As I work with colleagues throughout California, I am most thankful that Foster City is a Planned Community. In fact, it is a brilliantly conceived City. Built on a scale that is comfortable with our 4.1 square mile island, Foster City has more shoreline inside Foster City than shoreline bordering Foster City.
Foster City’s design has a mixture of housing, recreation areas, and a business spectrum that includes both one-person offices and large corporate campuses. This near perfect balance of housing and business creates a revenue stream that funds the city’s needs. We daily enjoy the legacy of Jack Foster’s imagination and foresight. We are the City of Blue Lagoons and (I quote Mayor Wykoff here) the City of Fiscal Stability.
Our Legacy is not frozen in time. Foster City’s past City Councils have provided avenues for well managed change. Residents can come to City Hall and meet with staff members of the Community Development Department if they want information on how to make changes in their property. Those of you who use computers don’t even need to come to City Hall. Just type in www.fostercity.org/Services/permits. There you will find full information on Planning Permits and Building Permits. You will learn what is required for almost all exterior changes to any residential, commercial or industrial building in Foster City.
The purpose of the permit is to ensure that a proposed exterior change complies with city codes and will be architecturally compatible with the existing site or building and other area sites or buildings. You will also learn the Building Permits are required for all interior and exterior changes except for cosmetic changes such as carpeting or painting.
In February 2000 the City Council and Planning Commission established a policy that identified significant solar impacts to rooms and yards of properties adjacent to proposed room additions. This is an important policy in that it is intended to protect the owners applying for the change and the owners impacted by the change.
Did we get this exactly right back in 2000? I happen to think this is a well thought out policy, but it is certainly appropriate to review the policy at this time. That is exactly what will be done at a Joint Study Session of the City Council and the Planning Commissions on July 19, 2005. I urge you to attend this Joint Study Session, or follow it on Channel 27 at 7:30PM. Your thoughts and inputs will be especially valuable since this is your city.
Our goal and responsibility is to properly balance the grand legacy of Foster City against the tides of change. The key word is BALANCE.
print 