HomeMy WebLinkAbout545 HIGUERA STREET__486 MARSH STREET_ ARCH-0017-2019June 2, 2020
To: San Luis Obispo City Council
From: James Lopes
Subject: 545 HIGUERA STREET, 486 MARSH STREET, ARCH-0017-2019
Dear Mayor Harmon and Council Members,
I am not in support of approving this 50-foot tall, block-wide proposal,
and I support the appeal and comments by San Luis Architectural Protection.
I might add that my early comments in the project review were not
successful in persuasion. At hearings, I witnessed a casual,
unimpressed response by the ARC members to the City's Community Design
Guidelines. I currently see a staff report which is detailed and
active, but in all the details which are minor to the main points of the
guidelines. Is the staff trying to give us wrong information and
direction, when the most prominent is about the scale - size, massing
and setbacks, to start - not whether the upstairs porches have new posts.
I encourage you to ask for three-story buildings with a two-story side
on the west side, and perhaps using the driveway for a better garage
setting, with continued pedestrian walkway. It is not a "right" that
developers are entitled to 50-foot heights. Regardless of your thinking
that ordinance gives this away, it actually is always meant that the
height is "possible" if other setting issues (historicity) and settings
(residential one-story area), and continued consistency of character
(styles), are met well, and not ignored as they almost are in this
report. I am just over time so if you read this far - thank you so much!
Sincerely,
James Lopes