GILROY
– With some modifications, the City Council has agreed to use a
streamlined approach to help speed the design of three key
documents concerning some of the city’s highest-profile land-use
issues.
GILROY – With some modifications, the City Council has agreed to use a streamlined approach to help speed the design of three key documents concerning some of the city’s highest-profile land-use issues.
Council decided Monday to endorse city staff’s concept of slimmed-down “power task forces” to help translate ideas from the city’s new General Plan into specifics in three key areas: a specific land-use plan for the downtown, a policy to mitigate loss of certain agricultural lands due to development and guidelines for new mixed-use neighborhood zoning.
With a maximum of 12 members, the task forces will bring fewer potential stakeholders to the table than the city has enlisted for planning issues in the past. But they’re expected to speed completion of the plans by six to eight months – or as much as 50 percent – allowing the city to better meet timetables set for those plans and several other large-scale planning efforts.
“The ultimate goal is to expedite things to be in a position on some of them to make some other decisions,” said Councilman Al Pinheiro. “I don’t think it will be anything (done) in a cocoon to prevent people from participating.”
The decision came despite some debate driven by Councilman Peter Arellano, who expressed concerns about the degree and nature of representation the task forces would provide.
Two City Council members and two planning commissioners will serve on each group, with various combinations of stakeholders, interest groups, public agencies and at-large citizens filling out the rest of the seats.
Arellano told the Council he was concerned about the ability to “design” an outcome by choosing representatives who would vote a certain way with the slimmed-down models, in contrast to what he felt was a more wide-open process with larger committees such as the 30-plus member group formed to help guide update of the General Plan.
“My concern is it won’t be an open and fair process for the whole city,” he said.
Arellano also expressed concerns about how stakeholders would be chosen.
“You’re talking about two business owners speaking for downtown property owners – are they going to be elected democratically by the other property owners?” he asked. “You have two (owners) representing downtown – for me that’s not a democratic process.”
Councilman Charlie Morales said he agreed with many of Arellano’s arguments, but found comfort in the fact that some framework for the new policies already exists in the General Plan and some existing land-use plans for the downtown.
“That’s at least my comfort zone,” he said.
Other councilmembers expressed doubt that input would be hindered in the new model, noting that interested parties could still share ideas and views through the process.
“Nothing we decide tonight will prevent people from commenting,” said Councilman Roland Velasco.
And Pinheiro and Councilman Bob Dillon noted that ultimate decisions still rest with the elected Council.
“The buck still stops here,” Pinheiro said.
However, Council did agree to accept Mayor Tom Springer’s suggestion to add an extra at-large citizen to each task force, a response to further concerns from Arellano about balance.
“There’s five developers on the neighborhood district task force,” Arellano noted.
Council also endorsed Springer’s suggestion to add a representative from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to the downtown task force.
