HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-04-2017 Item 16, Schmidt (5)R
COUNCIL MEETING:�1./-4/-1?_ 1
APR 0 3 2011
ITEM NO.: (�
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From: Richard Schmidt <
Sent: Saturday, April 1, 2017 4:12:02 PM
To: E-mail Council Website
Cc: Harmon, Heidi; Christianson, Carlyn; Rivoire, Dan; Gomez, Aaron; Pease, Andy
Subject: 71 Palomar appeal
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
Please see the attached comments on design issues with this project. Due to my size limits with myemail transmissions,
this email contains text, the next two photos. Apologies for the inconvenience of 3 emails instead of one.
Richard
Design Comments/Suggestions for 71 Palomar Project March 31, 2017
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
I urge you to uphold the appeal of this project, and order its substantial redesign.
This project is the wrong project in the wrong place. Furthermore, it has been mis-
processed by public planners acting in a dishonest advocacy role rather than as protectors of
adopted plans and the public interest they are paid to serve.
Here are some among many thoughts about deficiencies in this project's proposed design it
would be nice for you to address.
After each discussion, I've placed in underlined italics a recommendation for your action, to
make it easier for you to act upon what I'm suggesting.
The biggest problems with this proposed project are its total insensitivity to the unique
and beautiful site, to the surrounding neighborhood, to Nature and its creatures who
cannot attend your hearings and speak for themselves, and to the actual housinq needs
of our city. This young out-of-town developer needs to be instructed that to be a respected
player here he needs to respond to the high value this community places on its environment and
quality of life.
Site: This hilly Palomar site has 59 remarkable trees, some with three-foot diameter trunks,
that provide a beautiful ambiance for the historic Sandford House, a designated historic
landmark, and for the adjacent single family neighborhood. The trees create a local
microclimate — in fact that seems to be why many were planted; are important songbird, owl
and raptor habitat; and are seen as landmark skyline trees on the lower slopes of San Luis
Mountain from many points in the city's northern sector.
The trees are huge and capture a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They are
beautiful and wonderful.
[Sorry — file too big to email with picture — sent separately, fits here in discussion.]
(Caption: From Foothill Blvd., the trees at 71 Palomar stand as landmark skyline features against the slopes of San
Luis Mountain. The project proposes to destroy this.)
• The project proposes to remove almost all the trees to make way for generic anyplace -LA -style
apartment blocks rather than take the design care needed to fit new buildings among the trees.
The Council needs to protect the remarkable urban forest on this site.
• The design contemplates bulldozing the site's varied topography into virtual flatness. Look at
the site sections that show adjacent buildings on what's currently varied topography sitting on
nearly level ground. The Council should direct the designer to work with the topography, not
destroy it.
• The existing site is a historic cultural landscape of great interest and worthy of being
preserved. Cultural landscape preservation is the preferred method of dealing with sites such as
the Sandford House site, and this approach is endorsed by authorities as disparate as the
National Park Service (NPS, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places) and
UNESCO (the United Nations' protector of cultural heritage), and is called out in federal NEPA
law. The NPS defines cultural landscapes as "composed of a number of character -defining
features which, individually or collectively contribute to the landscape's physical appearance as
they have evolved over time. In addition to vegetation and topography, cultural landscapes may
include ... circulation features, such as roads, paths, steps, and walls; buildings; and
furnishings, including fences, benches, lights and sculptural objects." (Underline emphasis is
mine, calling attention to relevant issues at Palomar.)
The Palomar cultural landscape, as I read it in my status as an architectural historian, has two
components: one related to the formal "high -design" character of the Italian Renaissance
revival house, the other reflecting vernacular landscape tradition of turn of the century rural
California.
The formal landscape — meaning the deliberate sort of design scheme traditional architects
have practiced -- is found in front of the house. First, the house is placed prominently on a rise
(the proposed move of the house ignores this placement and is renders its re -placement both
visually and culturally meaningless). Next, plantings are aligned to create a strong axial
approach to the house. (An axis is an implied directional layout fixed not so much by a formal
line on the ground as one understood by demarcating its beginning, end and directionality.)
