By Khalida Sarwari
At the Saratoga City Council’s retreat in January, many ideas were shared and big dreams for the city floated around the room on white note cards, but one of the highlights was a presentation by the community development department on the 2013 work plan for the city.
The plan outlines three components related to priority items for the planning commission and the city council, according to James Lindsay, community development director.
This year, the planning commission intends to focus on the noise element of the General Plan, which will include an update of the noise ordinance. The commission also plans to tackle tasks such as updating the residential design handbook, reviewing building height limits in certain zoning districts, considering new residential front yard landscape standards and considering stronger residential green building standards.
The council approved the commission’s requests and reprioritized the items that should come first, Lindsay said.
Another component of the plan is the city staff’s update on the retail sales of beer and wine as a permitted use. The council had directed staff members in June 2012 to come back to the retreat with a list of cities that allow beer and wine sales as a permitted use and information on how other cities make the public convenience or necessity determination, which is required by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for retail licenses in a “high crime” area or where there is an “undue concentration” of licenses.
The council agreed to allow city staff to prepare an ordinance permitting small-scale retail outlets to sell beer and wine for off-site consumption without a conditional-use permit as long as the area in an establishment where beer and wine are sold is less than 2,000 square feet or does not exceed 25 percent of the entire space.
The third component of the plan consists of miscellaneous code updates that will go before the council for consideration later in the year. One such update would deal with the right of entry to inspect abandoned vehicles. Staff is proposing to remove the reference that consent is required prior to entry onto private property because it is inconsistent with the portion of the same section stating that city employees may enter onto private property to inspect a vehicle, trailer or boat.
Another code update proposal involves the definition of tobacco products in the zoning regulations, where staff is recommending that the definition should be more comprehensive and include hookah.
Regarding the plans, Lindsay said, “There will be lots of opportunity for public input before any decision is made.”
The purpose of the community development department is to guide the physical growth of the city and preserve the community’s quality of life by supporting local businesses and administrating zoning regulations, code compliance, building and inspection services, city arborist services and ongoing advanced planning activities that develop the city’s General Plan.
City council retreats to develop a 2013 work plan for Saratoga
