HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/4/2023 Item 4a, Nguyen
Kimmie Nguyen <
To:Advisory Bodies
Subject:Item 4.a for 12/4 Architectural Review Commission
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Hello Commissioners,
I am writing to you on the Item 4.a at 460 Pacific to express my unequivocal support of this project.
460 Pacific
This is kind of the perfect spot for a 3-story apartment building. I would love to live in an apartment like this and I can
assure you, whether or not the architectural style was to my exact taste wouldn't really matter to me. What would
matter to me is being only a short walk from a great park and Downtown amenities that I want to patronize. I definitely
don't think about the roof shingles, balcony railing material, or facade articulation of the place I currently call home - but
I do think constantly about how expensive it is. Right now Downtown is out of reach for my family, but I hope the City of
SLO will follow up on its many promises of adding more inventory to this area.
Please avoid making substantive changes to this project that would affect the number of homes, or the size/quality of
those homes. As you know, this is a crazy time in construction with interest rates and financing. Changes perceived as
minor or cosmetic - such as setting back upper floors, reducing the building size, facade articulation - may add costs that
make this project unable to pencil out.
When I think of neighborhood character, I think about the people that are able to live there and that I get to meet and
bump into every day. It is totally reductive and subjective to say character is all about height or the width of a building. I
worry when the City uses "neighborhood character" as a cover to completely shy away from necessary changes. The
days of addressing our housing shortages through huge subdivisions are nearing an end - so we have to look at building
up.
Here's a quick map of all of the 3-story and 4-story structures in the area - it may not even be all of them. There's a good
precedent for taller structures in this neighborhood, even on this specific block. And there's a good basis for allowing for
taller residential structures, rather than just maintaining the status quo, so the City can meet its housing policy goals.
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On future projects like this one
The ARC may be in a tough spot for this project and future projects like it. There are aesthetic guidelines to uphold, but
the City has ambitious goals for housing and so does the State. There are ramifications for imposing design changes
that effectively decrease the density that is allowed by-right in residential zones. Getting every small-scale project to
go through review by this body does add significant costs and delays, especially for independent builders and individual
property owners on smaller properties like this who cannot absorb that sort of uncertainty.
I would support design standards applicable to multifamily homes that are clear, established upfront, and not cost-
prohibitive for construction. The City should not be regulating through Community Design Guidelines where so much is
unclear and open to interpretation that even staff cannot adequately make a decision on whether to support this
project or not.
The City recently adopted objective design standards (SLOMC Chapter 17.69) which apparently do not apply to this
project, but something in that vein should apply to all residential projects and would benefit the community. The
Architectural Review Commission should be a primary stakeholder in developing those types of new
standards, should that effort come forward at some point.
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Thank you for your consideration,
Kimmie Nguyen
Resident
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