Here's how this axis works: four wonderful old trees reinforce the boundaries and direction of
this axis — two magnificent Eugenia close to the street, and two huge Araucaria heterophylla
closer to the house. (One of these, which the applicant would chop down, is among the tallest
documented Araucarias in California — per Matt Ritter's study.) Together, these provide a lovely
symmetrical approach to the front door of the house. In the opposite direction, heading away
from the house, the trees frame a view that's Florentine in its beauty, looking out over what is
now city into the hills beyond. This is all very carefully planned, it exemplifies an attention to
design detail not typical of 1890s suburban houses, and it would all be destroyed by the
proposed development's site -insensitive design.
(Caption: diagrammatic explanation of formal aspects of front yard cultural landscape: Palomar Ave. to bottom,
house entry at top, axial approach to front door and in reverse from door to lovely overlook view indicated by arrow,
reinforced by the four wonderful exotic trees. This indicates clear formal design intent. All this is lost if proposed
site -insensitive plan is approved.)
[Sorry — file too big to email with picture — sent separately, fits here in discussion.]
(Caption: Looking from house towards street end of axial pathway one has this "Florentine" view of the city below
and hills beyond. Thus the components that define the axis together with the two ends of the axis all have great
design meaning, all of which the proposed project would destroy. Note: Some project apologists claim this dense
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project would be no different from its surroundings in its density. That is false. You are looking down at the adjacent
R-4 density of the Village complex, and can see mainly rooftops. The adjacent high density is nothing like the big
city density proposed on Palomar. Developers of the Village also accommodated pre-existing site features —
notably the ribbon of riparian forest along Old Garden Creek — rather than obliterate them as the site -insensitive
Palomar design seeks to do. The Village developer cared about the site's qualities; this developer does not care.)
The vernacular landscape. Elsewhere on the site, the cultural landscape is more relaxed, in the
vernacular or "common" style. For example, the eucalyptus, typical of vernacular plantings at the
turn of the century, play important roles in the vernacular landscape plan. Those behind the
house provide a windbreak from the brisk afternoon northwest wind which otherwise would whip
across the site and the whole neighborhood. Those in the southwest corner of the site play
another familiar vernacular role, providing a shaded spot for warm -weather outdoor activity.
Note, however, these "shade trees" are thoughtfully placed to play that summertime role while
not interfering with the natural winter heat energy flow providing sunlight to heat the solarium,
which in turn would have heated much of the house interior.
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(Caption: The two aspects of the cultural landscape discussed above, the formal axial design of the front yard in
which a straight view line extends from front door to mountains — defined by the four noteworthy trees, and the
vernacular functional use of eucs behind the house for wind control and to the southwest for a shady summer
outdoor area. [Note: The "Heritage Tree" notations are for a proposal to designate heritage trees on the site,
obstructed by the applicant, and do not reflect any existing designations.])
The Council should make_ clear to the applicant that these cultural landsc,aDe features are.
important to reserve and need to be accommodated in a redesign of the pMLect. The Council
should not permit moving the house as doinq so renders much of the cultural landscape
meaningless.
Use: Our city needs family aaartments which could easily and interestinaly be accommodated
onthisunusual neighborhood site which is near elementary schools, where with sensitive
design there could be many wonderful and abundant places for kids to play outdoors, so why
are we wasting this precious and scarce land resource for a student dormitory that doesn't
belong in an established family neighborhood?
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There is no question that these "apartments" are dorms — they are laid out in a way that they
would not accommodate a family's life. Please remember that calling them "multi -family"
apartments is a zoning description, not a use description. They are dorms.
When I first saw the floor plans my reaction was "what the?" An "apartment" with a dinky demi-
kitchen adjoining a dinky social space — the only social space in the "apartment" —, a corridor
with huge double doors along it entering into 20 -foot long "bedrooms" and next to no storage
space.
The mystery was solved when I saw floor plans for the Ikon apartments (ikonslo.com).' It seems
the double doors are configured in the center of the long room so a partition can be placed
between the doors so each new "bedroom" has its own door. So, on Palomar, that means the
"two-bedroom" apartments are actually four-bedroom apartments, and the "three-bedroom"
apartments five bedroom apartments!2
The Council should determine whether staff figures parking requirements based on actual
bedrooms or on alleged bedrooms, as this plan layout could become a standard scam to reduce
parking requirements if not handled appropriately by the city.
Since they don't appear readily capable of adaptive reuse, what will happen to these Palomar
apartments when students no longer want to live in them?
The Council should direct the applicant to return with apartments that serve the needs of
workforce families rather than students.
