Palm Desert City Council - Study Session, April 10, 2025

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[00:03:14] Mayor: On time for our study session. Thank you. This is a joint meeting of the Palm Desert City Council, Successor Agency to the Palm Desert Redevelopment Agency, Palm Desert Housing Authority, and Palm Desert Board of Library Trustees.
[00:03:28] Mayor: So, can we move, I guess it's Mr. Maloney, to our first subject.
[00:03:38] Nick Maloney: All right. Thank you. And good afternoon, Mayor and honorable council members. Nick Maloney with the planning division, and I'm joined by Maggie Squire and Matt Goble with Clarion Associates. We thank you for the privilege of your time today as we're going to be presenting an update on a major milestone in the unified development code project. This is the development assessment report which outlines some of the key issues and values in the code. But before we delve into those details, I'll just give a little bit of more of a background just as a refresher on why we're here. So development within the city of Palm Desert is regulated through several ordinances of our municipal code: the zoning ordinance, the subdivision ordinance, and the grading ordinance, as well as a couple of other miscellaneous ordinances. And generally, these have been updated separately and in a piecemeal fashion since they were originally adopted in the late 1970s, and they have never been comprehensively updated together. So take for example the zoning ordinance, which was comprehensively updated back in 2013 and has been amended hundreds of times compared to the
[00:05:01] Speaker: subdivision or grading ordinances which haven't been updated quite nearly as much. And so some of the issues that may arise from this lack of a comprehensive update are a lack of clarity, internal inconsistencies within the ordinance, or vertical consistency between, say, the subdivision and the zoning ordinance, which can result in a number of issues that city staff and city council together have recognized. And some of those issues can arise from a lack of clarity, lack of clear definitions, lack of clear process that may drag out land development review procedures, and also significantly, a development which doesn't fully align with the values of the community which are laid out in the general plan. And so today, we're going to provide an outline because there's a clear need to update that. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Goel, who will outline some more of the details of... Nick.
[00:06:17] Nick Goel: Mr. Mayor, council members, nice to see you again. Thank you for your time. Thanks for the opportunity to present. We are very excited about this project, and my goal today to you is to give you an overview of what we've heard so far from the community about updating the ordinances and to start to zero in on some of the bigger ideas that I think are going to really take a lot of our time and attention over the next year and a half as we work on the update. I think I just do this here. You all as a city, as you are identifying this project and the need for the project, set forth a number of important goals. And Nick started to touch on these as well. You have important general plans and other plans that are out there that are being updated in various ways. You don't necessarily have the right zoning toolbox right now to implement all the ideas in there. And so, one of our big focuses is going to be plan implementation, a comprehensive approach to land development issues in Palm Desert. A project like this gives us a chance to step back and look holistically at the entire ordinance. You've done a lot of very good work over the years with piecemeal amendments to various issues, most recently things like the objective design standards for multifamily. Now we have a chance to really step back, see how those different pieces are working together, to think comprehensively about the general plan and how it relates to your ordinances. And so I think that comprehensive approach is really an important part of a project like this where we're taking a step back and looking at the long view. Celebrate Palm Desert's setting and character. We talked about this at the last meeting when I was here with you back in September. I think you have a very special place with a very special set of climate conditions, a very unique setting in the state, in the country. That's not necessarily reflected in a lot of the standards that are in the ordinance now. And I think we have an opportunity with tools to regulate dark sky lighting, night sky lighting, or building design, or landscaping, to infuse, I think, a lot of the regulations with things that are really unique and special to Palm Desert. Predictability and efficiency of the development review process. Several of you have emphasized this to us individually as a really important part of this project. We heard a lot about this from stakeholders in our first interviews. That's a key goal here. Integrate local and national best practices for high-quality development in Palm Desert. We can bring a variety of tools to you from the state, from the country, that I think will help maintain high expectations for development quality. And then this user-friendliness idea will infuse everything that we do. You know, more tables, more illustrations, less redundancy, you know, ways to simplify the code to make it shorter and sweeter and get to the point. That's a goal for everything that I'll talk about today. So that's the big ideas that you all set for us and that we're excited about. The overall scope of the project is on this slide. We're going to be aiming for completion before the end of next year, and sooner if we can. This is a project that's going to require a lot of drafting, a lot of pieces of drafting, and so we go at it very methodically in all of our code update projects. We kicked it off last fall with interviews, with casting a broad net, talking to a lot of you all, with people that have done development in Palm Desert, with people on the commissions, with people that are on staff in different departments, trying to understand what's working well, what could be improved with the zoning and land development systems. We got a lot of good feedback from that. We also started to develop a brand for the project, a project ID, things like that, setting the stage for all the work to come. Then now we've moved into this second piece, the issue identification and zoning code analysis. This is when Maggie and I have started to synthesize all the feedback that we've gotten. Y'all have this
[00:10:01] Speaker: assessment report that we drafted that we've distributed, that we'll talk about today, that begins to set the stage for the big issues that we'll address. We're going to come back actually in a couple of months with an annotated outline of a new ordinance, a new consolidated ordinance that will show you how we would implement all these new tools that we're recommending in this document—what that would look like in terms of a new ordinance structure. How would we integrate a revised zoning ordinance with your zoning tools, for example? How would we consolidate all the procedures in one spot? That's what that annotated outline's going to do. That'll be the next document we come back with.
