I scheme suggest that city planning staff may reject an application because it believes more <br />2 information is. necessary or because it believes approval of the proposal requires that the <br />3 applicant file an additional or different application. On the contrary, it is reasonably clear <br />4 under that statutory scheme that, once a permit application is filed "upon such forms and in <br />5 such a manner as the city council prescribes" and that application becomes "complete," the <br />6 city niust follow the procedures prescribed in ORS 227.175 and render a decision on the <br />7 merits of that applicatio _ <br />8 It may well be, of course, that under the present circumstances the hearings officer <br />9 will find that the information submitted does not support approval and the hearings officer <br />10 will deny the application. We understand the city to argue that there is no point in expending <br />11 additional time and money on the required statutory procedures, once the city has determined <br />12 that the permit application cannot be approved in its current state. The problem with that <br />13 argument is that both the statute and code require that a hearings officer, not the planning <br />14 director, render a decision on a permit application, after a hearing or other procedure that <br />15 affords the applicant and others the opportunity to present evidence and argument to the <br />16 hearings officer. It might be that if the planning director had allowed the present application <br />17 to come before the hearings officer, the hearings officer would have disagreed with the <br />18 planning director's view of the code, or with the planning director's view that the proposed <br />19 development can only be approved if the applicant submits a new application that includes an <br />20 application to modify the 1995 CUP. We do not know, because the planning director's <br />21 decision effectively denied petitioner the opportunity to argue that point before the only <br />22 person who, under the statute and code, can make a decision on the permit application. <br />We do not understand the city to argue that it rejected the CIR-CUP application because it was not filed <br />"upon such forms and in such a manner as the city council prescribes" or because the application was <br />incomplete. <br />Page 11 <br />