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APPROVE A FINDING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW AND ADOPT A RESOLUTION INTENDING TO AMEND THE GENERAL PLAN LAND USE MAP AND AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE STOCKTON CITYWIDE ZONING MAP FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THE GENERAL PLAN AND STATE LAW
recommended action
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Find no further environmental review is required per California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15183 (Consistency with a Community Plan or General Plan); and
2. Approve a Resolution amending the Stockton General Plan Land Use Map for multiple properties; and
3. Adopt an Ordinance amending the Citywide Zoning Map for multiple properties.
It is also recommended that the City Manager be authorized to take appropriate and necessary actions to carry out the purpose and intent of these approvals.
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Summary
The City adopted a new General Plan in 2018, and from 2020 to 2022, the City Council has approved e numerous amendments to the City’s General Plan Land Use Map, Citywide Zoning Map, and Development Code (zoning) to align with the General Plan, in accordance with State regulation. The approved amendments affected 4,223 properties and required City staff to perform significant outreach with property owners. Staff identified 116 additional properties that require amendment to correct existing split land use designations and address requests from property owners that were potentially affected by the initial zoning consistency approvals and desire to improve the usability of their property.
Since 2022, staff has been in contact with dozens of property owners who have indicated support for the changes due to a pending project relying on the changes, more usability of the property, or removing a split designation, all at the City’s expense. A neighborhood meeting was conducted on March 23, 2023, with each owner receiving a bilingual (English, Spanish) notice to attend. Only one owner attended and voiced support for the change. On April 13, 2023, the Planning Commission considered and approved by a unanimous vote, a recommendation for Council’s approval of the proposed amendments.
DISCUSSION
Background
The Envision Stockton 2040 General Plan is one of the most important policy documents for the City, establishing how residents, business owners, property owners, and other stakeholders would like to see the City develop and grow. Zoning is a tool used to implement the General Plan by applying standards to each property based on the established General Plan Land Use ("GPLU") Designation, such as Commercial or Residential. State law (California Government Code Section 65860) requires that these two documents be consistent with realizing the community vision.
In 2020, staff identified thousands of properties that had an inconsistency in their General Plan or Zoning designation and dozens of areas of the Development Code that required updates to align with changes in State Law, best practices, or the adopted General Plan policies. To ensure consistency, the City has pursued incremental amendments to the Zoning and General Plan maps (Series) and Development Code (Phases). As of July 2022, the City Council approved three sets of Series and Phased amendments.
After the July amendments, staff discovered approximately 102 additional sites with split General Plan land use and zoning map designations. In example, split General Plan land use and zoning designations may consist of a 1-acre property that has Commercial, General zoning and Commercial General Plan land use designation on one half of the property, and Industrial, Limited zoning designation and Industrial General Plan land use designation on the other half of the property. This poses a problem for the City to apply development standards on the property which are different for commercial as compared to industrial designations. The removal of the split designations will create greater clarity for staff and assurance for the property as to the type of development that could occur on the property. In addition, 14 property owners that were included in the earlier General Plan/zoning consistency process requested additional amendments to their properties to improve the usability of the site.
Present Situation
The proposed map amendments update the zoning of 116 properties to match their adopted General Plan Land Use Designation (Attachment A - Proposed Property Amendment List). Many of these proposed changes can be grouped into the following categories:
• Split Designation: Properties that contain more than one General Plan Land Use designation and/or Zoning designation. Of the proposed 116 proposed properties, 102 have some sort of split designation (i.e., General Plan land use or zoning) inconsistency.
Property Owner-requested: 14 Property owners have expressed interest in modifying their General Plan Land Use and/or Zoning to maximize development potential or align with surrounding uses. Eight of those sites were included in the 2022 amendments as the owner comments were submitted too late before a change could be made. All owners have expressed support for the proposed changes either as part of the Series 3 effort in 2022 or in 2023 as part of the neighborhood meeting hosted by City staff on March 23, 2023.
As with the previous amendments, changes are needed to comply with State Law, provide clarity for the property owners, and accommodate current Best Practices.
