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The Pleasanton City Council unanimously approved several changes to the city’s municipal codes, which staff said will not only save them time when it comes to reviewing development and building projects, but would also streamline the entire permitting process.
The specific amendments that the council approved include changes to the city’s design review process and appeals. As part of these new updates, people will now have 10 days to appeal an application and certain accessory, building or site modifications for different types of developments will be exempt from the design review process.
“This is a significant and, in my opinion, a much needed modernization,” Mayor Jack Balch said during the Dec. 2 council meeting. “The staff report shows how much staff time is being spent on small-scale design review … applications (which are) adding costs to our residents and small businesses who are making small, uncontested, low impact improvements.”
In regard to the appeals update, Balch said that inconsistent approval timelines have been a big concern for many people in the past and that the current appeal period of more than 15 days could make an applicant have to wait, at times, months to move to the next step in the approval process.
“We’re trying to move the process in a way that allows for a lot more clarity and efficiency,” City Manager Gerry Beaudin said of the new changes during the council meeting.
The updates, according to staff, will go into effect in early 2026 and staff will work on communicating these new amendments to residents and future applicants.
According to city planners Megan Campbell and Emily Carroll, over the last few years the city has received and heard of complaints saying that the city’s application review process is “burdensome and not user-friendly”.
As part of its research, the city discovered that the design review process was adopted over 30 years ago and over the last three decades, planners have seen instances of the design review applicability being far reaching.
Campbell provided an example of a business facing a 13-week planning permit process before even moving forward to the building permit process, which could also take more than a month to complete.
Campbell noted that even though it is time-consuming, the design review process is important in major projects that could impact a neighborhood’s character and privacy. However, she also said it could be seen as a detriment in certain cases.
“Small projects that objectively have no impact on the community, the benefit achieved is disproportionate to the exhaustive process requirements and resources required,” Campbell said.
Carroll said that over the past 10 years, staff have processed an average of 110 single-family projects annually, which accounts for 20% to 40% of a community and economic development employee’s time — that time could be longer if additional hearings are required. This all adds up to additional staff time that, with the new changes to the design review process, could be reduced so that staff could focus on other work.
“It would free up a lot of staff time to be able to focus on larger projects and hopefully make those projects have an easier time through the process as well as focus on other City Council priorities,” Campbell said.
Some examples of single-family projects that would now be exempt from design review thanks to the updates to the city’s codes include fences, new accessory structures, new lofts without second-story windows, additions less than or equal to 15 feet tall, minor modifications to roofs that don’t materially alter the appearance or height of a residence, and minor modifications to second-story windows that don’t impact privacy.
For multi-family and commercial developments, the projects will also be exempt from design review include minor exterior and site modifications and additions, refacing or replacing existing signs with minor alterations, and minor exterior building and site modifications.
“This whole package that staff put together communicates that we’re open for business,” Councilmember Craig Eicher said during the meeting.
“We need to be taking a very business friendly approach to how we conduct ourselves,” Eicher added, “I think some of the barriers that have been in here have negatively impacted our community and i think the only way to rectify those things are to be creative and find new ways to do things.”
The appeal period is now set at 10 calendar days from when the decision regarding the application is rendered. Staff said Pleasanton’s current period of 15 days — which at times has been extended past that — is considerably longer compared to neighboring jurisdictions.
Thanks to the changes, all appeals and City Council reviews must occur during the new appeal window of 10 days.
Councilmember Julie Testa initially expressed some hesitation in reducing the appeal period because she said she believes residents should have ample time to appeal applications to the City Council, but she ultimately agreed to the change.
However, one change that she and Balch could not agree with was staff’s original recommendation to reduce the city’s notification radius of public hearings from 1,000 feet to 300 feet. These notifications pertain to letters and notices sent to residents in the surrounding area of a certain application or project.
According to staff, during this year the city spent roughly $10,000 on costs related to the notification process for projects. Had the council approved staff’s original recommendation to reduce that notification period to 300 feet, the costs would have significantly reduced to a couple thousand dollars.
Vice Mayor Jeff Nibert said he was initially concerned about the proposed change to noticing but he also noted staff’s report which pointed out that almost all of the surrounding Tri-Valley cities follow government code of 300 feet for such notices.
But Testa said she had often heard from residents who were angry that they did not receive any notification of a certain project, which is why she said reducing the radius of residents who would be notified would not be beneficial for the city.
Balch also shared similar concerns about transparency.
Ultimately, the council decided to keep the 1,000-foot radius in place.
In other business
City staff daylighted a new tentative agreement between the city and the labor union that represents over 200 employees across various departments.
The agreement between the city and Pleasanton City Employees Association, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 955 will, if approved, replace the previous memorandum of understanding between both parties, which expired on March 31.
Following last week’s review and brief discussion of the agreement, the council will return on Dec. 16 to vote on approving the labor contract.
“I’m really glad that we’ve got a contract that everyone is pleased with and that we know is fair to our hardworking employees,” Testa said during the Dec. 2 meeting.
According to the newly proposed contract, Pleasanton employees who are represented by PCEA — clerks, police dispatchers, recreation employees, planners, engineers, and maintenance employees — would see their salary ranges go up by 3% once after April 1 of next year and once again in 2027 during the same month.
The new agreement stipulates that the city provide $1,000 in longevity pay annually to bargaining unit employees who have been with the city for 10 consecutive years, with payments distributed biweekly. That total payout will also be raised to $1,100 in 2027.
Police dispatchers and police dispatch supervisors who obtain a Peace Officer Standard Training certificate would also receive a certain percentage of certification pay depending on the level of training they obtain.
Other details of the newly proposed agreement include an increase to the amount for bilingual pay from $50 to $100; a slight increase to the meal pay for employees required to work more than 12 hours consecutively without a dinner break; an increase to allowances for safety boots; and increase to both the call back and standby time policies.
Staff said the latter of the policies have to do with employees who respond to emergency situations after work hours.
If approved later this month, the new agreement will be effective retroactively from April 1 and will expire on March 31, 2028.
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