BACKGROUND
In 2017 the City completed the Brea Envisions process. This 18 month long, community wide, outreach effort had key goals to tap into Brea’s residents and businesses to better understand what they found to be important needs and guiding considerations for the City’s future. Led by a citizen committee, the effort culminated in delivery of the Brea Envisions Community Strategic Plan. This plan contains the captured community themes, vision, and strategic initiatives information from the outreach process.
In late 2017, the City initiated the Brea Core Plan effort, the first step toward implementing some of the direction provided by the Brea Envision process. This first of two phases of work is underway and includes an awareness campaign as well as initial testing of ideas from Brea Envisions, applied to a central defined area of Brea. Phase II will dive deeper into issues and establish more detailed direction, likely to include new land use considerations in focused areas, alternative transportation ideas and solutions, reviewing parks/recreation/cultural arts/human service needs, to name but a few anticipated highlights. Developing an approach, scope and budget for Phase II is in discussion now and will be presented to the Council at a future date.
The Brea Core Plan process and its eventual Specific Plan is a time tested and “proactive” planning effort—the City is actively planning for its future and messaging to investors and developers what we want to see in the future via the adoption of new standards and/or guidelines for new development.
However, time does not stand still and these comprehensive planning processes can often take several years, sometimes longer, to complete—simply, the issues are detailed and involved and the process takes time. New private investment and development projects may be proposed during that time and may include creative and new types of development not currently accommodated under our development codes, but which may match-up well to the needs we have heard through Brea Envisions, as well as what may be reflected in the eventual Brea Core Plan. And, timing and economic realities for private investment can be finite and short—such that proposed projects may no longer make sense to a developer if they were forced to await completion of a comprehensive planning effort by the City.
The quandary then—have “new and different” development await the new standards and zoning of the Brea Core Plan? Or, identify an approach to consider such development projects within a process which would not have to await the completion of the Brea Core Plan?
In late 2017 staff were approached by various development interests which begged these very questions. Those projects included the Brea Downtown Hotel, Mercury Lane Apartments, as well as early indication from Simon Properties of new development at the Brea Mall (and, in the intervening months staff have been approached with other prospective projects too).
As discussions of the Downtown Hotel project surfaced last summer, staff discussed circumstances with the City Council and receptiveness to consider alternate entitlement processes for such projects (Development Committee and Council discussion, July 3 and 11, 2017) while the Brea Core Plan effort evolved to more completely address longer term planning tools for project review. Key to these discussions were the potential need to modify Brea’s current development standards and allowances for these projects and an openness to consider such modifications if the projects provide significant community benefits to Brea. A need was also identified to bring any such private development projects forward for the City’s consideration.
Staff embarked on this research anticipating that new code processes would need to be created to meet these goals. However, our research and collaboration with the City Attorney’s Office have found that Brea’s current zoning code and its Planned Community (PC) zoning district already provide for basic processes which can meet the identified needs.
The PC zone has been used several times in the past to develop areas of Brea to realize neighborhoods now familiar to many—the Country Hills master plan (which comprises much of east Brea), as well as three residential neighborhoods in west Brea, along the Tamarack Avenue corridor, south of Central Avenue—all of which provided for new and different development standards outside Brea’s then adopted codes.
The PC zone is therefore an existing planning tool that could be used to address the City’s current situation. As discussed below, however, the provisions of the Brea Municipal Code regarding the PC zone have not been used or updated since 1970's. Staff therefore believes that these provisions should be updated to meet current planning standards before considering whether they should be applied to any particular project.
At its meeting of July 17, the City Council directed staff to bring forward a draft Zoning Ordinance Amendment (ZOA) to consider such an update to the PC zone. That ZOA has been prepared and is now before the Planning Commission for its recommendation to the City Council who will then consider the amendment for final action and any adoption. Also presented for the Commission’s consideration is a related General Plan Amendment (GPA). The City’s current General Plan is silent with regard to the PC zone even though the PC zone predates and was in use prior to the General Plan. The GPA would therefore be an update to recognize the continuing availability and use of the PC zone to ensure continued consistency between the General Plan and the Municipal Code.
DISCUSSION
The Planned Community (PC) zone has been included in Brea’s code dating as far back as 1968 and has been used to implement several projects since that time. Most specifically, the PC zone and its processes were used to entitle large tracts of homes as well as ancillary commercial uses on the east side of Brea, the Country Hills master plan and its neighborhoods. Additionally, the zoning district was applied to several multi-family apartment projects on Tamarack Avenue on the west side of town.
The PC zoning district code text currently lists its description and purpose as follows:
“The purpose of this zone is to encourage, preserve and improve the health, safety and general welfare of the community by encouraging the use of contemporary land planning principles. The provisions of this zone are intended to allow diversification of uses, use relationships and heights of buildings, and open spaces in planned building groups while ensuring compliance with the spirit and intent of the zoning code and the City’s adopted General Plan.”