STAFF ANALYSIS
The City Council is asked to approve the proposed amendments to the GPLU Map and Zoning Map based on the following analysis:
General Plan and Zoning Consistency
In addition to having General Plan land use and zoning consistency issue, split designations can limit a property owners’ ability to use their property as all applicable zoning standards must be applied to the section of the property with that designation. For smaller sites this can be troublesome as sometimes conflicting zoning standards would have to be applied to the same parcel (Attachment B and C Proposed Maps). The owner requested sites will either align the proposed zoning designation with the historic use of the property (i.e., residential or commercial) or allow the owner to seek more flexible land uses to improve the marketability and usability of the sites. This means changes could allow property owners to build more on their parcel, lease or sell to additional users, or remove development barriers due to the existing zoning of the property. The Supportive General Plan policies specific to the proposed amendments include:
• Action LU-6.6D Review and update the Zoning District Map to ensure consistency with the updated General Plan.
• Policy LU-6.2 Prioritize development and redevelopment of vacant, underutilized, and blighted infill areas.
• Policy LU-1.1 Encourage retail businesses and housing development in mixed-use developments along the region.
Due to Government Code Section 63558(b) of the California Code limits the City to four (4) General Plan Amendments annually, City staff intends to consolidate the proposed City-Initiated General Plan Amendment with another proposed General Plan Amendment as one amendment approval to be heard by the City Council under a separate item at a later hearing. That consolidated amendment will be noticed in the Record and presented to the City Council after the Council has taken action on the other proposed General Plan Amendment.
Environmental Analysis
The proposed amendments do not require further environmental analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Section 15183 for projects which are consistent with the development impacts established by a Community Plan, General Plan, or zoning for which an environmental impact report (“EIR”) has been certified. The General Plan Environmental Impact Report (GPEIR) was prepared and certified by the City Council as part of the Envision Stockton 2040 General Plan adoption process (SCH# 2017052062).
There are ±83,327 total properties within the City Limits and the amendments account for only 0.15% of all properties within the City Limits programmatically analyzed in the GPEIR. The proposed amendments will not result in a physical change to the properties nor decrease the number of properties designated towards meeting the City’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). None of the potential changes being considered by the Commission will impact the analysis or conclusions of the GPEIR as the proposed amendments will correct zoning inconsistencies and align designations with the existing and/or surround land uses. In addition, tribal consultation was completed consistent with State law for proposed General Plan amendments. Future development proposals based on the amendments would be reviewed case-by-case for consistency with this review and the GPEIR.
Public Outreach
Since 2022, staff has been in contact with dozens of property owners who have indicated support for the changes due to a pending project relying on the changes, more usability of the property, or removing a split designation. Since a General Plan and/or Zoning map designation can cost between $5,000 and $10,000 to process, all of the owners who reached out to the City expressed support for City initiated changes to correct or improve the useability of the site. The proposed map changes were also posted on the City’s Shape Stockton website in September 2022 and shown to numerous residents as part of the Land Inventory process to identify housing capacity sites for the City’s Housing Element Update. The Land Inventory process had public workshops in September 2022 and February 2023, with all owners receiving bilingual notices (English, Spanish).
In addition to the Land Inventory workshops, all property owners were sent bilingual mailed notices (English, Spanish) regarding the proposed changes for a March 23, 2023, Neighborhood Meeting hosted by City staff on the proposed amendments (Attachment D - Neighborhood Meeting Notice). One property owner attended and voiced support for the changes to allow him to develop more residential units on his property. Notice for the City Council public hearing for this request was published in The Record on May 12, 2023. The mailed notice was sent to all property owners with property potentially affected by the proposed Ordinance at least ten days prior to the hearing. As of the publication of this report, no written comments have been received.
Planning Commission
On April 13, 2023, the Planning Commission held a public hearing to consider making a recommendation on the proposed General Plan and Zoning map amendments to the City Council. One letter of support was submitted to be read into the record (Attachment E), while two property owners who attended voiced their support to staff for the proposed changes. The Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the proposed amendments to City Council (Attachment F).
Fiscal Impact
There would be no fiscal impact as a result of approving the proposed amendments. Future projects would be required to submit to the applicable processes for building permits, licenses, or entitlements. Relevant permitting fees would be paid to the city by future applicants.
Attachment A - Proposed Property Amendment List
Attachment B - Proposed General Plan Land Use Maps of Properties
Attachment C - Proposed Zoning Maps of Properties
Attachment D - Neighborhood Meeting Notice
Attachment E - Planning Commission Support Letter
Attachment F - Planning Commission Approved Resolution