[00:10:36] Speaker: We're going to get feedback on this report from you all, from the community. Then we'll come back, get feedback on that. Then we jump into the drafting. So, we need to get those important foundation pieces done first in task two. Then we'll get into the drafting. We will do that iteratively through several installments. First of all, we'll look at the zone districts, the uses allowed within the districts. Then we'll jump into the development standards—you know, landscaping, parking, etc. Then administration and procedures. And then finally, we'll step back and look and do some sample tests of the new code on sample development sites to see how the changes that we're proposing would result in better quality development or a faster timeline, etc.
[00:11:16] Speaker: For all of those pieces, for all the UDC drafting installments, we would do first of all a staff draft where we work internally with the staff to make sure Richard and his team and Nick to make sure we're getting all the pieces right, haven't made any factual errors, we're telling a coherent story. Then we'll come back with any edits that they've got and we'll do a public review draft that we'll talk about with internal groups and with you all. Then we'll have a lot of feedback on all those installments that we will turn around into a consolidated draft. The whole final piece is adoption, and that'll happen middle of next year. Obviously, that's going to go through a whole series of public engagement opportunities with public hearings and meetings when the whole thing is together.
[00:11:59] Speaker: Sometimes that's when people start to pay attention is when the whole thing's been put together. We will do our best to make sure they are paying attention before then as much as possible. So, whenever we're coming out and we have issues like, I don't know, hot button stuff like short-term rentals or hillside development, things like that, we will try our best with staff to engage the public early on so that when we get to the right-hand side of that slide, it's not going to be a lot of surprises. We've gotten a good sense of where the community stands and we have fine-tuned our approach. That's our timeline. That's our overall scope. And it's generally pretty well tested. We've done this in dozens of communities around the country, and I think, again, it seems like a long time, but there's a lot of work here to do.
[00:12:44] Speaker: With that, let me just start jumping into the substance of the report. Maggie and I are going to tag team this, and we're going to walk you through just the high issues, the high-level discussions of what we think are the key issues. You've got a screenshot of the overall document on the right-hand side there, and that is mainly just the narrative report, but I wanted to emphasize that there's two reports that we've put out. There's the narrative that Maggie and I will talk about, and accompanying that, there is a separate document that's just a detailed table of all the minutiae that we've heard about. So we're talking about high-level stuff here, but we've also captured a lot of details in that separate document that you've received. Not going to really talk about that today, but it's out there, and we're happy to answer questions about it.
[00:13:30] Speaker: We put this together based on a lot of really good feedback. We worked with Nick and Richard and their team and Carlos to really cast a broad net with interviews. You know, who's doing work in Palm Desert again, who's got input. Nick gave a great tour, a couple of great tours—white-knuckle driving out there on the hillsides, but that was very good. But we saw a lot of issues and how they play out in action. And we saw El Paseo at different times of day, and we saw, you know, different areas of the community and what are being perceived, you know, as maybe really good success stories to replicate and areas of opportunity.
[00:14:11] Speaker: We did a survey online. We got some good feedback from that, and then we did our own independent review and analysis of all the regulations. So we developed this assessment report that resulted from all that review. It is organized around themes. The themes are summarized on this slide. These are the way I like to think about these projects because you've got to be methodical and you've got to have buckets into which you drop all these issues, otherwise it can be a little overwhelming, you know, for everybody to process, even us, and for the public to understand. Definitely, you have to be able to have a story that you're telling people to make them figure out how the zoning issues that they care about fit into the larger story. So Maggie and I are going to walk through these—we call them focus areas—and just give you a few slides for each one of these to tell you kind of where we think the project should go for Palm Desert. And I...
[00:15:01] Speaker: We'll kick it off with streamlining the development review process because in the city's RFP, what we heard from the city staff and leadership originally was that this was a key part of what y'all were hoping to see with the project. I think there's an opportunity to step back and rethink the way that procedures are structured internally and to think about efficiency, and to think about how can we get the small stuff through faster, and to think about doing a better distinction between what we consider small stuff in Palm Desert, what we consider big stuff that needs to go up to the planning commission or City Council.
