HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/16/2018 Item 2, Better Development
Purrington, Teresa
From:Better Development <betterslodevelopment@gmail.com>
Sent:Sunday, July 15, 2018
To:Advisory Bodies; Davidson, Doug; E-mail Council Website
Subject:790 Foothill Boulevard ARCH-1186-2017
San Luis Obispo City Council and members of the Architectural Review Commission,
The following is a summary of concerns and thoughts about the project at 790 Foothill Boulevard, subject of a public
hearing for architectural review on July 16, 2018.
The unit design of all the market rate units allows for divisible bedrooms, converting one-bedroom to two-bedrooms,
and two-bedrooms to four-bedrooms. This guarantees double-occupancy of the bedrooms, while the development
standards for parking do not increase in kind. While there is no limitation on four occupants to a two-bedroom
residence, the intent to divide the bedrooms forces a change in the building design. Each divided bedroom must have a
window/door suitable for emergency exiting to the exterior (not a corridor), or else the division of the rooms is expressly
illegal. In most cases around the building, this means that there are windows on opposing sides of the units, forcing a
requirement for courtyards on two sides of the residential “buildings” and increasing the space required between them,
internal to the project. If these one- and two-bedroom units were not going to be divided post-construction, this space
could be reduced, and the balance of space be provided either at the public frontages, or for larger interior courtyards
and visual breaks in the building mass as requested by the ARC under direction item 3.1.
The planned division of the bedrooms appears to be an open secret with the city taking the position that it is inevitable and
unregulatable, which is unfortunate. The points above show reason for further modification to the project design. Also,
the California Building Code specifically address movable partition walls such as the ones that will be implemented in this
project as they are being used at the 22 Chorro Academy project as seen on that project's own website. The code reads:
“1.11.3.2 Movable walls and partitions. Plans or diagrams shall be submitted to the enforcing agency for approval before
the installation of, or rearrangement of, any movable wall or partition in any occupancy. Approval shall be granted only if
there is no increase in the fire hazard.” If the city requires that these partitions be shown in the construction plans for
review, it certainly seems they create separate bedrooms and therefore there is an enforceable distinction that they are 2-
bedroom and 4-bedroom units as defined in the zoning code, “any space in a dwelling unit which contains a minimum of
70 square feet of
floor area unless it is one of the below listed rooms or common spaces.”
The height increase because of the very-low income housing concession, permits 27,770 additional square feet of
building in the current scheme, when only 5,160 square feet are devoted to the smallest 12, very-low income
units. There is no distribution of the very-low income units across the projects mix of unit types. Simply put, if the one-
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and two-bedroom units were not oversized for four-bedroom conversion, the maximum height concession might not be
necessary, or could be limited to a much smaller portion of the building.
The density bonus of 35% is for 17 density units, while the 12 studio units used to “earn” this bonus account for only 6
du. This leaves 11 du available for additional market rate apartments. This is an exploitation of the state law and many
other jurisdictions have language that requires the distribution and mixture of unit types for the affordable units
matches that of the balance of the project. Also, if the bedrooms in the one- and two-bedroom units are being divided
during or after construction (something that is not designed into the studio units) then the market-rate density units
would increase from 59 du to an effective 111 du, leaving only a meager 5.1% of the project density units assigned to
very-low income units.
Thank you, a concerned long-time San Luis Obispo resident.
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