HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/7/2018 Item 2, Hewitt
Purrington, Teresa
From:Crissa Hewitt <chewitt@calpoly.edu>
Sent:Friday, May 4,
To:Advisory Bodies
Cc:Theodore C. Foster
Subject:ARC Committee May 7 hearing
Dear Committee
I am a forty year resident on Benton Way and therefore live very close to the Chorro St new student housing project. I
communicated my frustration about this project to the previous Mayor Jan Marx. She indicated she did not like it either,
but that due to the "low income" statute that the Council, unless willing to be sued, had little choice but to approve the
project.
I am one who supports giving incentives to developers for construction of a percentage of units for this purpose. I doubt
seriously that low income student housing was the intent of this law that is being used to justify wildly inappropriate
developments to be constructed in neighborhoods where their size and location present many disruptions to safety,
parking, potential noise, and permanent blockage of local scenic views.
This Chorro St structure gives us a clear visual understanding of how disruptive the structure alone is, never mind the
impacts that the student residents will create. (Neighbors of student rentals on Benton and Meinecke routinely monitor
for noise, trash and parking issues.) The same developer is developing property nearby on Palomar and now proposing a
similar, only twice as big complex nearby on Foothill.
It is very doubtful that the first two were approved, or the proposed third, considered without the low income
"loophole". The Chorro/Foothill intersection has been problematic for years. Customers of the small commercial area
have long waits upon making left-hand exits onto Chorro. The configuration of the left hand turn from Foothill onto
Chorro has a greater than 90 degree angle which makes it difficult and dangerous. On most occasions it is only possible
for two cars to make the turn per light. Traffic flow of cars and bikes is only going to increase.
Allowing the proposed construction of a student housing unit on Foothill is going to create an abundance of similar
dynamics. Again, this is not about true low income housing; it is about commercial greed and
neighborhood/community/destruction. Cal poly has chosen to grow significantly in recent years. Housing the students
should be their responsibility vs allowing some out of the area developer, using the rouse of low income housing, to
build these oversized and inappropriately placed structures.
I have stressed the student aspect of these three units because this population is very mobile and tends to be noisy. A
low income population combined with other families would tend to be less mobile...or at least, mobile in more
predictable time patterns. Volume of apartment units would be less as they would need to be larger so as to house a
variety of normal residential housing needs. None of this is happening in these "dorms". People boxed up in four story
small cages do not tend to function at their humanitarian best.
The local businesses on Broad, Chorro and Foothill are not expecting a huge influx of customers; they know that they will
receive a huge influx of parking in their customer spaces. (They were unanimous in protest to the Chorro st project for
this reason.) Meinecke St has been a parking lot for years for the employees who work in the medical facilities on the
east side of Chorro. The Chorro st structure does not have enough parking, so the overflow will happen.
Adding a third, and even larger unit on Foothill is going to increase traffic on Foothill which is already one of the busiest
streets in town. Safety and basic quality of life issues feel the impact of such overkill building (too tall, too dense, too
1
transient ). Those of us who have lived on this end of town awhile have seen considerable change, but a sense of a true
neighborhood remains in tact. We have a good variety of small businesses, many different types of food outlets, banks,
medical facilities, markets, and a drugstore. (We lack a hardware store). We have senior housing. We do not have low
income housing.
There are many architects and planners, here and elsewhere, who are working on low income housing ideas. That
population is quite varied matching the description of most populations...family, singles, old, young. The foothill
property is quite large and should be able to be developed into an attractive, low height setting for low income
residents. The two structures already approved and the one under consideration are making a sham out of the intention
of the low income statue that has allowed them to be considered, let alone built.
Please bring a halt to the Foothill project. The neighborhood and San Luis Obispo deserve a quality, innovative, local
input, solution that addresses the growing needs for lower cost housing. Inappropriate density and ugly structures need
not be considered with the wealth of architectural and artistic talent that exists in this community.
Crissa Hewitt
chewitt@calpoly.edu.
Sent from my iPad
2