[00:15:41] Speaker: Right now, you've got a document that organizes your procedural types by who does what, who makes the decisions. I think we can think through alternative organizations like organizing procedures by type. You know, is it a legislative amendment? Is it a site-specific, conditional application? Is it a request for flexibility or variance? We can think through a better organizational system. We've done this a lot, that I think is more intuitive. We can then summarize the results in a table like the one you see on the slide in the middle where we can very simply call out who does what, what are the responsibilities of Council, what is Planning Commission, ARC, etc.
[00:16:21] Speaker: You know, a lot of the procedures in y'all's current code are—I'm from Texas, that's why I say 'y'all' a lot. Just, it's not a California thing, I know. A lot of the procedures are pretty bare bones in your current ordinance, and a lot of the ways that the staff actually processes applications are not described in the text. And that's not to say there are not procedures that are consistently applied. That's to say that they may not be in the ordinance itself. And so part of our work is to capture all the work that's done to process applications, to understand it, and then to make sure that it's written down in a consistent way so that people feel like they're always being treated consistently for the same types of applications. That's a big part of our job.
[00:17:01] Speaker: We also can help rethink how that process is done and can it be done in a more streamlined way. When we say up here, 'recalibrate common review procedures,' that means we don't need to say every time, 20 different times, 'you shall submit a complete application, an incomplete application shall not be processed.' Those are the types of things that should just be the rule across the board. And so we'll think through with your staff what those common procedures are so they can just be established one time and the rule is clear for Palm Desert.
[00:17:36] Speaker: Establish thresholds for various types of review. You know, that gets back to my point about maybe we can think through some of the small stuff—smaller site plans versus larger site plans, or some other types of thresholds where we could potentially establish a more direct path for the smaller projects to get through in Palm Desert faster. Establish objective review criteria. To the extent possible, these should not be unknown criteria that are applying to these different types of applications, but they should be very well spelled out—what types of criteria are being applied to different application types.
[00:18:13] Speaker: The chart on the right there, the page on the right has that one, two, three, four, five. That's just an example of a graphic that we've used in another community to show those common procedures. And I think, you know, you can use tools like that that show a consistent framework across the board and then call out exceptions for individual types of procedures. That gives people a good sense at a glance of what's going to be expected of them from the code.
[00:18:40] Speaker: I will call out here too, you might want to have tools outside the ordinance to help inform the administration of the ordinance—administrative manual, a user's guide, things like that. Some cities take that to a very formal level. They have a booklet that explains, 'this is how I go through the development process in Palm Desert.' Some cities just have collections of handouts and things. But we can work with y'all to figure out the appropriate supplemental tools that are necessary to inform the administration of the zoning ordinance.
[00:19:12] Speaker: Some of those are going to be department-specific. You know, public works is going to have potentially subdivision design standards or infrastructure standards, things like that outside the code. Some of that stuff just gets incorporated by reference. You have to comply with that, but it's not actually in the ordinance itself. We oftentimes take out things like fee schedules, lists of prohibited plant types, or things like that. Those types of things that maybe the staff wants to administer can be referenced in the code, not put in there. But that's an important streamlining tool. It can make this document shorter, and it makes the overall administration process simpler because it lets your staff administer those things on an ongoing basis.
[00:19:50] Speaker: Clarify who does what. I think, you know, making sure that decisions are being done appropriately given the level of...
[00:20:01] Presenter: ...significance of the development type. It gets back to that kind of big versus small thing, you know. A category of feedback that we got on this set of interviews was ARC and thinking about their role and thinking about, you know, if there are design issues involved in an application, is it clear where the kind of jurisdictional line is between the Planning Commission, maybe, and the ARC on an application? And can we do a better job, maybe, in providing some clarity in the code about which body is responsible for which type of decision? Because we heard that that can be a gray line on some projects now, and some more clarity on that would be helpful. You've got some archaic terminology in your code, like you use 'zoning administrator' now, which is not a term I think that's currently in use, and I think we can just do some cleanup to reflect current terminology. Clarify opportunities for minor modifications. There are tools now to do approvals of minor changes that are made to approved decisions out in the field. I think we can take that concept and maybe expand it a little bit. Many communities allow minor modifications to development applications even before there are approvals, subject to standards. So maybe you can approve minor modifications of the number of required parking spaces, you know, up to five or ten percent of a deviation, say. But that's the type of thing that often is a good tool to help streamline tricky, site-specific conditions in a mostly de minimis way that the staff often is given approval over.
