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Home My WebLink About06-10-2014 ph1 lopes (4)Kremke, Kate From: Mejia, Anthony Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 4:16 PM To: Kremke, Kate Subject: FW: Reflections on City Council Item PH -1; 1327 Osos St. ; 6 -10 -14 06/10/14 PH1 Anthony J. Mejia 1 City Clerk Ot.y° 01' SAr) ltat� OBISI)O 990 Palm Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 tel 1805 783 7102 1~:Cdi l3 JUN 1 1 2014 AGENDAcw. ,, i< CORR SPONDENCE Date .6 ° 11 f Item ##__F__R 1 From: James Lopes [mailto:jameslopes @charter.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 3:35 PM To: Ashbaugh, John; Carpenter, Dan; Codron, Michael; Dietrick, Christine; Lichtig, Katie; Marx, Jan; Smith, Kathy; Mejia, Anthony Subject: Reflections on City Council Item PH -1; 1327 Osos St. ; 6 -10 -14 June 11, 2014 Honorable Mayor and Council Members: RE: Save Our Downtown presentation on 1327 Osos Street; Item PH -1 City Council 6 -10 -14 The above referenced hearing was very confusing and perplexing. My apology for presenting only partial comments concerning the parking shortage and implication for the Vesting Tract Map. I was not able to include all of the concerns of Save Our Downtown (SOD) verbally in my allotted three minutes. In the future, our organization will attempt to divide our comments into more than one presenter. You surely are aware that a project such as this may be in process for years, but then only surface to the public and SOD when the 10 -day legal ad notice is published. Within that 10 days, we may have time to do our homework to deliver written comments to you before the week of the hearing. We may have just enough time to meet with you if you like. But, we do not have time to organize cogent comments very well at the hearing in response to new applicant and staff information. As important, during that 10 days, staff has long before already made up their minds and issued a recommendation in the staff report. They are not going to change their recommendation based on our input to them, I have been told. This attitude is inconsistent with my professional planning experience. So, on the City's part, it would be a great benefit at least to increase the public comment time from three to five minutes. This suggestion is made with the understanding that frivolous or uninformed speakers would have 40% more time to expound. The more important problem is that the existing three minutes does not allow time for any comments that are in- depth or multi - pointed. The main point of my presentation was at the end of a last- minute analysis I distributed to you at the hearing. It corrected an inaccurate tabulation done by staff in the report. I'll describe it briefly in reverse order of my handout: The Office building of the project should be reduced by at least 3,000 square feet (of the 8,030 sq. ft. proposed) to balance with the number of required parking spaces. The reduction needs to reflect that 10 parking spaces are the net shortage after taking the 10% reduction for shared common parking area for three unassigned residential spaces. No 20% reduction should be made for the mixed use nature of the project, since the residential units have assigned parking spaces and will not be "sharing parking. (Section 17.16.060.C)" Only the 3 unassigned parking spaces could conceivably be granted a 30% mixed use reduction in the Office common parking area, reducing the net shortage to 9 spaces or 2,700 square feet. The current code Section 17.16.060.0 absolutely needs to be re- written to be more specific on this matter in order to avoid more parking congestion on the streets. Our recommendation was for your Council to continue the Vesting Tract Map and reduce the size of the project. This presentation gave you specific numbers to discuss, so that the Tentative Map would reflect a zero shortage of parking spaces. All of this analysis will be delivered to the Architectural Review Commission, but I want you to understand the missing part of my presentation. Staff will also be addressed with questions as to why the grand total of 47 required parking spaces is proposed for a 30% reduction when only 29 are concerned with the Office common parking area. I am disappointed that the unique, open -ended nature of the now - approved Tentative Vesting Tract Map was revealed only at the hearing, by two different staff persons. • I checked the staff report after last night's hearing and confirmed that "air space tract map," "common interest subdivision" or other wording was not mentioned, nor was the policy of the common interest subdivision being required to have ARC approval. The staff report also did not have an exhibit showing the actual tract map, which was highly unusual for a subdivision report. I had to ask for a copy to be sent me. • No request was made by Council members for more elaboration or information from my presentation (it is within your purview to ask for more information from presenters, I believe). My comment stands that your approval of the tentative map will cloud or intrude on the perceptions and discussion of the Architectural Review Commission. After all, your Council approved the map - I can see it as a newspaper headline. It was highly unusual for the proposal be made to you in advance of design review, particularly if in fact it makes no difference in the discretion of the ARC. The disorder that was created did not advance the notion that we should trust city planning in San Luis Obispo. And, it wakens in me the concerns expressed by Dave Hannings, about whether the City is working to advance developer's interests rather than community ones which are expressed in the City General Plan and Zoning code standards. We have been accused of being negative, and I think we have and will answer that we are indeed positive about many aspects of city growth and livability. Now I ask you why the City staff, commissions and your Council are so negative to early and late input by the community in its planning processes. Regards, Jamie Lopes James Lopes 1336 Sweet Bay Lane San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Ph. 805 -781 -8960