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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/8/2020 Item 2, Papp Wilbanks, Megan From:James Papp <jamesralphpapp@hotmail.com> Sent:Monday, To:CityClerk; Corey, Tyler Subject:545 Higuera correspondence for Planning Commission Attachments:545 Higuera correspondence Planning Commission Papp.pdf PDF attached. Thanks, James 1 1 Historicities LLC Sauer Adams Adobe 964 Chorro Street 6 January 2020 Dear Planning Commissioners, I’m writing regarding the proposed development at 545 Higuera. As you’re aware, the CHC and ARC now report to the Planning Commission, whose role must now include correcting any deficiencies in those bodies’ quasi-judicial deliberations, including any whose arbitrariness and capriciousness put the city in legal jeopardy. In my two terms as chair of the Cultural Heritage Committee, I took very seriously our committee’s responsibility to adhere, in an objective and consistent manner, to the city’s Historic Preservation Ordinance, Historic Preservation Guidelines, CEQA, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, and Certified Local Government Guidelines. I’ve had numerous conversations with the city attorney to that end, the theme of which has always been that the function of city advisory bodies is to apply the ordinances and guidelines as passed by the city council and not express individual members likes and dislikes. The council has said the same. The Architectural Review Commission’s function is to apply the Community Design Guidelines. As described by former mayor Jan Marx, a city council member at the time, the council instituted the Community Design Guidelines in 2002 when a large glass box was proposed for Court Street and the city’s standards were inadequate for preventing what was seen as an inconsistent and jarring addition to the streetscape. It is the stated policy of the council, through the ARC, “to protect, maintain and enhance the social and economic values created by past and present investments in the community by requiring all future development to respect these traditions … and become a compatible part of the total community environment, both in the local neighborhood and the city as a whole.” The ARC has held two hearings on 545 Higuera, at that time a large glass box (now two glass boxes) proposed for a residential district of much greater heritage and lower scale than Court Street. The relevant guidelines on infill residential development (5.3.A.1— 5.4.C.2., below) were presented to the ARC, as well as the relevant Downtown Design Guideline: Height and Scale (4.2.B.1.b.). At no time during these two hearings did any member of the ARC refer to the Community Design Guidelines (the audio is available). Instead, the ARC discussed and passed directions (decorative features in the door entryways and a color band on the second story) that have reference to the members’ personal likes and dislikes but none to the Community Design Guidelines. ARC members are aware the Guidelines exist and are familiar with at least some of their contents, proven by their willingness to apply them on other projects. The ARC has been meticulous about removing or diminishing balconies and terraces on projects across the creek from wealthy neighborhoods. Yet it made no objection to 17 balconies overlooking 545 Higuera’s neighboring house and yard, balconies in an apartment block that is now morphing into a hotel. No justification was given. This is arbitrary and capricious. The Community Design Guidelines are explicitly written to protect the interests of such people as 545’s neighbor, Jean Martin, a retired elementary school teacher. Not wealthy or considered of significance by the city elite, she has occupied her modest home, the Master 2 List Robert Pollard House, the oldest wood frame structure in San Luis Obispo still in its original location, for eighty-four years; her tenant has occupied the backyard cottage for 10 years. 545 Higuera would offer three stories of floor-to-ceiling glass and terraced viewing into their houses and yard, in direct contravention of the Guidelines. 545 Higuera is only ten percent smaller than the new terminal at San Luis Obispo Airport. It is, at 54 feet, functionally 6-stories high, and 50 times the square footage of its 1-story Master List neighbor. Originally designed with a solid wall facing Jean’s house, the two parts of the wall have been incrementally shifted, with only a 4th-floor sky bridge left between two glass boxes that will continue to present as a solid wall. It is proposed for a neighborhood consisting over 80 percent of single-story bungalows and single business buildings. It would overwhelm in incompatible massing, size, scale and architectural features these structures, including the adjacent Master List Robert Pollard House, Master List David Norcross House, and the Master List– and NRHP-eligible Antonio Pinho House. Pollard House, 1876 Henry House, pre-1903 Negranti Packard Repair Shop, 1928 Norcross House, 1874 E. D. Bray’s Wilkinson House, 1915 Firpo Duplex, 1926 Pinho House, circa 1887 Logan Apartments/Racing Stable, before 1903 Howey Bungalow, after 1916 This block of Nipomo, Higuera, Carmel, and Marsh contains a greater concentration of Master List and NRHP properties and Master List– and NRHP-eligible properties than any of our currently designated historic districts, including the NRHP Jack House and Jack Wash 3 House, Master List Kaetzel House and Downtown Creamery; Master List–eligible Logan Apartments/Racing Stable, Queen Anne Henry House, Neoclassic Lima House, Craftsman Howey Kit Bungalow, Pueblo Revival Firpo Duplex, industrial vernacular Negranti Packard Repair Shop, and Streamline Moderne Campbell Refrigeration Building; and NRHP-eligible Craftsman Wilkinson House, vernacular Jack Carriage House, and Gardenesque Jack Garden. That it was never designated a historic district is undeniably a product of wealth and