[00:21:41] Presenter: All right, subdivision procedures is a whole category that I won't go too deep in here. This is a place where your staff has already been doing a lot of good work in the background. There is a draft revised subdivision ordinance that contains a lot of edits that y'all want to see. Our job is going to be to pick up the ball and move it forward as part of this overall coordinated effort. So, we'll just be working to accomplish all these ideas here on the slide. If something's redundant, you know, we'll try to reconcile that, simplify that. We'll reconcile these procedures with all the other procedures in the code. You know, you've got a lot of opportunities for simplification when you combine zoning and subdivision. You shouldn't be defining similar terms differently in different ordinances, for example. So, we have an opportunity to achieve a lot of those types of simple, common-sense things. As part of this subdivision effort, there might be expansion and clarification of dedication requirements. So, there are some substantive things that we'll talk about as we get down into the weeds on that ordinance. But for the most part, the staff has done a great job of getting that teed up for integration with this project. So that's a lot of work on procedures. And what I propose, Mayor, is if we could just get through the presentation once, get all the ideas out, and then we come back for questions. Does that work?
[00:23:01] Mayor: Works, unless is there anything that can't go on? Let's go. Thank you.
[00:23:08] Presenter: Okay. I should have clarified that we talked about procedures, who does what. Development standards is our blanket term for just quality. So it could be, you know, how you lay out the site, how you protect sensitive environmental areas. It could be vertical, it could be building design, could be how you use a site, landscaping, etc. We've got a few slides here that call out some of the bigger issues that were raised in this area. View protection came up a lot in our interviews, and it comes up a lot in y'all's plans and in your code, and it's not defined. Views of what? Views from what? And there's an opportunity here to try to nail this down a little bit more. And you can't entirely nail down a view, but we can be more specific about the resources that we're trying to protect. Are we talking about just a scenic gateway to the city? Maybe that could be more attractive and needs landscaping and building design controls to improve this foreground view of an entryway. Are we talking about views of the hillside, in which case we might be talking about design standards on the hillside that restrict development up there? Are we talking about views from the hillside looking out over Palm Desert? So there's just a lot of ways that that could be configured in a code and regulated, and we've got experience in a lot of those. But we are going to be working with John Kiski and architects on the hillside ordinance. Yeah, I was at the work session two weeks ago, I guess, on that, and we're going to be working closely with them to integrate the work that they do to ensure that the grading piece of that is integrated into the new code. We can inform each other's projects on that, and also that this view protection piece gets more discussion and reconciliation. You know, for the most part, their piece is going to focus on that hillside development.
[00:25:00] Speaker: ...and those standards which will help protect the views of the mountains from the city. And then our piece is going to be more working with staff to look at, um, scenic corridors maybe, or views within the city and giving you tools for that in your prior general plan. Our understanding was that there were some scenic corridors identified already. I think the 2004 plan, those have not been carried forward in the most recent iteration. And so there's a conversation to be had there about do we want to carry some of those forward, rethink that idea of how scenic corridors had been designated? Is that something you want to give more teeth to as part of this effort? Um, so that's, that's kind of how that will, will play out with our work.
[00:25:42] Speaker: Um, you know, it's, uh, the identification of views is, can be a little tough. It can be object, subjective. So just that methodology piece, you know, is going to come up. Um, different cities do it different ways. You know, California communities have a range. I live in Denver. You know, we have a mountain view protection ordinance. They designate public parks, uh, as the vantage points, uh, from which views of the mountains shall not be infringed. Uh, Austin, Texas, where I went to school, they have a lot of view corridors of the capitol, and you shall not infringe those views of that building. So there's just different methodologies out there that we can explore with y'all to determine what is it we're trying to achieve here. But it, you got some gray areas, squishy areas in your current ordinances, and that, that view reference is one. And we heard criticism that, well, people just rely on that to say no sometimes when they just want to say no. And we need to actually give that a little bit more meaning. How much meaning, to be determined.
[00:26:43] Speaker: Uh, modify site design, st— design standards. Um, for all these categories, it's kind of similar to the view thing. We have to think about, but it's a little bit more defined. We have to think about how to revise the landscaping, the building and site design standards, outdoor lighting, to understand better the purposes for which you're regulating these issues and, and what it is that you want to see with new development moving forward. You have tools in place for a lot of these elements; we can take them to the next level. In particular, outdoor lighting, we heard from some, several people needed to be strengthened. Um, you know, you don't want to have a lot of uplighting from commercial areas taking away that, you know, creating a glow that takes away that night sky.
[00:27:25] Speaker: You have accessory site features came up actually a lot in our meetings. Things like solar panels, things like public art can be required on a project, but they're not necessarily required and discussed early enough to be looked at holistically with the rest of the site design. So, is there a way that we can kind of think, think about the procedure of a site design more holistically so that those aren't afterthoughts in terms of where do we, where do we throw on the solar panel, but how is it thought, thought about earlier, uh, where those should go? Those were interesting comments, and I, yeah, I think we, we need to just talk with you all about how to integrate those ideas earlier in the discussion.
