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Zucker Systems
(e.g., have potential impacts that can be mitigated to eliminate impacts) can
be processed by staff or should be outsourced to qualified consultants for
further study and development of appropriate mitigation measures.
154.
Recommendation:
The Community Development Department should
continue to engage qualified environmental consultants to prepare
Environmental Impact Report and/or Environmental Impact Statements for
projects with significant impacts.
12.
Projects are most often found to have no significant impacts or no impacts
with appropriate mitigations and a Negative Declaration (ND) or Mitigated
Negative Declaration (MND) is proposed.
13.
A Notice of Intent (NOI) to adopt an ND or MND is provided for a 20-day
public review and response period, pursuant to state law (e.g., direct mailings,
property posting, newspaper, etc.). If comments on ND or MND are received
the consultant prepares a response. Completion of this step various depending
on number of comments received.
14. Following the 20-day NOI, the project is placed on a Planning Commission
Agenda and a 10-day public hearing notice is provided. The City uses “Notify
Me” software to alert those who have signed up for the service, which is good.
In addition, notices are posted on the City’s website, mailed to surrounding
property owners within 300’, placed in the local newspaper and may also
include property posting. Staff indicated that the 20-day NOI and 10-day
public hearing notice are combined where possible, which is a good practice
that provides interested parties with advance notice of hearings.
See our above recommendation regarding the City assuming the public
notice responsibility as part of the TRAKiT launch to facilitate the online
submittal process.
The assigned project planner uses Legistar software to prepare a draft staff
report. Staff creates a single page cover in Legistar and uploads the staff report
created in MS Word as an attachment to Legistar for PC reports. The report,
PC resolution and Development Agreement DA (when applicable) are written
using templates. Once complete the draft documents are forwarded to the
Director for review and finalization. The Director edits the documents and
finalizes the staff report and staff recommendation. This process, which