City Council Meeting 8-10-04 Santa Monica, California

TO: Mayor and City Council

FROM: City Staff

SUBJECT: An Ordinance Of The City Council Of The City Of Santa Monica Amending Santa Monica Municipal Sections 9.04.20.06.040, 9.04.20.10.040, 9.04.20.11.030, 9.04.20.20.030, 9.04.20.22.040, 9.04.20.22.100, 9.04.20.26.040, 9.04.20.28.020, And 9.04.20.32.040 To Conform The City’s Hearing And Processing Requirements For Discretionary Land Use Permits With The California Permit Streamlining Act And To Modify Or Clarify The Time For Issuing Temporary Use Permits And Administrative Approvals And Adding Chapter 9.64 to the Santa Monica Municipal Code To Establish A Procedure For Appealing Certain Environmental Determinations To The City Council

Introduction

At its meeting on January 21, 2004, the Planning Commission recommended approval of a text amendment that would amend various sections of the City’s Zoning Ordinance to conform hearing and processing requirements for discretionary land use permits with the California Permit Streamlining Act and modify or clarify the time for issuing Temporary Use Permits and Administrative Approvals. The accompanying ordinance would amend the Zoning Ordinance as recommended by the Planning Commission and is presented to the City Council for first reading. Adoption of this ordinance will help to insulate the City against legal challenges based on discrepancies between State and local processing times. This proposed ordinance would also add Chapter 9.64 to the Municipal Code to establish a procedure for appealing certain environmental determinations to the City Council. This ordinance is presented to the City Council for first reading.

Background

City staff processes applications for development projects in conformity with the California Permit Streamlining Act (“Act”), Government Code Sections 65920, et seq. The Act sets forth rules establishing time limits within which a permitting agency must approve or deny an application for a development project, as well as the process and requirements for determining the completeness of an application. Currently, mostly due to changes made to the Act over time, the City’s Zoning Ordinance contains deadlines for conducting hearings that do not conform to the Act. In some instances, the Zoning Ordinance requires hearings more promptly than state law. In addition, certain projects, such as ministerial projects, are exempt from the Act, but under the City’s Zoning Ordinance must be processed as if the applications are subject to it. Given workload and priorities, this can create unnecessary scheduling and case management difficulties, as well as confusion. Therefore, it is necessary to amend various sections of the City’s Zoning Ordinance to bring these sections into conformity with state law.

Discussion

In order to bring the City’s Zoning Ordinance into conformity with state law, the Zoning Ordinance should be amended as set forth in the attached, proposed ordinance. Staff also recommends: (1) amending the time period within which the Zoning Administrator must issue a written decision on temporary use permits, currently 7 or 10 calendar days based on the duration of the temporary use permit, to a standard 21 calendar days; and (2) modifying the processing requirements for administrative approvals to clarify that these permits are not subject to the Act and to clarify the time for acting on these permits.

The impact of these changes will in most instances be quite modest. For instance, currently, Section 9.04.20.22.040 requires that a public hearing occur within 60 days after an application is determined/deemed to be complete when the project is exempt from CEQA. Under the proposed ordinance, and consistent with the Act, the public hearing must occur within 90 days after the application is determined/deemed complete. This thirty-day difference is a reflection that under State law, staff has thirty days after an application is determined to be complete to assess whether further environmental review is required or the project is exempt. Obviously, the determination of the appropriate level of environmental review is critically important. The City’s Zoning Ordinance unnecessarily eliminates this thirty-day period.

A more significant time difference occurs when a project requires the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Under State law, the EIR must be certified within one year, but the project need not be approved at that time. The public agency is provided an additional six months to act on the project. The City’s Zoning Ordinance requires that the application be acted upon within that same one-year period. While it is, and will remain, the City’s general practice to act on a project at the same time that the EIR is certified, there are certainly instances in which it is desirable to certify an EIR, but not act on the project because additional modifications are required to the project. Thus, this change in the law will not effect a practical change in the processing time frame in the vast majority of projects, but will ensure that the City can carefully review projects even after EIR certification for those few project that warrant this additional review.

The Act is designed to expedite decisions on development projects. It establishes a very aggressive processing requirement. Consequently, by conforming the City’s requirements with the time frame of the Act, the proposed ordinance will not subject development projects to unnecessary delays and will not result in a significant difference in application processing.

Additionally, while staff recommends slightly increasing the time for issuing written decisions on temporary use permits to 21 calendar days, these permits will still be issued more promptly than required by the Act. This prompt processing time is appropriate since these are minor permits issued for short durations, generally for events which will occur very soon after the application has been filed.

Finally, the modification to the administrative approval provision of the Zoning Ordinance will not result in any additional processing time before issuance of a written decision, but is simply proposed to reflect that the Act is not applicable to this type of approval. Current law requires a decision within sixty days after an application is deemed complete. The proposed law will require a decision within ninety days after a complete application has been filed. Since current law provides thirty days to determine if an application is complete, the processing time is unaltered.

The proposed ordinance would also add Chapter 9.64 to the Municipal Code to authorize any person to appeal from a decision of a nonelected decisionmaking body of the City to certify an environmental impact report, approve a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration or determine that a project is not subject to CEQA if that decision is not otherwise subject to further administrative review. State law requires this right of appeal to the City Council.

Financial/Budget Impact

There are no anticipated financial or budget impacts.

Recommendation

It is respectfully recommended that the accompanying ordinance be introduced for first reading.

PREPARED BY: Marsha Jones Moutrie, City Attorney

Barry Rosenbaum, Senior Land Use Attorney

ATTACHMENT: ORDINANCE