[00:28:04] Speaker: Uh, parking and loading, uh, I haven't said much about that, but, you know, these projects provide an opportunity to step back, rethink about how you require parking in Palm Desert. Many communities in these projects have just said, 'We're just, we're just going to let the market do that. We don't need to have minimum parking requirements.' Other communities have scaled back, maybe in just certain areas. I think, do you require parking is something that to, to provide feedback on, uh, how much parking. Um, there's also certainly tools for design of parking areas, etc. So that whole parking piece is a, is a big part of land use discussion.
[00:28:40] Speaker: Um, building design standards. Uh, how does it look? You know, this is, this is a part of that, uh, you know, uh, it's, it's an important part of the character discussion in Palm Desert. Uh, what do people think of when they— do they think of the El Paseo? What do they think of areas outside El Paseo? And how does that contribute to this image of Palm Desert? And what are we looking for? Um, are they requiring things that really suggest a desert influence? Um, you have gone a very strong step forward with your objective design standards for multifamily in terms of thinking about how to be more clear and specific about design. We can take that ball and run with it for other types of, uh, design, uh, for, for other non-residential, um, for example, I think for other commercial. Um, I think that that's an approach that even if it's not required by the state, we can try to be more objective and specific with a lot of design issues. Um, I, I do think that document really sets the stage in a great way. Um, I know that you've got more objective design standards coming from, for downtown, uh, and for Hillside, and so we need to link up with those as well. I think, you know, integrating building design menus and options is important. Um, I don't think anyone is looking for a hard hammer here. I think they're looking for the code— we didn't hear that— we're looking for the code to...
[00:30:02] Matt: Identify and accept, set a high expectation for level of quality, but then maybe provide menus and options in different ways for people to meet that level of quality. So, we're all about flexibility and design issues, especially in saying, 'Here's the purpose of what we're trying to achieve. Here's some good examples with photos and illustrations, but then let the applicant work with staff to really achieve a high quality for individual projects.' All right, that's a lot from me. I'm going to pause here and give it to my colleague Maggie. She's going to carry us through the next few topics. Thank you.
[00:30:37] Maggie: Thank you. So Matt took us through how development proposals move through the process of review and what those developments eventually look like on the ground. I'm going to talk to you about where these regulations apply in different districts and what uses can ultimately be developed.
[00:30:56] Maggie: So today, Palm Desert currently has 17 base zoning districts, and the majority of property in your community is zoned for some type of residential development, whether it's a planned residential district or not. And then there's also, you know, a group of commercial and industrial districts, two districts for your downtown, and two special districts, and then finally, 13 overlay districts.
[00:31:24] Maggie: Now, we didn't hear feedback that this is a massively broken system. So, we're not anticipating a large overhaul of your existing base zoning districts, but rather a fine-tuning of what's already working to make it work even better. And so from the highest level, we want to make sure that the regulations you have in place today are implementing Palm Desert's general plan. And so we want to minimize the unpredictability that is associated with some of the planned districts that are currently applied throughout the community. 65% of Palm Desert is actually currently in a planned district, which means there aren't necessarily base standards. And while this provides a nice level of flexibility for developers and property owners to get creative with what they construct, it doesn't leave the city with a strong baseline of, 'Here's the minimum of what we're asking for.' So we want to make sure going forward staff can track these types of zoning districts and their standards over time, and we give you the proper legs to come to a negotiating table and say, 'If we're developing this way, here's what we expect, and then some.'
[00:32:37] Maggie: From a commercial standpoint, that might mean making sure that there's more opportunities for mixed-use development in your planned commercial districts as they redevelop. And in your residential plan districts, that might mean providing something of a 'toolbox' that developers could come in and have baseline standards for different housing types that they then mix and match.
[00:33:05] Maggie: And then more broadly across all zoning districts, we want to make sure not only does everything align with implementation of the general plan, but potentially taking a closer look at the existing dimensional standards that are on the books—that would be building heights, building setbacks—and making sure that the type of regulations in place today are going to result in the type of buildings and site design you want to see ultimately down the line. And as Matt said, we know that JKA is also working on some downtown ODS standards. Changes to those downtown districts would then be merged and aligned in the unified development code going forward.
[00:33:46] Maggie: As for overlay districts, these are the additional standards that can be applied to different properties throughout the community. And we really want to emphasize cleaning up these overlay districts to improve the community's understanding of where and how they apply. So we noticed today many of them aren't actually represented on your online map. So really low-hanging fruit: if it's applied on the property, we want to make sure everyone knows where that's applied. We want to clarify the housing overlay district standards to make sure that they align with any state regulation that has been passed down and are also reflective of the new multi-family and mixed-use ODS.
[00:34:25] Maggie: And also, in the event that any of the existing overlays are not applied, we'll discuss if there is value to keeping them on the books and, if not, considering retiring them.