This language speaks to the situation the City currently faces with several development projects which are being proposed (outlined earlier in this report). However, because the applicable provisions of the Code have not been updated in some time, other provisions do not match contemporary planning, employ outdated terminology, and leave the processes for implementing the PC zone somewhat vague.
Staff is therefore proposing an update and refresh of the PC zoning district language and its processes and procedures to align the code with contemporary planning practices, provide needed structure to the process, and establish a clearer process to consider projects that would require development standards that do not already apply to a given property.
Under the current code, properties zoned PC can be approved for any use and whatever development standards the City chooses to allow at the time the property is re-zoned as PC, regardless of whether such uses or standards are allowed anywhere else in the City. The proposed update to the PC would continue consideration of such new and creative standards. This can be particularly beneficial in the Central Core area of the City where new and different development standards and guidelines may result at the conclusion of the Central Core Plan long range planning effort.
The process outlined on the ordinance would formally begin only if the Council acts to initiate an amendment to the boundaries of the PC Zone to include new properties, allowing the Council at a very early step to decide whether a proposed PC project should move forward with further planning and study. Importantly, the Council’s decision to initiate the boundary amendment would not be an approval, or even an endorsement of any project, but merely an indication that the Council is willing to consider the project pending a full review and study. It would also be an opportunity for the Council to provide early direction to staff and the developer as to what information the Council deems necessary to consider the project at a later time.
After the Council initiates the PC Zone change, the applicant then would work with the staff on the content of the master plan and all related studies – including all required environmental review. The full submittal requirements, critically including a plan for public outreach by the developer, are detailed within the new draft code (see exhibit within the attached draft Ordinance). Staff have worked with the City Attorneys Office to assure that the process and submittal needs and details are robust, comprehensive and commensurate with the important decisions the Planning Commission and City Council will face when considering potential different and creative projects for development in Brea. The zone change and master plan would then be reviewed by the Planning Commission, before final consideration by the Council. Final approval of the master plan would expressly require that the Council make the following findings:
1. The Planned Community Master Plan is consistent with the General Plan, inclusive of any amendments proposed and approved as part of the application for the Planned Community Master Plan.
2. The Planned Community Master Plan is consistent with and the Brea Envisions Community Strategic Plan.
3. The Planned Community Master Plan would provide for an innovative development in an area of the City that presents unique planning challenges due to considerations such as geography, topography, and changing patterns of development not otherwise addressed by the City's existing zoning rules.
4. The properties included in the Planned Community Master Plan are suitable for the uses specified therein, in terms of access, size, their relationship to adjacent properties and similar or related uses, and other considerations deemed relevant by the City Council.
5. The Planned Community Master Plan is in the best interest of the City as a whole.
These findings are an important new feature of the ordinance. The current code only peripherally speaks to findings—some subtle, some more overt—but generally unstructured and spread in different areas of the code. The proposed code amendment places uniform findings within a specific section of the Chapter, clearly labeled, and consistently worded to match up with other aspects of the code and its review process.
Finally, the proposed code update would introduce a requirement for a Development Agreement (DA) The requirement for a DA is proposed to assure that such projects and considerations are commensurate with the community benefits a project provides. For Developers, a DA provides a guarantee that the City will not change its mind during the term of the agreement to disallow the project before it can be built. This sort of assurance is especially important in the Core Area, which is the subject of ongoing planning efforts, the results of which are not yet known. It would also be important for the City to be assured that if it goes through the considerable process of reviewing and approving such a project, that it can be developed as planned.
A DA would also require that the proposed Planned Community Master Plan also provide some form of community benefit – subject to the City Council’s exclusive ability to negotiate and approve such benefits– further assuring the City and its residents that new projects that utilize the PC zone will have a positive impact. Staff also believes that the DA requirement would serve as a critical check and balance to assure that the approval of any alternative design and use standards would be balanced by compelling benefits for our community. DA processing will necessarily include early discussion and direction from the City Council regarding the negotiation of appropriate community benefits associated with any proposed project.
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The draft resolution attached to this report provides the proposed amendment language for the PC, Planned Community, zoning district together with clarifying language to be inserted into the General Plan.
CONCLUSION
Brea is currently experiencing a high level of proposed development projects which hold potential to fulfill future needs as expressed within the General Plan and Brea Envisions Community Strategic Plan. Currently, the chapter within the zoning ordinance by which to consider such projects (Planned Community zoning district) lacks clarity, a structured process, and defined findings necessary to consider such projects for approval. The proposed amendment to the Planned Community zone provides for these features and offers a system of checks and balances within which to consider new development, including added tests for new development using the creative PC zone approach. Direct references to the PC zoning district and its implementation basis are also proposed to be added to the City’s General Plan at this time in order to provide clarity and to complete the PC update process. |