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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/26/2020 Item 2 & 3, Papp Wilbanks, Megan From:James Papp < To:CityClerk; Wilbanks, Megan Subject:Correspondence for Planning Commission's meeting this evening Attachments:PC letter 545 & 564 Higuera 2020 2 25.pdf Refers to two separate items on the docket. Thanks! Your office gets well deserved ginger snaps. James 1 1 Historicities LLC Sauer-Adams Adobe 964 Chorro Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93406 25 February 2020 Dear Planning Commissions: I’m writing about the project at 545 Higuera-486 Marsh and the project at 564 Higuera across the street regarding two related issues: • application of the Community Design Guidelines • the invalidity of a Class 32 infill exemption from environmental review Apologies in advance for being technical rather than eloquent. 545 Higuera–486 Marsh: 50 feet tall, 275 feet long with skybridge; adjacent Master List Pollard House to scale The Community Design Guidelines Applicant’s response to the Planning Commission’s direction has been to change some street façade siding to brick (which is not a feature in the surrounding North Higuera neighborhood, except for one non-historic building, the Bank of the Sierra), alter the windows slightly, and add more balconies (further impairing neighbors’ privacy). But these appear nugatory—as the picture above illustrates—in making the development more compatible with this, as Commissioner Jorgensen put it, “deeply historic part of town.” The Community Design Guidelines are thoroughly and thoughtfully constructed to create neighborhood compatibility, in credit to their many contributors, like Commissioner Stevenson, and the City Councils who have both passed and confirmed them. I recently asked the City Attorney whether the Community Design Guidelines are a buffet from which applicants and staff may choose only the ones they like or whether, as the guidelines state, “‘should’ language is intended to be followed unless there are specific extenuating circumstances.” She answered as I knew she would: they are not a buffet. I also note that they have objective standards. I list the most relevant ones below. Neither the applicant nor the city has offered any specific extenuating circumstances why they should not be applied. Ten Over Studio has clever and creative architects. The Community Development Department has hardworking staff. Between them, they can come up with a way to apply the guidelines and achieve density other than in a big glass box from “Anywhere USA,” which is what the Guidelines, as Jan Marx points out, were first created to prevent. 2 545 Higuera-486 Marsh is an example of horizontal density and thoughtless vertical sprawl. For this 50-foot by nearly 300-foot wall dividing the historic North Higuera neighborhood in two, with its twelve-foot ceilings, the city achieves a mere 29 apartments on 2 floors, fewer than half the units of the hideous but at least relatively inconspicuous development hunkered behind the Norcross House. The point with 545 seems to be that, as in New York skyscrapers with “mechanical” floors to raise their height, wealthy people will only live in a modest neighborhood if they can look down on everyone else. But that means the people already living there have to be looked down on, with their light and views blocked. The Community Design Guidelines were explicitly written to prevent this. Note they apply to the “neighborhood,” not just those zoned residential. “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.” The LUCE The reason the Community Design Guidelines are so important to enforce is they are the mitigation that the LUCE EIR refers to to make less than significant the LUCE’s impact: Impact AES-2: The LUCE Update emphasizes both reuse of existing urbanized lands, infill development on vacant parcels, and new development on vacant parcels near urban areas. The development of such areas could degrade the existing visual character and its surroundings. With the incorporation of the proposed LUCE 3 Update and existing City policies and programs, potential impacts related to existing visual character changes are considered Class III, less than significant. To mitigate environmental impact, it is not enough for the city to have design guidelines—it has to actually apply them. This is emphasized by two CEQA rulings on aesthetic impact by the same district appeals court (the 4th) in the same year (2004). In Bowman v. City of Berkeley, the developer consulted with the local neighborhood, reduced project height and massing, and made thoughtful and genuine responses to the planning process, and the court ruled that the local planning process was adequate to address aesthetic concerns without an EIR. In contrast, in Pocket Protectors v. City of Sacramento, the court noted the lack of enforcement of Sacramento’s Planned Unit Development Guidelines, in a situation comparable to San Luis Obispo's lack of enforcement of the Community Design Guidelines: “While some planning issues are inherently technical, the potential adverse environmental effects of minimizing the open space and landscaping required by the PUD are not”; “It is true that the MND found the project consistent with the PUD. However, its findings are devoid of reasoning and evidence”; and “Regis asserts its project is within the PUD’s approved density for the site. … Maximum density is only one of the PUD’s conditions for development of R-1A sites.” Exemption from Environmental Review: Exception for Cumulative Aesthetic Impact Professor Krieger, Professor Cooper, and I have made a previous fair argument