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ATTACHMENT F <br />Regular Planning Commission Meeting <br />Minutes – Wednesday, December 7, 2022 <br />Page 4 <br />Ms. Gundlach thought what the City was aiming for is a good balance between how <br />many trees are suitable to be planted on a site based on how the Zoning Code allows <br />that site to be developed. If the Zoning Code allows a multi-family property of a <br />certain number of units and a certain amount of parking stalls once it is put on a site, <br />there is only so much space left to plant trees. Staff was trying to come up with a <br />reasonable standard for how many trees could fit in that space left to be planted. That <br />is where staff came up with what is in the amendment based on review of what other <br />cities had done, based on what the City Forester felt was reasonable, and then just to <br />make sure Mr. Paschke went and looked at some multi-family properties that the City <br />recently developed to see if things were sort of in line and she thought what Mr. <br />Paschke was saying is those sites generally shoved more trees than probably will be <br />able to thrive just because the development needed a variance and were trying to get <br />them as close to compliance as possible so the standard staff came up with was kind <br />of striking the right balance. <br /> <br />Member McGehee wondered if staff wanted to look at the broader sustainability <br />picture, the shade, the canopy of the City and so on and how much impervious <br />surface the City Code actually allows for commercial and multi-family developments. <br />Apart from this specific topic of trees, Member McGehee raised theseparate question <br />of the issues involved as the City moves toward reviewing sustainability and <br />environmental issues in general. <br /> <br />Ms. Gundlach noted on the Phase One amendments the City decreased the amount of <br />improvement area for E-1 zoned properties and one could argue there is a <br />sustainability element to that because they decreased how much a site could be <br />covered. This was done to address the intensity across the commercial/industrial <br />uses. <br /> <br />Member Schaffhausen indicated regarding equitability, she wondered that because <br />this is innovative with not a lot of a benchmark with regard to how the City is going <br />to apply this, how can the City create some sort of a rubric or because it is not <br />included in the Zoning Code, how does the City make sure that the rules are applied <br />equitably and that the changes are made in a way so that if the City decides to change <br />the points available and what sits in the points, that it is clear and there is some degree <br />of consistency to the people that are applying and asking for this. She thought it is an <br />imperfect approach because this is new and she thought it was appropriate to keep it <br />out of the Zoning Code for that exact reason, which means the City needs to be able <br />to be flexible with it and both being flexible as well as equitable. She did not know if <br />there was thought regarding how to apply this so that for each person that shows up it <br />is fair. <br /> <br />Chair Kimble indicated staff has noted that any changes made will come back to the <br />Planning Commission. <br /> <br />Ms. Gundlach indicated if staff were to make changes in the worksheet, because the <br />worksheet is referenced in the Zoning Code the Planning Commission would get to <br />weigh in and the Planning Commission cannot make any decision on its own so the <br /> <br />