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City Council Work Session —Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance Diagnosis — October 28, 2024 text and the chart should be rectified for the sake of clarity and, if possible, the additional layers of review and approval reduced for many of the reasons noted above. For many types of land use applications, the City follows a review process that involves a required public hearing with the Planning Commission and provides an option to hold a second public hearing with the City Council. This is inconsistent with a majority of communities in the Twin Cities which only hold one public hearing (usually with the Planning Commission). The optional second hearing can add time and cost for the applicant, City staff, and elected officials — especially if it is used frequently. A more efficient and common approach would be to limit the public hearing to the Planning Commission only and rely on that testimony, findings, and recommendations when the City Council considers approval. The City Council would still have the opportunity to accept public testimony if it chose at the public meeting. NEXT STEPS Following the Joint Meeting, work will begin on more closely examining and drafting new sections of code. Three work sessions with the Planning Commission are scheduled for the first half of 2025. At each, HKGi will share specific questions and work through potential changes to the code language. HKGi will provide updates to the City Council after each meeting. Initially, City staff had expressed interest in pursuing a set of "minor updates" to the code that would address inconsistencies and organization during the first half of the project. While HKGi has identified many of these issues and can point to how they will be resolved, the time and effort needed to bring these items forward for review and approval would likely be an inefficient use of resources — especially considering that the adjustments needed to address the "major updates" that have been identified would require many of these same parts of code to be modified again later in the year. Therefore, HKGi recommends identifying these minor updates but waiting to implement them in conjunction with the other code amendments. REQUESTED ACTION HKGi will present details related to the information above at the Joint Meeting and then look for confirmation from the City Council and Planning Commission regarding the issues that should be addressed as part of the project. Any topics that the City feels should not be addressed — or any that HKGi has missed and should be included —will be discussed. 5