with substantial evidence that the cumulative impact exception to the infill exemption applies in this case. The recent ruling in Georgetown Preservation Society v. County of El Dorado (Court of Appeal, 3rd District, 2018) supports this in a situation closely analogous to the North Higuera neighborhood. The court upheld the validity of a fair argument on aesthetic impact that a big box store in a historic neighborhood “was too big and too boxy or monolithic to blend in, such that its presence will damage the look and feel of the historic center of Georgetown.” It rejected the county’s arguments that design review is entitled to deference and should be held under a substantial evidence test, that lay public testimony on aesthetics does not establish a fair argument, and that the area in question was not a designated historic district. Applicant’s historian has already introduced the existence of cumulative impact in this case. Cumulative impact consists of “successive projects of the same type and in the same place,” a standard met in the current instance. “Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant projects taking place over a period of time.” “If a cumulative impact was adequately addressed in a prior EIR for a community plan, zoning action, or general plan, and the project is consistent with that plan or action,” that can obviate the need for an EIR. SLO’s LUCE does indeed address aesthetic impact, but in part by applying the Community Design Guidelines. Impact on Cultural Resources it mitigates with this direction in the Conservation and Open Space Element: In evaluating new public or private development, the City should/shall identify and protect neighborhoods or districts having historical character due to the collective effect of Contributing or Master List historic properties. 4 This is a clear reference to historic neighborhoods, like North Higuera, that have not been formally designated as historic districts. The North Higuera block, two years ago, had 59 total structures, 7 of them Master Listed, the same proportion as the Railroad Historic District and twice the proportion of the Mill Street Historic District. But in the six years since the LUCE, the city has manifestly not followed this direction in its own Conservation Element, and specifically not in this case. Though the State Office of Historic Preservation recommends a historic resources survey every 5 years, San Luis Obispo has not done one in 37 years (despite recent continuous urging by the CHC). The city has not created a historic district in almost a quarter of a century, despite several having been recommended by its own consultants. Notably, applicant’s historic preservation report addresses impact only on individual structures, not on a “neighborhood … having historical character due to the collective effect of Contributing or Master List historic properties.” Additionally, Communities for a Better Environment v. California Resources Agency (Court of Appeal, 3rd District, 2002) concludes, “If there is substantial evidence that the possible effects of a particular project are still cumulatively considerable notwithstanding that the project complies with the specified plan or mitigation program addressing the cumulative problem, an EIR must be prepared for the project.” Exemption from Environmental Review: Exception for Impact on Historic Resources The historicity of an unlisted resource is no longer subject to fair argument (Willow Glen Trestle), though the city should provide substantial evidence that the North Higuera neighborhood is not a historic resource; Krieger, Cooper, and I posit it would qualify for the California Register of Historic Resources, that is, as a mandatory resource. However, impact on a historic resource is still subject to fair argument. Since a historic preservation report was required for this project, the city has recognized that individual historic resources are potentially impacted. The question in this letter (and fair argument) is whether that impact is potentially significant. SWCA has already made that fair argument. SWCA’s report argues that the project is “incompatible” with these historic individual resources. As I wrote earlier in this letter, the fact that SWCA recommended mitigations can only mean that it believes the impacts before mitigation are significant. The fact that the applicant did not accept (and the city did not impose) the majority of those mitigations, and that the author of the report refuses to state the response satisfies the report’s recommendations for improving compatibility, suggests the impacts remain significant. These impacts on the Master List Pollard and Norcross Houses and presumptive historical resource the Pinho House (this last having been consistently treated so in city documents with conditions for preservation and interpretive display)—as well as to a lesser extent the Jack House and Garden—include effects that would “greatly impact … integrity of setting, feeling, and association,” three of the NRHP’s seven aspects of integrity. Notably, in the California Office of Historic Preservation CEQA Case Study on “Infill Development Projects: Understanding Impacts to Historical Resources” (June 2015), impact on setting and feeling alone was considered sufficient to trigger substantial mitigations. The city claims that because the impacts would not cause delisting, they are not significant. This is a definition that does not occur in CEQA and has never been supported by the 5 courts. CEQA’s definition of a significant impact is a substantial adverse change in the significance of a historic resource; its definition of a substantial adverse