The most common reason for demolishing a building is because it cannot be adapted to current
needs. To build such today is anti -sustainability. To promote sustainability and the longevity of
the buildings, the Council should direct that any design be capable of accommodating adaptive
reuse over time.
' According to the Ikon webpage, Ikon rents "from" $1099 per bed, and the places are rented by
the bed, not by the apartment. This is far from the "affordable housing" advertised to you and the
public at the time Ikon sought approval.
2 To me, the saddest thing is these are poorly designed even as dorm apartments. The spatial
layout is inferior to that of the newer dorm apartments on campus — which students love, partly
because they are ON campus, not off campus. Partitioned bedrooms are a long-term bad idea
that shortens the likely appeal of these dorms. Has the applicant done original research into
issues like what the kids want and what's the afterlife of these "apartments" when student tastes
inevitably change? (Recall that the Village was originally Tropicana Village, a student dorm, and
when the gloss wore off, students deserted, leaving the owners with a big problem. The
building's saving grace was decent and adaptable floor plans, which aren't evident in the
Palomar design, that enabled successful transition to senior housing.) It is possible to design
student dorms better. Cal Poly did extensive research on student preferences prior to building
its apartment dorms. The first step in designing the off -campus Pine Creek Condos, which at
25+ years old remain among the most popular off -campus student digs, was to conduct focus
groups by offering students $20 plus pizza to come discuss what they wanted in housing. This
sort of research is worth every penny spent on it.
Affordable Housing: When we approve a project, the affordable housing component should be
genuine and not just a cynical way to get benefits from providing "affordable" units. One thing
that would demonstrate actual concern, on the city's part and the applicants', would be equity of
quality and quantity of the affordable housing compared to other units.
In this case, several "affordable" studios have been tacked on. Yet the predominant units are "2"
and "3" bedroom units. This means the "affordable" housing is of a lesser quality, size, and
standard than the other units. Really, now, are we building "affordable" studios for single
mothers to live in with their kids? That's not right. The affordable apartments should be real
apartments, not cynical moves just to get density bonuses, parking reductions, and other gifts
from the city.
To obtain "affordable" houstgg credit the Council should require that the "affordable" units be
essentially the same in quality,size and standards in ratio to their total number. as the other
units in the proiect.
Energy and Climate: US buildings use about half the nation's energy. The common notion that
transportation has greater impacts is plain incorrect.
In 2.7 years from today, new residences in California like these will be required to be net zero
energy, meaning a building "makes" as much as it uses through some combination of energy
conservation, capturing natural/passive site energy flows plus installing active renewables to
reduce annual "net" energy use to zero from the grid. While California may lead the USA, we lag
other nations. In Great Britain, our 2020 deadline for residences applies to commercial
buildings, a more challenging mandate — and they don't have our benign climate to work with.
We can do this today, so why aren't we doing it instead of designing energy "dinosaur" buildings
right up to the net zero deadline? We pride ourselves, after all, on being an environmentally -
progressive city, so is this the best we can do?3
• A lot about energy is unclear from the plans presented to the City, but there appears to be no
evidence these buildings are more energy conserving than required by code (which means a
sub -sustainable building), and no evidence that they are designed to capture and use any of the
free natural energy flows of the site to "generate" energy. There's little way to get to net zero
absent a conservation/natural-energy-capture duality. This is something all our buildings today
should be able to demonstrate.
The Council should require state of the art, better -than -code energy conserving construction for
all new buildings, including any on the Palomar site.
The Council should re uire new bulldin s on suitable sites to capture natural energy flows heat
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coo th, ventilation, !rg t to the greatest extent possible by requiring accommodating those
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concerns to be central to how the building is designed, configured and placed on the site. (While
such things are readily achieved at time of building design, these are very difficult -to -impossible
add-ons -- they need to be part of the first stage of design.) This site has abundant southerly
sunl�ght, it has good breezes that can cross ventilate well-designed buildings, in short it is
3 Don't be distracted by staff's telling you these buildings will meet Title 24, the building code. A
code -compliant building is the minimum legal standard, not a sustainable or green building. We
can do lots better than Title 24 at no increased cost by using our brains and ingenuity to design
a conceptual building approach, from the ground up, to be more sustainable.
