Council moves to forward waterfront overlay revisions to planning commission

An unidentified council member moved to accept revisions to the city’s waterfront overlay and asked the council to forward those recommendations to the planning commission for consideration.

The motion, introduced during the council’s meeting, proposed that a suggested "craftsman style" design guideline apply only to new buildings and not to existing structures east of Highway 101. The maker of the motion also discussed thresholds for review, saying that if a building is rebuilt by 50% or more it would fall under the overlay and be subject to planning commission review. The motion referenced work prepared by John Morgan and included several amendments and recommendations for how the overlay should be drafted.

Council members asked clarifying questions about how the requirement would apply to marinas and whether the overlay language should be integrated into the general development ordinance. The motion-maker asked the planning commission to treat the waterfront overlay as a standalone overlay—"separate and distinct"—rather than threading the language into every section of the development ordinance, citing a prior standalone overlay used for a housing project as a model.

The motion was seconded; the transcript records the motion and seconding but does not record a formal roll-call outcome for this agenda item in the provided excerpt. The council did not adopt final code language during this meeting; the item was presented as a recommendation to the planning commission for consideration and drafting.

Next steps: the council forwarded the recommended overlay language to the planning commission for review and potential code drafting; any final adoption would require subsequent formal action by the council after the planning commission’s review.