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Home My WebLink About8/18/2020 Item 16, Cooper From:Allan Cooper < To:Codron, Michael; Bell, Kyle; E-mail Council Website Subject:1144 Chorro Street Attachments:908_17_20...lettertocouncilre1144chorro.pdf Dear Michael and Kyle - Would you kindly forward the letter attached below to the City Council? This letter pertains to the Council's August 18, 2020 review of a 75-foot tall project located at 1144 Chorro Street. Would you also ensure that this letter is included in the City's correspondence file? Stay safe and thanks! - Allan 1 Save Our Downtown ______________________________________________________________________________ Seeking to protect and promote the historical character, design, livability and economic success of downtown San Luis Obispo. To: San Luis Obispo City Council, Michael Codron & Kyle Bell Re: August 18, 2020 Public Hearing Item #16: 1144 Chorro Street  From: Allan Cooper, Secretary Save Our Downtown Date: August 17, 2020 Honorable Mayor and Council Members - You are being asked to approve a Planned Development Overlay rezone of 1144 Chorro Street, in exchange for the permanent preservation of an off-site building located at 868 and 870 Monterey Street, a new driveway along Marsh Street and the provision of a signiﬁcant public plaza. You are also being asked to allow a maximum building height of 75 feet, where 50 feet is the standard in the Downtown Commercial Zone. According to the City’s Municipal Code per 17.48.060 the Council may approve a rezoning to apply the PD overlay zone only for a project that incorporates a minimum of three of the following four features: A. A minimum of twenty-ﬁve percent of the residential units within the project are affordable to households of very low-, low-, or moderate-income households. (See Chapter 17.140: Affordable Housing Incentives for incentives provided for affordable housing development, including density bonuses and possible fee waivers.) B. The project will achieve greater energy efficiency than standard developments through the incorporation of green building techniques, scoring at least a Silver rating on the LEED or other equivalent rating system, or achieving zero-net energy use. C. The project will preserve, enhance, and/or create a signiﬁcant natural feature with a minimum open space area of one-quarter acre. D. The project will provide a substantial public amenity, for example, a signiﬁcant public plaza, a public park, or a similar improved open space feature, including provisions for guaranteed long-term maintenance not at the expense of the city. (Ord.1650 § 3 (Exh. B), 2018) Though the Planning Commission approved the 75-foot-tall, six-story, mixed-use project proposed to be located at 1144 Chorro Street, the Commissioners raised a number of questions which were not satisfactorily answered by either legal counsel, the architect or staff. The ﬁrst unanswered question pertains to 17.48.060 D - the provision of a signiﬁcant public plaza. The open space in question, i.e., the paseo running through the Downtown Centre, clearly does not need such protections. Per Commissioner Mike Wulkin’s comments, this paseo is perpetually protected through prescriptive easements. In other words, after ﬁve years (a period prescribed by the Code of Civil Procedure) of such use, the occupant, or user (in this case the City) holds a permanent "easement by prescription.” Though Commissioner Wulkin brought this irrefutable common law protection up for discussion, neither legal counsel nor staff chose to either address it or refute it. The second unanswered question pertains to the Land Use Element (LUE). The LUE states that “a maximum ﬂoor area ratio of 4.0 is awarded to approved buildings in nonresidential zones over 50 feet in height with the transfer of development credits for historic preservation.” In this case, the preservation of the Master Listed Muzio’s Grocery building. However, several Planning Commissioners questioned whether this building, by virtue of it being on the City’s Master List of Historic Resources (and also eligible for the National Register), already has sufficient protections from demolition. Staff answered by stating that listed historic resources can be demolished. What staff did not mention were all of the obstacles in place to prevent such demolitions. For example, listed historic resources shall not be demolished unless the City Council makes all of the ﬁndings speciﬁed below: 1. The historic resource is a hazard to public health or safety, and repair or stabilization is not structurally feasible. Deterioration resulting from the property owner’s neglect or failure to maintain the property should not be a justiﬁcation for demolition. The applicant may be required to provide structural reports, to the approval of the community development director or city council, to document that repairs or stabilization are not feasible; or 2. Denial of the application will constitute an economic hardship. Moreover, demolition of a master listed historic property additionally requires review and approval by the Cultural Heritage Committee and it requires the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report to assess the feasibility of alternatives to demolition. And let’s be frank. This transfer of development credits for historic preservation does not entirely redound to the beneﬁt of the City. Should the developer opt to give Muzio’s Grocery an historic preservation easement and the City agrees to this, best practices in this ﬁeld require the easement holder (i.e., the City of San Luis Obispo) to commit considerable resources to stewarding the property. This is compounded by the fact that the only meaningful way, outside of museum curatorship, to provide “whole” protection to a historic resource is to protect both interior and exterior elements. Finally, the architect Mark Rawson and the Planning Commission Chair Hemalata Dandekar, both stated that this project fulﬁlls the City’s goal of approving higher density housing and increased building heights to minimize urban sprawl (such as the Froom Ranch project). In our opinion, the Planning Commission and the City Council should seriously reassess this goal in light of the circumstances we currently ﬁnd ourselves. Given the compelling scientiﬁc evidence that the adverse effects of population growth, combined with irreversible climate change, contribute to the increase in zoonotic diseases, we should plan for the probability that there may never be a “post pandemic world”. Did you know that a recent Harris Poll found that nearly a third of Americans are considering relocating to less crowded places? Did you know that Harvard researchers and urban planners are now urging us to consider how a more dispersed city can thrive? The questions you should therefore ask yourselves are as follows: 1) Is it not irresponsible to approve housing where future tenants must live in cramped, close quarters?; and 2) Is it not irresponsible to approve housing that can only be accessed via elevators, narrow corridors and stairs where social distancing is nearly impossible? Thank you!