HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-12-2018 Item 1 - Gillingham Howard W. Gillingham � � �� } � � � �
7100 Graves Creek Road,Atascadero, CA 93422 � ��`� �� ���' ����� � �
Cell 818 807-3259 Fax (805) 466-8477 � �fr�
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Re: Upper Monterey Development Project—Los Padres Hotel
To Ms. Rachel Cohen and the SLO Architecture Review Committee:
While I reside in Atascadero, I spend a great deal of time in San Luis Obispo, especially in
the upper Monterey area with Susan Pyburn, resident of Grove Street, one house south of
Monterey. I have often thought of moving to SLO, but have been discouraged by the pace of
development. Having moved to the area from the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, I have
seen how development restrictions are observed in the breaches, exceptions swallow the rules.
Of course you know of which I write. The process is familiar, in towns and cities of
California and the nation. The tension between commercial land development and quality of life
is never-ending. Developers salivate at the small parcels of single-family dwellings near to
commercial areas, eyeing the parcels and tooting the horns of progress, attracting tourists, guests
and shoppers. Preservationists huddle in determined defiance of changing their neighborhoods,
towns and cities. The tug of war continues,written rules respond, but often as a fog of regulations,
a clear presence, burned off by the morning sun of the next project. Solutions are not easy.
My admittedly brief review of the applicable regulations and the outer contours of the
proposed development viz., the expansion of the Los Padres Hotel suggests the following:
1. Privacy of surrounding dwellings is not respected, with the proposed height of the
project; and,
2. As the height of this and other recent buildings continue to grow, the change in the
neighborhood is a self-fulfilling prophesy—"Well, aren't there already similar buildings
in the area?This is just one more building, only a slight exception."
Towns and cities of personality and charm constantly worry and fret that they do not want
to be "another LA," as they gradually, and not so gradually, go down the same path. I urge care.
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