2013-02-21 Leeward Exh A - Director Initiated Amend re PUD

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Council regarding Planned Unit Development. As you may recall, at your last meeting on December 13, 2012, Bill No. 291 was presented to you along with the Director’s recommendation. That meeting resulted in the Commission issuing an unfavorable recommendation on Bill 291. At that meeting we wanted to also hear the Director’s proposed bill, which she offered as an alternative to Bill 291; however, at that meeting, as you may recall, we were informed that we needed to properly agendize the Director’s bill, which is why you have the Director’s bill being scheduled for today’s meeting. Just to give you a little bit of history as to why we are here today, when you first heard Bill 291 back in December of last year, the proposed bill offered to add Planning Commissions and the County Council to the review and approval process for a P.U.D. permit. Currently, a P.U.D. permit is an administratively issued permit, meaning that it’s issued by the Planning Director and does not require hearings or actions by the Planning Commission or the County Council. Bill 291 attempted to clarify procedural guidelines, as well as defined the requirements of a P.U.D. permit. As I mentioned earlier, P.U.D. permits currently are issued administratively by the Planning Director. This is a diagram showing the process. At the very top, you’ll see the current Planned Unit Development approval process by which an application comes into the office, notice of the application is placed in the newspaper, the applicant is required to post a sign of the P.U.D. application on the property, and the applicant is also required to provide notice to surrounding property owners; if the property happens to be situated in the state land use Urban district, then the radius for notification is 300 feet; if it’s in the Agricultural District, it’s a 500-foot radius. The public, upon being notified of the submittal of this P.U.D. application, can then prepare letters to the Planning Director offering their comments one way or the other regarding the proposed P.U.D. application. Within 60 days after the submittal of the application and upon considering any testimony or comments offered by the general public, the Planning Director will then render her decision. As you may recall, Bill 291 proposed to follow a process very similar to how you handle change of zone applications whereby the Planning Department, or Planning Director, instead of offering a decision here, would actually offer a recommendation for consideration by the Planning Commission, which would then conduct a public meeting within the district where the project is being situated, and then offer its recommendation to the County Council, which would then conduct its own series of meetings and ultimately make a decision on whether to approve or to deny. So, again, the difference being offered by Bill 291 was to include the Planning Commission and the County Council as part of the decision making process. To briefly explain what a P.U.D. is, Planned Unit Development permits essentially allow for a comprehensive set of variances from the Zoning and Subdivision Codes relating to building site standards such as lot width and size, building heights, yards, and open space and road standards. A P.U.D. permit, if approved, cannot introduce a use that is not permitted by the current underlying zoning district classification. Changing the approval from the Director to the County Council may be in violation of the County Charter, because the County Charter provides the Planning Director with the authority to render decision on proposed variances pursuant to law. The Planned Unit Development permit is basically a series of variances, and that’s why there is a concern that Bill 291 would be implementing something that would be violative of the County Charter – and basically I recited that just now, sorry, getting ahead of myself. The Planning Department staff did meet with the author of Bill No. 291, former Councilperson Pete Hoffmann, in order to understand the concerns that resulted in the introduction of the bill. As an 2 EXHIBIT A