HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-21-2017 Item 1, KatzCOUNCIL MEETING: RECEIVED
ITEM NO.: 1 � FEB Z 1 2017
SLQ CITY CLERK
From: Todd Katz [
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2017 5:10 PM
To: E-mail Council Website <emailcouncil@slocity.org>
Cc: Carloni, Marcus <mcarloni@slocitv.org>; Todd Katz <
Subject: engineering and public works appeal fees - 2/21 Study Session comment
Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
Thank you for your service to the people of San Luis Obispo.
Regarding the Feb. 21 Study Session's expected proposal to raise the cost of appealing a planning, development
or public works ruling from $281 to $779, I would like to briefly relate a recent experience and make specific
suggestions:
After waiting many weeks for a City of SLO ruling on an application for a simple lot line adjustment
(LLA), I received a letter containing many complex requirements from the Community Development
Department (CDD) dated the day before Thanksgiving. The ruling gave us ten (10) days to appeal. (LLA
SBDV-1889-2015 11/25/15 T. Corey.)
The ruling included a possibly unconstitutional requirement that as a condition of a simple LLA we
needed to have both property's sewer lines CCTV inspected (even though the LLA involved no work on
the infrastructure of either property).
With respect, I suggest that you ask yourself, as a homeowner, how you would react to getting such a
ruling, just before a holiday, with a 10 -day, $300 appeal requirement ... and having no venue whatsoever
to query or question the propriety of unusual, unexpected and expensive requirements short of paying said
appeal fee? Then, please ask yourself, how pleased would you be to have to pay $779 for the same
opportunity?
In regard to Community Development fees, I have four suggestions:
1. Raise the cost of a formal appeal fee to $479 for corporations and S corporations not homeowners).
2. Change the appeal period to 30 days for all.
3. Provide all recipients with an opportunity to informally question, via an ombudsman -type facility, the
possibility that error was made in a ruling.
4. Provide that any CDD department can make an adjustment in such circumstances at no cost to the
applicant.
I urge you to set policies that support the average homeowner, that encourage citizens to use — not shun —
City permit processes and which take into account the possibility that City departments are not always 100%
right in their findings ... and, most importantly, that might does not make right.
Sincerely,
Todd Katz