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City Staff Wants Planning Comm'n To Recommend Council Cut By More Than Half Area For Property Owners To Receive Mailed Notice of Hearings On Proposed Projects, Eliminate Mailed Notices Entirely For Tenants, Reduce Time Period For Notices And Shrink Posted Sizes

Staff says it would reduce mailing costs and accelerate project timelines, says City would increase "outreach" on projects via "e-notify" and social media


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(Jan. 15, 2015, 4:17 p.m.: FLASH Update: LBREPORT.com has learned that the Planning Comm'n item below re public notice of hearings originated with a Nov. 11 City Council item agendized by Councilwoman Stacy Mungo. The item was added to the Council's agenda using a procedure that lets Councilmembers bypass the usual 8-day public notice requirement and instead use the Brown Act state-minimum notice by noon Friday before the Council meeting (if joined by two other Councilmembers, and in this case it was Councilmembers Gonzalez and Price.) To read Councilwoman Mungo's Nov. 11, 2014 Council agendizing memo, click here.


(Jan. 15, 2015) -- LBREPORT.com plans to carry LIVE VIDEO of the Planning Commission meeting below, starting at 5:00 p.m. on our front page: www.LBREPORT.com.
(Jan. 13, 2015) -- City staff has placed an item on the Jan. 15 agenda for City Hall's Planning Commission that proposes to recommend that the City Council cut from 750 ft. to 300 ft. the radius within which property owners must be given written notice of upcoming hearings on various proposed projects, eliminate a requirement to notify tenants, reduce from 14 to 10 days the time before giving notice of an upcoming hearing and shrink the physical size of notices at posted project sites from 30"x40"to 22"x34."

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City staff's memo says it will increase "the Department's outreach on social media and e-notify systems to engage community members and neighborhood/business groups in the planning process and keep them informed of upcoming projects" which it says it will generate "significant savings" (which it doesn't quantify) with reduced paper, print, and postage and staff time...and will reduce staff labor to produce a mailing list to impacted property owners (cutting it from 750 sq. ft to 300 sq. ft.)

City staff's memo says reducing the current LB required time for providing notice from 14 days to the state-minimum 10 days before a hearing would "increase efficiency in processing planning entitlements" so that "project timelines may be accelerated.

If the recommendations advance from the non-elected (Mayor chosen/Council approved) Planning Commission and are subsequently approved by an elected Council majority, LB City Hall would go back to minimum state-law notice levels, reversing previous Council actions -- by emergency ordinance in 2007 and more formal ordinance in 2009 -- that provided greater public notice (which state law allows) in response to objections from LB residents who said the Sacramento minimums were insufficient.

Missing or ignoring a notice of an upcoming public hearing can have permanent legal consequences, since failure to object to a proposed project in writing or in person at some hearing proceedings may preclude a person's right to appeal the proposed project to the Council as a formal appellant (relegating them to general public commenting status) and affect their ability to pursue court challenges.

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In an agendizing memo which can be viewed here, city staff doesn't mention the 2007 Council emergency action, does acknowledge the 2009 Council action and writes in pertinent part now that:

[S]taff feels that a mailed notice is a minimally effective means of notifying the community of a proposed project. Rather than mailing notices to tenants, staff would increase the Department's outreach on social media and e-notify systems to engage community members and neighborhood/business groups in the planning process and keep them informed of upcoming projects. Reducing the mailing radius and mailing notice only to property owners would generate significant savings through the reduction of paper, print, and postage volume, as well as considerably reduced staff labor in generating the mailing list for each 300-foot radius.

Staff calls reducing the current notice requirement from 14 days to the state-minimum 10 days a move to "increase efficiency in processing planning entitlements" so that "project timelines may be accelerated, with less time between submittal dates and hearing dates." It adds, "Staff has found that most public engagement in reaction to the notice occurs either a day before or the day of the hearing, and that shifting to the State requirement of a 10-day notice period will not significantly affect community engagement."

City staff's Jan. 15, 2015 memo to the Planning Commission says the proposed changes were "requested by the City Council to generate cost savings in the Department of Development Services' enterprise fund by increasing efficiencies in the process for providing notice of public hearings. The cost savings would then be passed on to the public through reduced fees in the planning entitlement process," staff writes.

In 2009, in enacting the City's current greater-than-Sacramento-minimum notice requirements, the Fiscal Impact statement accompanying the Council action stated: "Increased costs associated with the new requirements are paid by the applicants through the permit process. There is no net impact to the General Fund (GP)".

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Five years later, city staff's memo to the Planning Commision doesn't proffer a sum for its asserted cost savings (but does include a photo of returned mail notices without details.) While quite specific in recommending reductions in mailed notice requirements, staff's memo doesn't provide similar specifics on what the City commits to do to provide what it describes as increased "outreach" of upcoming projects via social media and e-notify.

Developing.



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