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CC 08-31-04 I F CUPEIQ1NO APPROVED MINUTES CUPERTINO CITY COUNCIL Special Meeting Tuesday, August 31, 2004 ROLL CALL At 4:00 p.m. Mayor James called the meeting to order in the City Hall Council Chambers, 10300 Torre Avenue, Cupertino. City Council members present: Mayor Sandra James, Vice-Mayor Patrick Kwok (left at 5:10 p.m.), and Council members Richard Lowenthal, Dolly Sandoval, and Kris Wang. Council members absent: none. Staff present: City Manager David Knapp, City Attorney Charles Kilian, Community Development Director Steve Piasecki, Administrative Services Director Carol Atwood, City Planner Ciddy Wordell, Web Specialist Nidhi Mathur, and Deputy City Clerk Grace Schmidt. NEW BUSINESS I. Consider enhancements to City of Cupertino's public notification policies related to land use issues and General Plan amendments. Councilmember Lowenthal explained that this meeting was in response to residents' concerns that they did not know about key development decisions. He said that even though the projects had been noticed, he thought the City could do a more effective job. Community Development Director Steve Piasecki gave a PowerPoint presentation and highlighted the options for enhancing notification. He explained that they were a result of a meeting with Mayor James and Councilmember Lowenthal, and included but were not limited to the following: · Post card mailers · Display ads in the newspaper · Notices or enhanced articles in the Cupertino Scene · Inserts or messages included in utility bills · Notices on the City website · Limit "major" General Plan Amendments to I or 2 a year · Require "story poles" for commercial/office construction · Create a list-serve notification through "Access Cupertino." August 31, 2004 Cupertino City Council Page 2 Council discussed the notification options and added the following items to the list for discussion, and discussed the threshold criteria to determine which proj ects qualified for enhanced notice. · Require artist renderings to be posted on the property being developed. · Provide longer notice times. · Announce upcoming projects at the preceding Council meeting. Robert Levy, Wilkinson Ave., commented that Council gets a chance to see what a potential new development would look like before any of the residents because the study sessions are usually early in the day when people are stiJI at work. City Manager David Knapp explained that study sessions are always open to the public, but are intended for Council to be able to discuss upcoming issues before all the details area available. Beverly Bryant, Executive Director of the Southern Division of the Home Builders Association of Northern California, said that she liked the idea of using the City website for information. She suggested enhancing it with a list serve, but to keep it simple, and make it easy to obtain and understand information. Mark Bums, Stevens Creek, thanked the Council members for holding this discussion and encouraged them to move forward with some or all of the noticing ideas. Jennifer Griffin said that the Courier wasn't being delivered to her Rancho Rinconada neighborhood, and that she relied strongly on the City website for her information. City Manager David Knapp explained that the Courier is a private organization but that people could contact them directly for paper delivery, or could read the current and archived issues on-line at www.svcn.com. Council members discussed the different options and noticing time frames, and offered some other suggestions. Lowenthal said that Council may wish to include other information in the list-serve options such as the City Manager's weekly notes. He suggested using a list-serve to ask people how they like to be noticed, and that an audit of the website be performed to determine how user-friendly it is. Wang suggested having a live chat room for a couple of hours during the day where people can ask questions of staff, and urged that the Web site be promoted and updated regularly. Kwok suggested announcing at a City Council meeting any major or critical issues, such as General Plan exceptions, on upcoming City Council agendas. He also suggested clumping any General Plan amendments into quarterly meetings, which would highlight their importance to the community, although developers and residents may have to wait longer for those times. He said that about 7% of the city population did not have Web August 31, 2004 Cupertino City Council Page 3 access, and most of those are seniors. He cautioned that using the postcards for noticing might look too much like junk mail and suggested adding the Cupertino logo to make it a formal notice. He said that only major amendments should be noticed with utility biJIs so that notices don't become too routine and are overlooked. Piasecki explained that current law requires that all public hearings are noticed at least 10 days before the hearing, and that the agendas are posted at least 72 hours before the meeting. Sandoval suggested lengthening the noticing timeline to something between 10 days and 2 months, but cautioned that people might become ITustrated if the item is not heard in a timely manner. She said that list-serve messages should have the entire text of the agenda, for example, included in the body of the email, with no major attachments, and that people should be given an option on how they want to receive the information. She shared slides of pages from the City of Palo Alto's Website that had useful features. She noted that 50% of the residents read other daily papers besides the Cupertino Courier, and newspapers such as the World Journal and the Tsing Tao Daily. She suggested polling the public at the end of meetings to test the effectiveness of the noticing, and that all study sessions should be televised or taped and then aired on the City Channel. James said that pooling General Plan amendments could drive away business and add cost, and noted that most amendments are minor in nature. She said that noticing is important and that Council is trying to be proactive, but that the public also needs to be proactive and pay attention to the notices. She said that GP As are good because no General Plan can possibly anticipate everything, and having amendments makes the process more democratic. She said that GP As should be noticed to a wider population and be more obvious on the Website. She suggested having a separate Web page for GPAs, and adding other items such as notices related to financial decisions and EIRs that affect traffic. City Attorney Charles Kilian explained that before implementing any of the new ideas, Council would need to decide which ones would be mandatory and which ones would be directory. He explained that any mandated noticing that didn't happen would require the project to be delayed until the noticing occurs. Sandoval clarified that the City Council agendas are usually posted about 5 or 6 days before the meeting, well in advance of the 72-hour mandated posting time. She also gave the City information number to call to reach a live person during business hours, 777- CITY. Council directed staff to collect information regarding different noticing ideas including display ads, notices, and enhanced articles in the Cupertino Scene; website noticing; listserv information; artist renderings of upcoming projects; longer noticing periods; differentiating between what should be mandatory versus directory noticing; and to bring this information, along with the cost of implementing them, back to Council for future incorporation into the General Plan. August J 1, 2004 Cupertino City Council Page 4 ADJOURNMENT At 5:18 p.m. the meeting was adjourned to Tuesday, September 7 at 6:15 p.m. in Cupertino City Hall Conference Room A 10300 Torre Avenue, to conduct Teen Commission interviews for Homestead High School and Hyde Middle School. ~ u--SchvvtlJ:f Grace Schmidt, Deputy City Clerk For more information: Staff reports, backup materials, and items distributed at the meeting are available for review at the City Clerk's Office, 777-3223, and also on the Internet at www.cupertino.org.Click on Agendas & Minutesl City Councilor Planning Commission! Packets.