AgdaPkt 2008-01-28 Clsd and Reg - Laserfiche WebLink

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7A age 1 January 28, 2008 SUBJECT Agreement for Professional Services for Redwood City's New General Plan RECOMMENDATION 1. Approve an agreement with Hogle-Ireland, Inc. to provide professional services for the preparation of the New General Plan (Attachment 1) and authorize the City Manager to execute the agreement and authorize any contingency work. 2. Authorize the transfer of funds from the unappropriated fund balance within the General Fund reserves and appropriated to Strategic Planning Professional Services account in the amount of $1,467,655 for preparation of the new Redwood City General Plan (Attachment 2). BACKGROUND At the City Council meeting on December 10, 2007 Planning staff presented an information report on the proposed New General Plan effort including the estimated total budget and timeline. As proposed, the New General Plan process includes utilization of professional consulting services. No decision regarding the consultant agreement was made at that meeting; rather, staff presented the new process and considered Council's comments, concerns, and suggestions regarding the approach. Council directed staff to proceed in the proposed direction with the understanding that the actual agreement, scope of work, and schedule would be brought back to the City Council for consideration at a future meeting in early 2008. The agreement,including work scope, budget, and schedule is now provided for Council's review and consideration. The New General Plan . AFresh Start Based on previous work on both the General Plan Update and the Downtown Precise Plan - and in consideration of community needs, interests and input at this time - it is staffs recommendation that Redwood City needs and deserves a "New" General Plan, not just an update. This is a dynamic time in Redwood City and policy makers will need to incorporate an .emerging understanding of best practices and sustainability within the important land use decisions they will be asked to make. This community will benefit tremendously from the public input process associated with preparing a New General Plan and the resultant state-of-the-art tools that will surface from that process. The City now has a more advanced understanding of the relationship of our resources and g.eographyin terms of land use, transportation, economy and water supply within a context of "Smart Growth" and place-making as prompted by the Downtown Precise Plan, the Urban Water Management Plan, regional planning efforts and community values. In combination with on-going public input, these baseline policies and documents can help create a New General Plan for managing the. next big steps in Redwood City's healthy future. Despite all of the forward momentum anticipated in this new process and approach, it must be emphasized that the project will not disregard the