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Home My WebLink About02-17-2015 PH1 Noble 2Subject: FW: "For the Record" E MEETING: Attachments: 2015_02_27_11_31 ITEM _49.pdf TEM O.:Y From: Noble Building Company [mailto:noblebldgco yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2015 11:40 AM FEB 2 7 2015 To: Marx, Jan; Ashbaugh, John; Carpenter, Dan; Christianson, Carlyn; Rivoire, Dan; Mejia, Anthony Cc: andrewCabstoneparkcapital.com; boblucas @aol.com Subject: "For the Record" Dear Gentlepersons: Attached, please find our response to the language set forth concerning mitigated landscaping at The Monday Club of San Luis Obispo. Thank you for your time in reviewing this letter. Kind regards, Christy Noble 2014 -2015 President `We MONDAY CLUB 1815 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo Post Office Box 167, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406 themondayclubslo.org February 27, 2015 San Luis Obispo City Council 990 Palm Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Attention: Mayor Jan Marx; imal,x(&..slocitv.ora Vice Mayor John Ashbaugh; JashbaughLchsloclty.org Council Member Dan Carpenter; dcarpenter @)Slocity.org Carlyn Christianson; cchristiR( locity.org Council Member Dan Rivoire; drivoire @slocitYorg City Clerk Anthony Mejia; amejia cr,slocity.org Dear Madam Mayor and City Council Members; Pursuant to the decision set forth at the February 17, 2015, City Council meeting regarding mitigated landscaping stipulations noted by Derek Johnson of the City Planning Department, we find it necessary to state for the record that at no time has The Monday Club agreed to the landscaping offered by the developer to soften the perceived massive scale of this project. The developer approached our Board of Directors in 2014, mentioning such potential landscape mitigation, but there was never even a nodded head in response to his suggestion. Additionally, lie made mention of the same at the neighborhood meeting that took place on January 8, 2015, held at The Monday Club. I-Ie made a general offer in discussion and did not ask anyone regarding suitability. Further in his letter to Marcus Carloni, dated January 2' ), 2015, Mr. Firestone never even makes mention of mitigated landscaping. We wish to make it known that we will control any desired planting on our property. No one at the City Council meeting made an effort to inquire about acceptability for The Monday Club to participate in such an arrangement. By the time this notion was slipped in, it was well past the public comment portion of the meeting and jumping up with an objection would have clearly been out of order. So, as a result we are driven to make our comment now. If anyone failed to listen, we are in the nomination process for the National Registry of Historic Places. Our perception was that the City government would be pleased and supportive. Instead, we feel that we were used as a pawn for public approval of the "concessions" made by the developer. We are not at liberty to make any changes to the historic presence of our building and grounds while being considered for this prestigious honor. Additionally, Mr. Garcia's landscape rendering is inconsistent with historic accuracy, indigenous application, and it lacks attention to drought resistant plants. 16nJrviap nnu1"y nl.IlnrAarr Paprn, .tip.�ml CnUrmon., Cehldnue Polyrrrhnii .1'nirr l' I y. Since this stipulation is now a matter of public record, may we also go on record to state that ive will select any desired plantings to mitigate this imposing obstruction to our viewscape. We will also control the time frame in which this planting shall occur, if at all. Thank you for the time you have taken to review our continued concerns. Sincerely yours, Christy oble President Cc: Andrew Firestone; andrew(@stoneparkcapital.com Bob Lucas; boblucas a,aol.coin Attachments: 1 January 23, 2015 Marcus Carloni City of San Luis Obispo Planning Department Dear Marcus, I wanted to explain. some of the changes we made to the design of the project at 1865 Monterey Street, and the reasons we decided to proactively make those adjustments prior to our City Council hearing on February 17 "h. We set out over 14 months ago creating a hotel project that we felt would be a good complement to the City Of San Luis Obispo. Understanding the complexity of SLO and especially Ordinance 1130, we knew that we would need to customize a design to fit the property and the neighborhood. i As you know, the project was approved through Administrative Use and the Architectural Review Commission (4 -1) with only slight alterations to the design. The interpretation of Ordinance 1130 and its implications were widely agreed upon by both Staff and the ARC. However, when the appeal by the San Luis Drive neighborhood was heard by the Planning Commission,.there was a different interpretation of Ordinance 1130, and the appeal was upheld (6 -1). After the ruling by the Planning Commission, I asked for a meeting with the SLD neighborhood group so that we could discuss the project and figure out if we could again take a proactive approach and find way to further adjust the project to satisfy the neighbors' concerns. Our meeting on January 81h with a group San Luis Drive neighbors was very productive, and, upon further consideration, we made the decision to revise the project in order to address the issues that seemed most important to the neighbors prior to the City Council meeting. Those revisions are as follows: Removal of all balconies on the creek- This Issue has been the biggest concern for neighbors, due to the fact that they felt this would be an invasion of privacy for the neighborhood and that the balconies would create a gathering spot for hotel guests to create noise. We had previously presented a change to the project to ARC that removed 3 of the balconies and reduced the size of 3 more, but the neighbors wanted us to further "minimize" the balconies. So, in order to completely satisfy the neighbors' concerns regarding the balconies, we went ahead and eliminated them altogether. The original design had 27 balconies facing the creek, which have now all been removed. I believe this new design should completely satisfy the issue of "minimizing openings on the creek ". Enclosing the lower parking garage- The neighbors were concerned that the noise and light that would be coming from the lower garage would disturb their privacy. We hired experts in both light and acoustics to study and explain the potential impacts of the garage, and how it would affect the neighbors on the opposite side of the creek. Although the professional analysis and expert testimony satisfied all measureable levels as set by the City of San Luis Obispo, we added additional sound and light attenuation measures at the request of the ARC. However, despite these facts, the neighbors were still concerned about this issue, and felt this needed further attention, Therefore, we mane the decision to fully enclose the lower parking garage to eliminate their concerns. Any issues that noise would be amplified from the garage and disturb the neighbors, or that headlights from cars might spill across the creek should be eliminated with this new design revision. I trust these concessions will show our commitment to building a superior project, as well as being good neighbors. Sincerely, i" 7 i.'xi 7ZI • 't Andrew Firestone