Update: The city Planning and Design Commissions will meet from 6:30-9 p.m. Oct. 7, at City Hall to work together on the Town Center code revision. There will also be a public hearing, so residents can share their perspectives directly with the Joint Commission members.

Future work on the Town Center visioning and code revision should be done by city staff and a joint Planning/Design Commission, before going back to the Council for approval, consultant Karen Reed recommended at the Sept. 21 City Council meeting.

There has been a lot of public input to date, but the process began in 2014 when Development Services Group (DSG) staff, with East Coast-based urban planning consultant Seth Harry, wanted to do a simple code revision to address gaps in the building height incentive program. The public engagement process was incrementally expanded as Town Center collided with pushback on the city’s allocated growth targets and the proposed Hines project and Park and Ride on Luther Burbank’s “Kite Hill.”

The latest step was the publication of an interim report based on the input of a 42-person stakeholder group. They discussed retail strategy, streetscapes and parking, but could not reach consensus on building height limits, density or growth targets.

“The dialogue has become increasingly politicized … and hit a point of diminishing returns,” Reed said. “The issues that remain are binary. Either you’re OK with the growth targets or you’re not. You’re OK with five-story buildings or you’re not.”

With a goal of “timely adoption,” as the Town Center visioning has delayed the city’s adoption of its Comprehensive Plan update and caused the council to implement a year-long moratorium on downtown development that will likely be extended again in November, Reed said that the city’s Town Center Liaison Group (TCLG) should soon be disbanded and the stakeholder group should not be reconvened, with work handed back to city staff while public engagement continues.

Three of the council challengers — Tom Acker, Salim Nice and Traci Granbois — were on the stakeholder group, advocating an “Island before region” perspective.

The candidates they will run against in November — incumbent Mayor Bruce Bassett, Wendy Weiker, who was also on the stakeholder group, and incumbent Councilmember Debbie Bertlin, respectively, say they will take a more regionally collaborative approach. Current Councilmember Mike Cero said that the upcoming general election will be a “strong barometer” for how the public feels about future growth and development in the Town Center.

Acker criticized the transparency of the visioning process, saying it was “severely flawed” and had a “predetermined outcome” that promoted transit-oriented development at the expense of resident’s quality of life.

To offset some effects of development, the Council decided earlier this year to discuss imposing impact fees for schools, parks and transportation. Reed said that a traffic study in Town Center is still needed. DSG Director Scott Greenberg said that study would cost $14,000, and recommended additional expenditures for vision graphics ($17,000) and code graphics ($15,000). The current development code, written in 1994, does not include these types of graphics.

Bertlin recommended that the city also conduct a feasibility study, which Greenberg said could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000, to ensure that the visioning “is not just an academic exercise” and will result in an implementable plan.

Seth Harry & Associates wrote initial code and developed graphics for the stakeholders to review, but it is unclear with Harry’s involvement will be going forward. City Manager Noel Treat said there could be cost savings in continuing the architectural drawing process locally.

Reed, with City Sustainability and Communications Manager Ross Freeman, will make sure the public is informed and the website is kept up to date. They will also provide monthly updates to the Council.

There will be a public input session “early in the process,” Reed said, along with public hearings to give feedback to the Planning and Design Commissions.

The Council voted 6-1 to accept Reed’s recommendations, with Cero voting no.

For more, visit the city’s Town Center visioning webpage: http://www.mercergov.org/Page.asp?NavID=3058.