9:00 - 10:20 a.m.
Moderator: Ernie Schmidt, Immediate Past President, Planning and Community Development Department, Planning Commissioner, Redwood City
In the Trenches with Your General Plan (9:00 – 9:40 a.m.)
The general plan is more than the legal underpinning for land use decisions; it is a vision about how a community will grow, reflecting community priorities and values while shaping the future. It is critical for planning commissioners to understand the purpose and role of general plans. This session will provide an overview of general plan history, content and legal requirements, relationship to regional plans and programs, and current policy trends. This session will also discuss the importance of the general plan and how planning commissioners use the document regularly to make land use decisions and environmental determinations.
Speaker: Dan Amsden, AICP, Director of Planning Services, MIG
Value Capture: Zoning and Entitlements as "Currency" Generators for Cities (9:40 – 10:20 a.m.)
In a post COVID-19 digital economy private sector, land use preferences are shifting from retail and hotel to residential and industrial. Many cities have monetized land use by approving projects that emphasized sales tax and TOT. Post COVID, the private sector will submit projects less accretive to a city’s economic sustainability. How can cities capture sufficient value from future applications? This session focuses on “development currency “tools cities can use to reset local economies including examples of how to maximize community and fiscal benefits through land use, zoning and entitlement policies that capture value and improve quality of life.
Speaker: Larry Kosmont, Chairman & CEO, Kosmont Companies