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wonderfully suitable to accommodate these deli n concerns, so the Council should re uire
redesign to maximally capture natural energy flows. (Note the 1890s Sandford House has a
south -facing solarium capable of supplying much of its winter heat for free by capturing winter
sunlight. If they could do that much back then, why can't we do at least that much today?)
- The proposed buildings are laid out generally along north -south axes, which means
opportunities for capturing desirable winter sun for warmth are eliminated, and opportunities for
overheating buildings with undesirable summer east -west sun are maximized. In other words,
the buildings are designed with complete indifference to established passive energy methods
eminently suitable for the site. The one building with a more desirable east -west orientation is
largely shaded by other buildings, so most of it too uses site energies to thermal disadvantage
rather than to advantage. This layout means the proposed buildings' design, orientation
and placement on the site maximize thermal discomfort and grid energy demand
throughout the year. This is inappropriate design for the era of net zero energy.
The Council should direct redesign to orient buildings to maximize benefits of natural energy
flow capture.
- The building layout on the land means most roofs face east or west, which are poor
orientations for both solar thermal and solar photovoltaic rooftop energy capture (optimal is
south -facing).
The Council should direct redesign to maximize south -facing rooftops so PV and solar thermal
applications are practicaL
• There's little possibility for cross ventilation in the apartments due to configuration of the units.
Cross ventilation is one of the most effective natural cooling techniques, which in a well-oriented
building (which, see above, these are not) can eliminate the need for air conditioning in our
climate with its significant day/night temperature swings. Thus, one suspects these buildings
might be energy -guzzling air conditioned apartments. Are they?
The Council should direct that apartments be reconfigured so cross ventilation can be used for
natural cooling,_ and _should prohibit unnecessary_, energy --guzzling air conditioning.
- The parking garage is enclosed, and by code must be mechanically ventilated 24/7. This is a
waste of energy when a parking garage could be designed to be open so it ventilates itself.
The Council should direct redesign of the parking -garage so mechanical ventilation is not
needed.
- The mature urban forest on the site can provide natural cooling, via both shade and
evapotranspiration, for any sensitively -placed development added to the site that preserves the
trees. By contrast, the applicant's proposal to cut down almost all the century -old trees
eliminates this natural energy source, and exacerbates increased temperatures by replacing a
cooling green canopy with hard humanscape that absorbs solar energy in the summer and
creates an urban heat island.4 The removal of the trees not only increases outdoor summer
4 "Urban heat island" refers to the thermal phenomenon in human monocultures, like cities,
where the thermal mass of the human -built environment collects and retains heat and magnifies
its effects. Urban heat islands can have temperatures 10-15 degrees hotter than non -urbanized
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temperatures, but also indoor temps via thermal transfer through the building envelope and
through windows facing east -west that are no longer shaded from the sun, and thus increases
the need for mechanical ventilation or air conditioning. Maintaining mature trees on the building
site is an energy -conservation measure as well as an esthetic issue.
To mitigate heat buildup on the site and overheating of the buildings, the Council should require
retention of the site's mature trees as a coolir mechanism.
Density: The proposal is overly -dense and inappropriate at this density and bulk for this special
site.5
The zoning code delineates maximum densities for various zones, not entitled densities. It has
been city policy to look not merely at maximum densities allowed on a site, but at the site itself
to see if those densities need adjustment downwards. In my 8 years on the Planning
Commission we routinely adjusted densities downward on sites like this one. Here are the chief
characteristics of this site that suggest downward adjustment of density is needed:
- The unique hilly, wooded, historic, cultural landscape qualities of the site discussed already.
- The topographical placement of the site so that it is an integral physical part of a stable single-
family neighborhood. Much has been made of the alleged fact this site is "surrounded" by high
density, but that is factual ONLY in a two-dimensional plan view. In three dimensions, this site is
higher than the Valencia development along Ramona or the Village, so from it one sees mainly
rooftops of the denser development below. (See photo of "Florentine" view from front -of -house
axis.) The elevation of the site places it in the single family neighborhood, not in the
apartment district.
- The R-4 zoning of this site was an accommodation to the fraternity which required such
zoning, not an intent that this uphill location be destroyed and covered with super -dense
apartments, and the city dropped the ball by not downzoning the property when the fraternity
use was declared over and done with by the City Council.
