation has <br /> been on golf courses. Many of the zonings that were done for resorts had the golf courses in an <br /> open zone. And then when they actually go out to build a golf course they want to change the <br /> boundaries between the Residential and the Open zones slightly; and that's a legitimate use of <br /> the nonsignificant zone change. So this is, again, this is something that we talked about before. <br /> We would like to take this up to the County Council with a favorable recommendation from the <br /> Commission; and the Commission can act on, we would ask the Commission to act on this today, <br /> if possible. <br /> <br /> WATANABE: Thank you. Are there any questions for the Director? No questions? Is <br /> there any, you want to go into any discussion or does anyone care to make a motion? Cause this <br /> is a second reading, so a motion would be appropriate. <br /> <br /> RHO: So I assume we don't have any public testimony here <br /> <br /> WATANABE: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, at this point I had no one signed up. And <br /> as a reminder to the public, if you do wish to testify on any of the items then you would need to <br /> sign up with Sharon, the staff person. But, yes, at this point there's no one, no one signed up to <br /> testify. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2 <br />