[00:34:39] Maggie: So once we have that in place, we're going to talk about land uses. So literally, for what use could the property be developed? Palm Desert, I would say, is ahead of a lot of communities in that you already list your existing or allowed land uses in these matrices that are easy to navigate. We think we could take that one step further by...
[00:35:02] Presenter: Synthesizing all zoning districts into a single land use table that you can then compare across all zoning districts, which land uses are permitted or not permitted by zoning district. And so this table, as we go to create it, we'll ask ourselves a series of questions. The first thing we like to do as part of this process, in the blue, is see if there's any opportunities to consolidate existing land uses that might be more specific than they need to be, you know, just functionally. So today there's maybe four different types of offices that are regulated separately. We'll discuss is that necessary, and if not, could they be combined and condensed? Another thing we'll do is discuss how are different uses permitted in each zoning district? Is it an appropriate level of review required? Maybe it's permitted by right. Maybe it takes an additional level of review by the planning commission. And as part of reviewing and consolidating, we'll discuss if adjustments could be made, and that goes really hand-in-hand with our review and modification of special use provisions. So, in some instances, you might think a certain use could be allowed more broadly if it has the appropriate special use requirements associated with it, whether that be fencing of outdoor screening or, you know, like access standards from different levels of roadways. And then last but not least, adding new uses and retiring outdated uses. Depending on the community, there are certain uses that are arising now or in the future that we just want to make sure are on the books so that you're ready for them when they come. Whether that would be something like a data center or, I noticed you don't have like breweries as a specific use. If they're popular here, it would be helpful to identify them. And then really the heart of all this, as Matt pointed out at the beginning, is we want to make sure the document is user-friendly, not only for the staff that use it every day, but for the average property owner who just wants to know if they can build a deck on their back porch, you know what I mean? So, not only will we be incorporating graphic elements and tables that make it more visually appealing, but, you know, making sure everything is defined clearly, making sure that there's no like excessive lawyer-speak in the document so that it really is digestible for the average user.
[00:37:32] Presenter: With that dig, lawyers, I'll come back up. So, that's it. That's a lot of—that's a lot of material, and I think given the volume of kind of issues, that explains why these projects take, you know, a couple years. But we are excited to be here. Just wanted to remind you at the end of this presentation that this is just identifying issues and talking about, you know, how they should be addressed. Based on feedback that we get, we'll come back with an annotated outline in the next couple of months that shows you in more specific detail which parts of your current ordinances we would carry forward, in what way, how they would be revised, etc. So, that's the piece to look forward to next. But we would love y'all's feedback. We'd love to talk now and hear more, but then we are going to put this on the Engage Palm Desert site to get feedback from the public as well. So, we're looking forward to seeing what kind of—what kind of comments we get there. With that, Nick put this slide back up just to remind you about the overall sequence of topics we have. And we just wanted to now just entertain your questions and have discussion.
[00:38:36] Chair: Okay. Thank you so much. Are there questions or comments? Questions?
[00:38:43] Councilmember: I have a comment. Something I've shared with staff and I'll share with you when you talk about streamlining. I've told staff that it's my experience that they'll come across a roadblock, and that roadblock may be something that this council has approved at some point. And some staffs that I've had experience with would never bring it to the council's attention to address because they assume that the council wants it that way. I've said, 'Don't make that assumption, at least for this councilman, because I may not be aware. More importantly, I may not be aware of how it's expressing itself.' So I want to see all the roadblocks—good, bad, and ugly—so that we can address it. So, I want to share that with you so that you feel empowered to raise any issues that you think would be helpful without feeling like you might hurt, at least, my feelings.
[00:39:41] Presenter: Understood. Yeah. And I think a third party coming from the outside can bring that fresh perspective sometimes to those issues, maybe not aware of the personalities or what have you behind some of those roadblocks. And we can just start fresh.
[00:39:54] Councilmember: I appreciate all the work that went into this, and thank you for the presentation. I have been approached...
[00:40:01] Council Member: ...by developers who have said, who've done business in the city for years and years and years, and they said our reputation used to be very pro-development, business-friendly, easy, streamlined, in and out quickly through the process. So what happened? What did go sideways in our process that slowed things down, or...
[00:40:28] Another Council Member: I was just going to tell a story. I think in 2022 there was somebody who was elected and it...
[00:40:34] Council Member: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, so I mean, was it sort of slow like... Anyway, I'll let you answer the question if it's clear, I hope.
