HomeMy WebLinkAbout9/8/2025 Item 4a, Hamlin
Robin Hamlin <
To:Advisory Bodies
Cc:Hanh, Hannah; German Auto; Jim Thane; Ellyn Donovan; Rick Griswold
Subject:ARC Meeting 9/8/25. Item 4a.
Dear Commissioners,
My objection to the above building and development project is that you and/or other City staff, have deviated
from the CIty’s building standards to allow this project to exceed the build established height limits, setbacks,
and the parking requirements. I don’t object to the housing project in general or the gas works building
becoming a restaurant, but I would like you to do everything in your power to keep all this built within the
established limits and to recommend modifications in height, setbacks, and parking spaces. This will mean I
assume that you and City staff will have to make arguments against the developer's push, and maybe others
pushing in the City as well, for more and more downtown housing. You as the ARC have in my opinion the
responsibility to keep building projects as pleasant and safe as possible for the neighborhood, the future
building residents, and the public. This means more than aesthetics of the proposed building. It involves
judgments of character and fit to the town. You don’t have to please the developers, the Mayor, the City
Council. If the project involves complex negotiations over future income for the City from governmental
sources based on maximizing the number of housing units built, let other stakeholders fight those battles.
I think the developer has dug up every possible exception to the City standards and has offered more units in
exchange for waiving heights and setbacks and parking restrictions. I as an ordinary property owner, and
other owners and non-developers in the neighborhood, simply do not know the game and the governmental
rules like the developers do and that you or most of you do. I respectfully ASK that you who know both sides
of the arguments, please stand up for the city standards and insist that the project be modified to comply. I
believe that the developers and owners of the project property can survive well enough if the project is
restricted to three stories and meeting the other SLO standards. I ask that you as part of the "city fathers”
recognize that actions allowed to go beyond the established standards will forever change the character of the
neighborhood, impact the town, and set precedents for more exceptions. We will end up with an evermore
crowded downtown and will lose the various unique neighborhoods of SLO. SLO cannot retain its small town
character if four story housing projects begin to dot the downtown core area, sacrificing neighborhood
character for a massive residential building built right up to the sidewalks that has been disguised with facade
variations in material, a variety of colors, plane and patios, surrounded b hardscape and walkways with trees
in cutouts, one central paved court yard, rustic planters, but no lawns, no open spaces, no actual gardens.
Why not build only a three story building instead of allowing four? Why give up the setback from the sidewalk?
How does money really play into these questions? I would like to hear the reasons why those exceptions were
initially granted. You as Architectural Review Commissioners, the Community Development Director, and City
Council, can insist on maintaining the setbacks and height limits. Every time exceptions like these are allowed,
they make the town less pleasant, less charming, more crowded, less family friendly. The residential building
has the design and feeling of an office building or a college dorm. The children in families who live there, if
any, will be playing in the alley.
Sincerely,
Robin Hamlin
Owner 1325 Archer and adjacent parking lot on Pacific.
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