09/10/2008: "UDC Changes Held Off -For Now"

(John Evans addresses the County Council -staff in background)

The County Council held a public meeting on Tuesday to take testimony on a request from Ron Henrickson, the Director of Community Development and Planning (CD&P), to change the current requirement that changes to the Uniform Development Code (UDC) can only be done once a year. (related story)

Henrickson would like to have the power to submit changes to the Council for their review at any time -a proposal the SJC Planning Commission, a majority of the public, and both sides of county special interest groups have strongly opposed.

Former County Commissioner John Evans spoke against the proposal, reiterating the main points from a letter he had sent to the Council.

Dr. Chris Clarke also spoke against, and pointed out that there were inconsistencies in the testimony by CD&P for the need to make changes whenever they wished. Clarke said that on the one hand the Council is told of the necessity to make changes, but then told no major changes are expected to be made. Clarke said ”the essence of planning is to bring order out of chaos; it is not to make it easy for CD&P.” Clarke agreed with Evans when he added that the problem “is a leadership event, not anything else.”

Past presentations by the CD&P in support of the proposed change have run into some resistance from the Council, and the Tuesday presentation was no exception. Councilman Alan Lichter questioned the appropriateness of the hearing, given there had not been adequate time for the public and the Council to review the proposal.

Councilman Gene Knapp asked if the draft ordinance before them was the same as the one reviewed by the Planning Commission, and was told that it was not.

Councilman Howard Rosenfeld said he agreed with some of the comments from the public, and said he found the proposed change to be “shocking”. But he too would like to have additional information before making a decision.

One issue that will be further researched is why do some counties update more frequently than once a year, and some not. Councilman Kevin Ranker said we are the only county in the state that restricts the updates to only once a year, but Ranker’s statement appears to be incorrect based on research conducted by Clarke.

Councilman Lichter made a motion to extend the hearing to September 24, The motion passed.