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City planners are crafting an "urgency ordinance" to comply with laws that streamline approval processes for residential projects, relax density regulations and effectively abolish single-family zoning.
"How can a parking garage not be a parking garage?" Becky Sanders, co-chair of the umbrella group Palo Alto Neighborhoods, asked at a Nov. 4 hearing of the planning commission. "How can it not be included in the floor area when the zoning code clearly states that it's included?" The thorny question has already stymied the commission, which split 3-3 over the issue when it was reviewing the project in October and November. While three commissioners — Bart Hechtman, Michael Alcheck and Giselle Roohparvar — deferred to the city's planning and legal staff, three of their colleagues — Ed Lau...
On Wednesday, the Planning and Transportation Commission struggled to reconcile the need to help the shopping destination and the need to ensure that the mall remains primarily a retail center.