Town Council briefs

The issues in Sierra Valley Sites may not be entirely solved, but Council was impressed enough with the body of work contained in the Sierra Valley Neighborhood District Plan to accept its contents on Wednesday evening.

“It is significant to have a comprehensive study of this area,” expressed Councilman Rick Wood. “To my knowledge it has never been done before.”

Residents of Sierra Valley Sites, however, were still concerned that the Plan did not thoroughly address issues in the area such as storm drain problems and density.

“All of our problems are related to density so why don’t we downzone the neighborhood as Larry Johnston suggested at the June 29 Planning Commission meeting,” asked Gary Small, a resident in the Sierra Valley Sites.

Small suggested removing the concept of putting even more workforce housing in the Sierra Valley Sites from the current District Plan as a way to help with this idea.

While Councilman Skip Harvey agreed with Wood that having all of the Sierra Valley Sites’ issues in one document was a good thing, he reminded the public and his fellow Council members that it wasn’t the first they’d heard of these problems.

“We’ve spent four months on this plan without taking any action to solve the problems,” Harvey said.

“If you want to see action you need to tell us to put it in our workplan,” stated Community Development Director Mark Wardlaw.

“We need to consolidate the process,” replied Harvey. “Study sessions [like those held for the Sierra Valley NDP] and workplans should be combined.”

Wood on the other hand felt that the neighborhood should not solely rely on the Town to fix its problems.

“You have a lot of people and its very dense, which creates urban kinds of problems,” Wood said. “It’s easy to say we need storm drains, but it’s more difficult to find the funding for it,” he added as an example.

Council accepted the plan as presented.

Planning Commission vacancies

Council extended the application period for the Planning Commission vacancy currently available. Submit your application by Aug. 12.