- The city typically pays attention to adjacent development when there's a hard interface
between dense and low density zoning, adjusting the higher density edge to be compatible in
size and scale of development with the adjacent lower density neighborhood. (In fact, in matters
like setbacks, the zoning code is explicit in mandating accommodation of the larger setbacks of
the less dense zone's development standards.) Although this is commonsense good planning,
similar land. This is a serious issue in sustainable planning, as the UHI increase in ambient
temperature not only increases, for example, the desire for air conditioning, but the hotter air
takes more energy to cool via air conditioning to the desired comfort level. We should be doing
everything possible not to create a greater UHI effect if we hope to slow or halt global climate
change. Greening — less hard surface, substantial shade trees and things like green roofs — are
among the best ways to mitigate UHI effects.
5 Please remember, the applicant is optioned to purchase this site for $2.4 million in a
neighborhood where a 1500 SF house (740 Murray) recently sold for $975K and a somewhat
larger but pedestrian house on Broad sold for $1.13 million. He's getting a bargain, and can
afford to reduce density to fit the neighborhood. He could still make plenty of money if the site
were developed at R-1 density.
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this has not been done here. The bulky buildings intrude into the neighborhood along Luneta
and Palomar.
• In this case, the proposed project is size -and -mass abusive to the neighborhood: a 4 -story
building along Palomar, approximately twice the height of the neighboring Valencia
apartments while also on higher ground; bulky blocky buildings all over the site, coming to
within 15 feet of Luneta (smaller single family buildings would be set back at least 20 feet from
the street right of way); and an uncalled -out setback for the 4 -story building at Palomar
which appears to be less than 10 feet of setback — for this huge building!
• We have been told by staff they included for density calculation purposes the Valencia
parking lot downhill from this property, which is owned by this property but under permanent
easement to Valencia. Since this cannot be used by the applicant, it seems improper to
count it when calculating allowable density.
• The cramming of 150-170 salty exuberant students into this stable neighborhood creates
potential for radical disruption that would not take place if the complex were for neighborhood -
friendly families. The noise of traffic, partying, and the gym in the moved Sandford House
(closer to the neighborhood after being moved — have you ever heard of a youth -appealing gym
without loud gyrating music?) underscores the implausibility of this bulky project, just 15 feet
from Luneta, not having a detrimental effect on the neighborhood.6 The city needs to start
protecting its workforce neighborhoods, or you'll lose them all to student housing. Why would
you want to do that?
The Council should mandate substantially less density, less bulk, substantially greater setbacks
from the streets.
The Council should mandate greater attention to easing a project on this site into the
nei hborhood of which it is a part, to make a raceful transition rather than the abru t and
intrusive one that's proposed.
The Council should direct that the 4 -story building a few feet from the street go away, and be
limited to two stories like the buildings just down Palomar at Valencia. The setbacks along
Palomar should be of single-family dimensions.
To make a graceful transition, the Council should require frontages facing Luneta be no more
dense than the single family zone allows.
If Council establishes that the Valencia parkigg lot was used in densitV calculation it should
direct staff to recalculate maximum density.
Parking: The project is substantially under -parked. There are at present only 63 parking spaces
for residents and guests and upwards of 150 student residents, almost all of whom will have
cars because almost all of our local students have cars. This is erroneous planning. Parking
should require realistic numbers of spaces. Where will the 90 or more "excess" tenants' cars be
6 If you want to see what happens to a stable neighborhood when the city sticks this sort of
project in it, go up one block on Luneta, and note the former nice family homes that are now
rental slums because of the impact of the much smaller upper Valencia project on that street.
The city does this sort of thing, and then wonders where our workforce housing has gone!
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parked? In the neighborhood, that's where, and this isn't right. Residents don't want a city of
unfriendly parking districts that make it difficult for friends to come visit. Why should neighbors
suffer from the city's irrationally reducing parking requirements so ridiculously? We want the city
to take responsibility for the parking messes its development permitting creates, and require
developers to provide the parking their projects need. In this case, the need is pretty close to
one parking space/one resident.
If this oroiect remains student housing,the Council should mandate parking spaces for 95% of
,plausible occupancy.
• The enclosed parking garage is a safety hazard, a potential sexual assault zone for female
residents. Eyes on the street is a better solution.
The Council should direct elimination of an enclosed parking garage for safety reasons.
hope these thoughts are of use to you.
Sincerely,
Richard Schmidt, Architect
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