How many members should Goleta’s Design Review Board have? Should they be a decision-making body or advisory only? These were some of the questions raised at the joint DRB/City Council study session Tuesday afternoon, which focused on the planning process.

While many of the big issues did not get definitive answers, the study session (third in a series), provided the council, DRB and staff a chance to air options and opinions, in time for the installment of the city’s long-awaited Planning Commission.

The DRB needs guidelines, said board chairman Carl Schneider. Operating in a “virtual vacuum” shortly after the city’s incorporation, the DRB has been criticized for its decisions on projects, which were often deemed too subjective.

Schneider recommended a rewrite of the city’s Zoning Ordinance, elimination of the 50 percent cap on home additions, having seven members on the board, allowing the DRB to remain a decision-making agency and televising the DRB meetings.

The council was strongly in favor of guidelines and televising the meetings, but was split on the issue of how many members and in what situations the DRB should be decision-making as opposed to advisory.

“It needs to have some teeth in it,” said council member Roger Aceves, commenting on the DRB’s need to remain decisionmakers in terms of residential reviews.

“The DRB can still have a tremendous impact in an advisory capacity,” said council member Eric Onnen, who allowed that the board could make decisions on new constructions as opposed to remodels or demolished and rebuilt residences.

Council member Michael Bennett said he “felt more comfortable having the DRB as a decision-making board” if certain triggers for review — like any home additions over 500 square feet regardless of location — were removed.

As far as capital projects — large projects to build or improve city-owned facilities — much of the opinion leaned toward making the DRB an advisory committee, because of city budget and funding issues.

While members Onnen and Bennett and Mayor Jean Blois said that having a five-member committee (the DRB currently has nine) would be more efficient, members Aceves, Jonny Wallis and DRB chair Schneider said a seven-member panel would be preferable because it would allow for more members to form a quorum in case one or more of the architects or designers on the board had a conflict of interest with a client and had to recuse themselves.