[00:40:44] Matt (Consultant): I think that's a hard question to answer. It could be a variety of things. I think it's an accretion of different new regulations over time for different policy priorities that just overall make it a more complex story that each applicant has to tell and respond to. I think it's changing staff sometimes and changing elected officials sometimes muddle what might have been the original intent of certain things, and it becomes harder to implement some of those ideas in a streamlined way. It's really hard to answer, but again, kind of going back to the first point, projects like this let us come in and just give you a fresh perspective. Let y'all step back and say, 'Let's just wipe some of that stuff away and start fresh. How can we do this more efficiently?' You know, you're working on the new software to implement your development review system. Richard was telling us about that, and that's going to be another fresh start in a lot of ways to think about streamlining, to think about being responsive to the public and development community, and we can integrate with that. And that's just going to hopefully let us slide a lot of that old accreted stuff away. So we'll have to see beyond that. I'm not sure what the specific issues are yet.
[00:41:59] Staff/Consultant: If I could, Palm Desert's existing regulations are not super explicit in how you get from A to Z, point one to point two. And so, to Matt's point, as staff turns over year to year, it could be that if someone was in a position for an extended period of time and they left, that lack of knowledge or however that person was helping applicants get through the system leaves with them. And so really being clear now going forward, if you're looking for 'this is exactly how you do it,' I think would improve the process.
[00:42:33] Council Member: Yes. I was just going to add the Architectural Review Committee. I've had feedback that sometimes developers don't know what the committee actually wants, and they spend thousands and thousands of dollars trying to come up with a new design. And I believe you touched upon it, trying to define what the role of the Architectural Review Committee will be versus Planning Commission, etc.
[00:43:01] Matt (Consultant): It came up a lot, the ARC role, and I think it came up from them, too. They feel frustrated by a lack of guidance, and so that results in them having to feel their way around on each application, and they have high standards, so that results in...
[00:43:17] Council Member: Go ahead. I have heard some of the same things where we're very easy to do any business transactions, but when it comes to creating and developing, that it's a little challenging. One case in particular was, 'But Palm Springs lets me XYZ.' Is that something that we could look at, some of the trends across the valley? Not that we would necessarily follow suit, but to see how we can streamline based on what developers are already used to doing in other cities. Is that something you're exploring?
[00:43:48] Matt (Consultant): Yes. Yes, I think looking at peer communities is something we try to do throughout these projects. I do it all the time. We'll be talking with y'all about what you think your peer cities are and who you'd like to hear about. Is it other valley cities like Palm Springs? Is it other California cities? Would you like to hear from places outside California? There's a big line there. But, you know, in the ODS section on Hillside, there were some examples of non-California places brought up, like Blaine County, Idaho, and Eagle County, Colorado. And I think it's good to look outside California and get other examples. So, I'm a big fan of that. Different councils have different perspectives on who they consider their peers, and so that's something we'll be talking with you all about, who you'd like to see from.
[00:44:33] Mayor: Any other comments?
[00:44:35] Council Member: A couple more. Um, question: what is the less archaic term for zoning administrator?
[00:44:43] Matt (Consultant): Oh, I think they're just called—we just call it director now, which is short for community development director, or their designee.
[00:44:49] Council Member: I was hoping for something more interesting. So, sorry.
[00:44:52] Council Member: One other statement, less of a comment, less of a question. Actually, I'll, I'll back up.
[00:45:01] Speaker 1: When the city did its Envision Palm Desert process—and I know Mayor Hick was a big leader in that, and there's not too many folks left who were part of that—that led to the general plan and the zoning code update that we have today. I remember that process where a lot of high thinking went into it, and part of the thinking was we'll give ourselves a lot of latitude with conditional use permits because we can be very flexible, you know, and then we could be choosy.
[00:45:39] Speaker 1: The state's objective design on multifamily housing came back to bite us on that because we really upped our housing units and thought, 'This is the max, we probably won't get there,' but then it was used against us. So as we come back, I think there's a few lessons we've learned that it didn't work out the way we thought. At the time, everyone was excited. I personally told staff I'm kind of embarrassed because you look back and you're like, 'That was the greatest thing ever,' and now you're looking all inconsistent and it doesn't give direction. You're like, 'What daydream was I living in?' So I just share that because it's just a funny kind of where we are from where we were. It was the greatest thing when it happened.
[00:46:28] Speaker 1: Going forward though, I do think that there is a lot of, I would argue, upside to the development community and to the city for, as we approach this, looking to set the highest standard possible at the outset in terms of site design and architecture. And I know that we're doing an architectural study, so I hope that that's coordinated. I don't know if you guys are involved with that, but Councilman Trouy, I think, is involved as cultural resources doing that. So whatever that study yields might give some indication for architectural standards we want to set. Where I'm going with that is, to the extent that we can, I would like to set a very high bar and increase the amount of by-right development that we allow. Just set the bar high, make a fair playing field, let developers come in, and let staff do their jobs and get projects done. So that's not something I have specific ideas on, just directionally something that I would hope we can move towards in this process.
