Read the staff report back: what staff recommended, and on what
Lesson 2 of 6 · Entitle it
1 · Learn the move · Template pattern
The staff report is the most useful document in the entitlement file and the most misread. Developers skim to the last page, see 'recommend approval', and walk out believing the site is halfway entitled. It is not. A staff report is the planning staff's analysis and recommendation to a body that is free to ignore it, and the recommendation almost always rests on findings, a plan consistency read, and a list of conditions that change the project. So you read it back in a fixed template, and the template is built to separate four things the report blends: what was requested, what staff recommended in its exact words, each finding and the record staff cited for it, and the conditions attached. The fifth section is the one that pays: what the report does not address. A missing traffic finding or a utility section that says 'to be determined' is the question for your engineer and counsel before the hearing, not after. The model fills the template from the report only, and a section with nothing behind it reads [NEEDS: ...].
Read the staff report below into exactly these sections: REQUEST AS STATED | RECOMMENDATION, QUOTED | FINDINGS, EACH WITH WHAT STAFF CITED | CONDITIONS PROPOSED | NOT ADDRESSED IN THIS REPORT. Quote, do not summarise, the recommendation. Do not say whether the request is likely to be approved. [staff report]
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
You have a 27.8-acre site under contract on Fenwarren Road in Halloway County, subject to rezoning, for a phased flex business community your firm would build and keep. The county posted the staff report for your own request nine days before the hearing. The partners at headquarters have heard 'staff is supportive' and want to know whether the deposit can go hard. Write the prompt that reads the report back in a shape that shows what staff actually said and what it did not.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.