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Public Comments to SLO City Council — May 20, 2014
My name is Paul Allen. I have been a resident of SLO for 44 years, and have lived in the Foothill Area
for 40.
I'm speaking tonight in support of families in the Monterey Heights and Alta Vista neighborhoods, as
they keep trying to mitigate the harsh impact that Cal Poly's planned freshman dormitory, Housing
South, will have on their family homes and neighborhoods. More homeowners from those
neighborhoods would be here speaking to you tonight, but they have gone down to Long Beach to
testify about the dorm to the CSU Trustees meeting.
I believe it is wrong for two City Council members to have effectively killed any productive or
meaningful interaction the City might have had with Cal Poly regarding this intrusive dormitory. If the
City Planning Commission were reviewing this as a project within our city limits, you know very well
that at the very least, there would be a long list of serious mitigations imposed on this project, if not a
prompt, outright denial.
Lack of effective City input on this project has contributed to weakening decades of mostly cooperative
interaction with Cal Poly, where the University and the City frequently tried to work as partners. It has
contributed to giving Cal Poly even more feeling of empowerment to "go their own way ", without
concerns for the vitality of San Luis Obispo.
With the Final EIR on Housing South now completed, neighborhood residents and even the City's
Community Development Director, Derek Johnson, have identified numerous specific areas where the
EIR is either inadequate, or where proposed mitigations are insufficient or unacceptable in dealing with
the impacts. Derek Johnson is also down at Long Beach now, presumably presenting those same
findings to the Trustees.
Whether the Trustees will take all of the opposing testimony into consideration, or even take the time to
hear it, remains to be seen. My understanding is that the Trustees have set aside 30 minutes in today's
agenda to hear about Housing South, and that includes any presentation from Cal Poly. Most likely,
they will not have time to hear opposing testimony, and will just rubber -stamp Cal Poly's requests to
approve the FEIR and move forward with Housing South.
All City Council members and the Mayor were elected to defend the interests of the city, its homes and
neighborhoods, and the quality of life we now enjoy. The citizens of SLO have every right to expect
you to take this responsibility seriously, and in light of the cursory treatment given to healthy
neighborhoods by Cal Poly and their Housing South project, to now proceed to the unavoidable next
step. At the March 25 public hearing held at the Ludwick Center, even the two City Council holdouts
promised to take that next step: to sue Cal Poly or the CSU Trustees over the adequacy of the EIR, and
the unacceptable impacts the project brings to long -time family homes in adjacent neighborhoods.
As I and others have stated repeatedly over the past 6 months, in comments to your City Council, on
the radio, and in letters to the Editor of the Tribune, we desperately need the Council to stand up and
speak out for the interests of SLO citizens, and for the sanctity of family homes in our town. We need
you to protect the admirable quality of life that we have all built here over the decades. Please stand up
and defend us!