change in the significance of a historic resource is one that “materially alters in an adverse manner those physical characteristics that account for its inclusion in a local register of historical resources.” It says nothing about making it ineligible for the local register—and for good reason. Putting a McDonald’s on the porch of Mount Vernon would not remove it from historical listing, but no reasonable person would argue that that would not materially alter in an adverse manner those physical characteristics that account for its inclusion.” In short, the overwhelming size and undifferentiated massing of 545 Higuera–486 Marsh materially alter in an adverse manner the physical characteristics of the modest, eclectic cottages, service buildings, villa, and cultural landscape that surround it, in setting, feeling, and association, including by creating a massive wall to divide their relationship to each other and the rest of this 150-year-old neighborhood of small houses and small businesses. 564 Higuera This project shares most of the characteristics of 545 Higuera–486 Marsh, being 50 feet tall, though less long and somewhat less boxy. It is adjacent to the Master List Golden State Creamery (one story), the Master List Norcross House (unless its developer has succeeded in dividing and selling off the house lot), and (across the stream) the Contributing List 531, 543, and 547 Dana Street. It is in the viewshed of the Pollard House, Jack House, and Master List Anderson and Barneberg Houses. It is mystifying why it did not receive identical treatment to the 544-486 in having a historic preservation report required. For precisely the same reasons as with 545-486 given above, it should also have CEQA environmental review: impact on the adjacent and surrounding listed historic resources setting, feeling, and association through the addition of a building five time the height (in the case of the Creamery) of its historic neighbors. It is part of the cumulative impact and still more evidence that the city is completely ignoring its obligation under the LUCE EIR, “in evaluating new public or private development … [to] identify and protect neighborhoods or districts having historical character due to the collective effect of Contributing or Master List historic properties,” in particular the North Higuera neighborhood. This neighborhood has, in Commissioner Dandekar’s words, reached a tipping point, one that will be irreversible. On the following pages, to flesh out Commissioner McKenzie’s previous description of the variety of historic building styles in the neighborhood and demonstrate the setting, I provide 28 examples of Master and Contributing List–eligible structures, as well as examples of the individual and cumulative impact of new developments. Sincerely, James Papp, PhD Historian & Architectural Historian, SOI Professional Qualification Standards 6 Historic Faces of the North Higuera Neighborhood The Block Bounded by Higuera, Carmel, Marsh, and Nipomo Streets Jack House, Italianate, William Evans, architect, 1878 Campbell Refrigeration Building, Streamline Moderne, circa 1941 Fire Alarm, circa 1906 Logan Apartments, Craftsman remodel of 1887 racing stable, 1923 Pollard House, 1876 Ranch House with circa 1916 E. D. Bray pergola Firpo Duplex, Spanish Revival, 1926 Connolly Cottage, Italianate/Folk Victorian, by 1903 Dody Cottage Court, Craftsman, 1923 Henry House, Queen Anne, by 1906 Howey Bungalow, Craftsman kit house, after 1916 Kaetzel House, Queen Anne, 1905 Modernist office, circa 1960 Kinkade House, Minimal Traditional, remodel circa 1921 Lima House, Neoclassical, circa 1900 Negranti Packard Dealership, Streamline Moderne, late 1930s Johnston Bungalow, Craftsman, 1922 7 Negranti Packard Repair Shop, stepped gable, 1928 Parker Cottage, Folk Victorian, by 1903 Golden State Creamery, 1910 and later, Mission Revival Johnston Court, Craftsman, 1921 Smith House, 1922 Norcross House, Carpenter Gothic, 1874 Pinho House, Italianate, circa 1887 Rogers Bungalow, Craftsman, 1933 Wilkinson House, Craftsman, E. D. Bray architect, 1915 Streamline Moderne house, circa 1940 Whitaker Duplex, Craftsman, by 1926 Jack Wash House, Italianate, by 1886 Jack Carriage House, Vernacular, by 1876, and Jack Garden, Gardenesque, circa 1879 Jack Carriage House and Jack Garden circa 1885 8 And new development … 545 Higuera–486 Marsh, at over 50,000 sq. feet, 50 times larger than neighboring Pollard House A continuous deck on the fourth floor of both buildings creates a party terrace for 13 apartments. A further 9 balconies overlook the two buildings’ adjoining residential property. 9 New development around the 1874 Carpenter Gothic Norcross House, 30 prefabricated corrugated metal boxes. Originally promised to be low-income housing, they were offered for sale at nearly half a million dollars each. New luxury development next to the Craftsman Whitaker Duplex. Nice for the millionaire occupants, not so nice for the neighbors who lose all light and views—but coming soon to a neighborhood near you! 10 The five-story Lofts at the Creamery, blocking views of the hills even from the above- ground vantage point in this artist’s conception. San Luis Square, with 60-foot walls looming 4 feet from the Jack Garden, the oldest designed landscape in San Luis Obispo, a public park, and the focal point of the North Higuera Neighborhood. When it was pointed out that the Community Design Guidelines state, “New buildings shall not obstruct … sunlight to publicly-owned gathering places, including … the Jack House gardens,” the city took the truly shocking position that trees already “obstructed” sunlight so new buildings didn’t matter.