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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, May 8, 2017 Page 18 the city could impose. Councilmember Willmus stated that he wasn't sure the city was required to provide a variance in the first place. In response, City Attorney Gaughan advised that an applicant for a subdivision must adhere to standards unless there was a hardship, and at the City Council's discretion they could then grant a variance. In working with staff on this provision, Mr. Gaughan suggested that specificity was good in terms of conditions proceeding a variance approval. Mr. Gaughan clarified that this wasn't intended as a tug of war whether or not a variance should be granted, but if a particular item was of particular importance to the city for subdivisions, as per Councilmember McGe- hee's point, he suggested that it would be appropriate to include those items as the basis for approval or denial. For example, Mr. Gaughan suggested that including specific reference to city standards, including water issues and drainage if that was one of the city's priorities; and therefore, recommended that the city consider spe- cific references in variance provision or at least reference adherence to land perfor- mance standards. Mr. Lloyd reminded the City Council that they would see this again for action and suggested that between now and then, opportunity would be available for the City Council to consider what provisions would work well in this section. If a variance was granted to a particular provision of the subdivision code, Mayor Roe noted that the city could still be approving the subdivision and adhering to requirements with the exception of that one thing. Mayor Roe opined that the City Council's catch in that process was that ultimately it would still be approving the subdivision other than the requirement to which the variance was granted. City Attorney Gaughan asked that the City Council think about what it believes is appropriate for an unusual hardship that they may want to include. Mayor Roe questioned if that could be known until practical use under the revised subdivision code. At the request of Mr. Lamb, the consensus of the City Council was that they were seeking for more specificity beyond the currently listed four points and more spe- cific than those references. Councilmember Etten asked if this specificity would create adverse impacts on neighboring properties that could open up new issues. City Attorney Gaughan responded that similar to Item 4, about not altering the es- sential character of the locality, suggested that "adverse impacts on surrounding lots"may be a good starting point for an Item#5.