[00:47:39] Speaker 2: I have a couple comments. That daydream you were talking about, that was before Sacramento became overbearing, so it wasn't really—at the time, it was right. But it's a different day, and so the objective design standards are absolutely mandated, and we have to be careful to make sure we have the right ones. Before, we were able to do the CUPs, and it served us well. Today, it no longer does, and we can look at so many things in our lives that are the same. I wanted to comment on the reputation that you hear, because one developer or one merchant may come in and say, 'This is the worst experience I've ever had.' The next person comes in and says, 'I would rather do business with Palm Desert than any other city.' So it's their unique perspective and their unique experience.
[00:48:31] Speaker 2: Our job, and what I know we all want, is to give them all the best experience and, like you say, get from point A to point B as easily as possible. And when you talk about the user-friendly descriptions and codes and process, that's what we need. You know, less of the, you know, what some people when they talk, and I want to go like this because we don't need this, what we need is this. I appreciate very much when you talk about the views issue because there's so much ambiguity, and unfortunately, it winds up in some very emotional moments, whether it's a homeowner or the city or whatever, because there's so much ambiguity in what is a view, and there's a thought of who owns the view and those sorts of things. So we do need the specificity regarding views, and I appreciate that that's something we need to tackle, and thank you for pointing that out and bringing it to everyone's attention.
[00:49:37] Speaker 2: So those are just a couple of things. I love the user-friendly. I love getting rid of all the extraneous words. And you know, isn't it Mark Twain who said, 'I'm sorry this is so long, but I didn't have more time'? So we need to condense. We need to make it easy for people, and I appreciate that's where we're going. I know it's a big process. It's a lot, but—
[00:50:02] Mayor: We'll get there. And you know, back on the general plan, we've worked on general plans and we piecemeal it sometimes, and we'll find a need to tweak something. So, we've worked on this big picture and then we tweak these little things, and it doesn't then align well. Additionally, we work on a general plan that we are mandated to update, and then we get passed down from Sacramento, 'By the way, here's what we're telling you you're going to—we are overriding your general plan that we've told you to do. Now, we're going to tell you we've got a better idea than you have.' So, we have to deal with that as well. So, I appreciate as much as—and I think Council Member Predetto has it right. Let's make sure we have the ords in place, but really high standards, and I think that protects us well with that. I just want to make sure the way I'm kind of running through it, sounds like the code is written in such a way in the standards that a new staff person cannot come in on our side of the counter and easily navigate. So it's creating confusion from our staff. In other words, if an experienced staff person has left who's been there 10, 15, 20 years, they could easily navigate and walk a developer through it. A new staff person comes in and it's just—okay. We saw that with the hillside because a lot of our staff and a lot of our council members weren't familiar with the process that has over the years been gone through to protect those hillsides like they are. So I appreciate that, and it is not lost on me at least that I am a generalist. I work to develop a standard and a policy, and the experts are those people who work and get it done day-to-day. So a lot of times we'll come up with a policy and then we create conflict because the experts, who are the team inside the walls of City Hall, know differently, and then it becomes fragmented and we get little pieces here and there. So now it's time to bring it all together, and I thank you for doing that. Are there any other comments or thoughts?
[00:52:20] Council Member: Okay. Right. And back to your point about the views, Mayor, I agree that, you know, preserving our views is very important, but it is ambiguous, right? I mean, from my viewpoint, I think it's important if you're, you know, on El Paso, for example, you can look up and see our beautiful mountains, or if you're here, you can look out and see our beautiful views. That's what I think of when we talk views. And I wasn't sure—are you also talking about a residential development and maybe views of the lake view, or is that—we have to be careful. People who own property have a view from lot line to lot line and straight up. That's their view. So we have to be careful. But I appreciated what you said, that there are cities where they say from a public park, right? Or the view corridor. And El Paso is an example; Fred Waring's a great example of the view corridor. So there are many of those. So once we kind of lock that down and you narrow down what that means, that's going to be helpful to so many people. And we'll take the emotion out and give pure facts so that people can operate from that. That would be very important to have that addressed. And then, again, I like the idea of consolidating—like, for example, you consolidating the land use document and consolidating similarities, and then also, again, having graphic elements to make it more user-friendly. So when you're not just reading words, you get a graphic element to show someone what's being described. So those are my comments, and thank you.
[00:54:00] Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Anything else?
[00:54:01] Council Member: Thank you so much for—this is like, I feel like there's an expression about—I know it from a different language, but 'marbles in a washing machine.' So now you're going to have to calm them all down and get them in order. So thank you and good luck.
[00:54:19] Council Member: Final point I was going to add is all of this makes it also ADA friendly when you're able to go make the checklists, and really helps out. So on the other side of things, as an ADA advocate, thank you for that. It'll really help simplify.
[00:54:34] Mayor: Okay, thank you. Is there anything else? Do we have a 3:30 closed session? Correct. So like at 3:30, we'll be back to put us back into action. We have a few minutes then, everybody.