A. "Allocation" means the right, granted by the city council, to make application to create a residential lot or build a residential unit. An allocation is not a guarantee of receiving approval for the requested number of lots or units proposed by the residential development application. The actual number of lots or units approved shall be determined by the planning commission and city council through the development review process.

B. Allotment. See "Allocation." For purposes of this chapter, the terms "allotment" and "allocation" are used interchangeably.

C. "Annual allocation pool" means the numerical total of allocations as set by the city council and available for distribution to qualifying projects in a given year.

D. Application, Complete. "Complete application" means a determination made by the director of community development or his/her designee that all of the required information submitted by an applicant for a development project is correct and ready for processing. For projects requiring an environmental determination (negative declaration, focused studies, an environmental impact report), an application will not be deemed complete until sufficient information has been provided by the applicant for the city, as lead agency, to make a determination of the extent of the environmental review.

E. Application, Development. "Development application" means all information required of the applicant in order to initiate the development review process.

F. "Development objective" means a statement, made annually by the city council, and approved by resolution, expressing the council’s priorities with respect to desired future conditions of residential development for the coming building year. These priorities may include, but are not limited to, consideration of such factors as traffic, schools and housing type and location. Those projects which, in the opinion of the city council, sufficiently satisfy one or more development objectives may be given all, some, or none of its allocation request while other projects may only receive a lesser percentage of or none of, its allocation request. Although development objectives are not binding on a specific project or projects; the city council shall consider a project’s efforts to meet the development objectives when granting allocations in years when the number of allocations requested exceeds the number of available annual allocations. The city council shall use the development objectives in addition to general plan policy as criteria for distributing allocations to individual projects.

G. "Development review process" means all of the various steps required to receive city approval for a development project. For purposes of this chapter, the development review process shall include all steps leading up to and including the approval of a tentative map by the city council; approval of a rezoning by the city council (for residential projects not requiring a land division); or SPARC approval (for residential projects not requiring a land division or rezoning). It also includes all steps leading up to and including certification of any environmental documents. For projects that must be phased to comply with the provisions of this chapter, the development review process shall also mean all steps leading up to and including final map approval by the city council, or the issuance of building permits by the chief building official (for residential projects not requiring a land division).

H. "Exemption" means projects not subject to all of the provisions of this chapter. There are two kinds of exemptions. The first type, which applies to one hundred percent senior and lower income housing, exempts the subject development from both the allocation process and from being counted as part of the annual allocation pool set by the city council. The second type, which applies to projects on five acres or less and creating no more than thirty units or lots, are exempt from the application procedure for an allocation; however, these unit/lots are counted as part of the annual allocation pool established by the city council. These non-senior or non-lower income infill projects shall be phased so that no more than fifteen units or lots are created per year.

I. "General plan" means the 1987-2005 Petaluma General Plan as amended.

J. Lower Income Housing. General referring to housing for some combination of low and very low income households.

K. "Low income housing" means housing affordable to those households meeting the low income standards as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A low income household has an annual income of not more than eighty percent of the Sonoma County median household income by household size.

L. "Notice of intent to develop" means a form required to be completed by an applicant seeking allocations for a given year.

M. "Preliminary review" means a procedure, required of all projects subject to this chapter, whereby the department of community development reviews and evaluates the project prior to the filing of a development application. The intent of preliminary review is to provide the applicant with an assessment of potential areas of concern about the project, applicable conditions of approval and an opportunity to discuss these with city staff before an application is filed.

N. "Reservation" means the commitment of the city council to grant future allocations. Reservations are intended to provide the applicant with a measure of certainty that allotments will be available for a subsequent project phase. An applicant may only request and the council approve reservations for the year immediately following the calendar year for which allotments are requested. The total number of reservations shall be subtracted from the number of allocations in the same category available for the year for which the reservations are made.

O. "Senior housing" means any multiple-family attached housing units for rent with city approved restrictions that limit tenancy such that at least one member of the household is fifty-five years of age or older.

P. "SPARC" means the site plan and architectural review committee of the city.

Q. "Supplementary allocation" means an additional procedure by which applicants may request allocations if it is determined by the city council that there is sufficient capacity remaining in the annual allocation pool after allocations have been initially granted to all applicable projects.

R. "Unit" means a residential lot or dwelling unit created in accordance with the Subdivision Map Act, or otherwise legally created, or a residential unit in a project not requiring a land division.

S. "Very low income housing" means housing affordable to those households meeting the very low income standards as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Very low income households are those earning less than fifty percent of the Sonoma County median household income by household size.

T. "Three year period" means any three consecutive years, i.e., 1990, 1991, 1992 followed by 1991, 1992, 1993.

U. "Secondary allocation pool." The secondary pool is comprised of allocations from any previous years that were: 1) forfeited due to an applicant’s failure to meet the requirements of the growth management system, 2) not issued from a set pool, or 3) issued but not utilized by the approved project (i.e., where the allocations issued exceeded the number of units approved). The secondary pool’s allocations are counted separately from those of the annual allocation pool.