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Council outlines public-review timeline for general plan and agrees to focused June discussion on circulation
Summary
Staff confirmed three overlapping review periods for the general plan — a 30-day CEQA scoping comment period, a 45-day public-draft review, and a 90-day tribal consultation — and the council directed staff to ensure the June public-review meeting includes a focused discussion of the circulation element.
City planning staff told the council the general plan update will proceed through multiple, legally distinct review periods: a 30-day CEQA Notice-of-Preparation comment period (scoping meeting at the April 7 Planning Commission), a statutorily required 45-day review for the public draft general plan, and a 90-day tribal consultation period that began March 5.
Andrew Perez, the city's planning manager, said staff is compiling council-directed revisions and will route a public-draft general plan for the 45-day agency review early in April; the CEQA scoping meeting is scheduled for April 7. He explained the 90-day tribal consultation (required under AB 52 and SB 18) is on its own timeline and started March 5.
Several council members and members of the public urged more attention to the circulation element, which governs multimodal transportation and street design. Resident Peter Williamson, who spoke remotely, urged additional time and nuance for circulation decisions so the city remains competitive for state and federal grants and so future funding and engineering follow the plan's goals for safe crossings and protected bike facilities.
Council members debated whether to do a comprehensive circulation-element update now or to complete the general plan first and prioritize a comprehensive circulation update afterward. The council agreed to direct staff to include a focused discussion of the circulation element as part of the public-review meeting in June, and to consider a later, separate comprehensive update after the general plan is adopted.
Planning staff clarified that minor use permits for future residential projects remain discretionary and would trigger project-level CEQA or multimodal transportation analysis when thresholds (for example, more than 20 peak-hour trips) are exceeded. Perez said the circulation-element analysis has already assumed the higher residential densities proposed in the housing-element code amendments the council considered later in the evening.
Next steps: staff will publish the public draft in early April for the 45-day review, hold the CEQA scoping meeting April 7, and incorporate a circulation-focused meeting element into the June public-review meeting; the council signaled willingness to prioritize a comprehensive circulation update after the general plan is complete.