class. Those who did the designation and mapped out our neighborhoods’ futures had and have their residences and offices in the Downtown, Old Town, and Mill Street districts. The West End was seen as marginal and expendable because nobody anybody knew lived there. No one even bothered to inventory its buildings in the historic resources survey. Zoned Retail Commercial and Downtown Commercial, this modest neighborhood is currently undergoing a rate of development with a cumulative impact unmatched by any other in San Luis Obispo in any other time, with so far appalling results, e.g., the reviled insta-slum of two-story prefabs packed around the historic Norcross House across the street. All that is left to protect this neighborhood and its residents are the city’s Historic Preservation Program Guidelines, Community Development Guidelines, and General Plan Land Use Element, which the proposed development at 545 Higuera/486 Marsh violates with a consistency and enormity that shows contempt for its neighbors, neighborhood, and our city’s government. Ironically, the new airport terminal would be a far better neighbor, as its scale is one-story and configuration gabled roofs. The current proposal is not in the ballpark of anything the Historic Preservation Program Guidelines, Community Development Guidelines, or General Plan Land Use Element—as adopted by the council—countenance. If the city wants to throw out those guidelines in aid of high-rise development in neighborhoods whose residents it doesn’t particularly care about, the council should make that decision and face the voters on it. In the meantime, it is the job of the Planning Commission to apply the guidelines as passed by the council objectively, consistently, and fairly for all residents and all neighborhoods. Yours sincerely, James Papp Current member and former chair, Cultural Heritage Committee Historian and Architectural Historian, Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards 4 1. The proposed development should be dramatically scaled back, broken up, pushed back from the street, and redesigned to be compatible with the surrounding small-scale, predominately one-story traditional residential and small business neighborhood The Community Design Guidelines state: “5.3.A.1. Infill residential development should be compatible in scale, siting, detailing, and overall character with adjacent buildings and those in the immediate neighborhood.” “5.3.B. An infill residential structure should incorporate the traditional architectural characteristics of existing houses in the neighborhood, including window and door spacing, exterior materials, roof style and pitch, ornamentation, and other details.” “5.3.C. The height of infill projects should be consistent with surrounding residential structures. Where greater height is required, an infill structure should set back upper floors from the edge of the first story to reduce impacts on smaller adjacent homes, and to protect solar access.” “5.4.A.1. Site planning for a multi-family … housing project should … consider the existing character of the surrounding residential area. New development should respect the privacy of adjacent residential uses through appropriate building orientation and structure height, so that windows do not overlook and impair the privacy of the indoor or outdoor living space of adjacent units.” “5.4.A.3. Multi-family structures should be set back from adjacent public streets consistent with the prevailing setback pattern of the immediate neighborhood.” “5.4.C.1. A structure with three or more attached units should incorporate significant wall and roof articulation to reduce apparent scale. … Structures exceeding 150 feet in length are discouraged.” “5.4.C.2. Structures with greater height may require additional setbacks at the ground floor level and/or upper levels (stepped down)along the street frontage so they do not shade adjacent properties or visually dominate the neighborhood. Large projects should be broken up into groups of structures, and large single structures should be avoided.” “4.2.B.1.b. Downtown Design Guidelines: Height and Scale. New buildings that are significantly taller or shorter than adjacent buildings shall provide appropriate visual transitions.” The city’s General Plan Land Use Element states that new buildings in downtown “should be set back above the second or third level to maintain a street façade that is consistent with the historic pattern of development” (Policy 4.16.4). 2. The proposed development should be redesigned to incorporate mass, form, and design components that relate to existing historic elements of adjacent historic structures, including the incompatible flat roof and glass walls 5 The Historic Preservation Program Guidelines gives the examples of a flat roof as “not compatible to existing district roofs” and block developments as being “too tall and thin” (3.2.2. Architectural Compatibility, Figure 3). 3. The proposed development should be reviewed by the Cultural Heritage Committee The Historic Preservation Program Guidelines state that “the CHC reviews development in historic districts for compatibility with nearby historic resources” (“3.2.2. Architectural Compatibility”) and that “listed historic resources outside of historic districts shall be subject to the same protection and regulations applicable to historic resources within historic districts” (“3.3.1. Historic Resources outside Historic Districts”). Hence the San Luis Square project was reviewed by both CHC and ARC for its adjacency to the Jack House and Garden, Downtown Creamery, and Kaetzel House. The proposed development is adjacent to the Master List Pollard House, the Master List Norcross House, and the Master List– and 6 NRHP-eligible Pinho House. The neighboring Pollard House was considered sensitive enough to require a report by an architectural historian but not evaluation of that report by the Cultural Heritage Committee.