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HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/23/2018 Item 2, Cooper Goodwin, Heather From:Allan Cooper <saveourdowntownslo@gmail.com> Sent:Monday, July To:Cohen, Rachel; Leveille, Brian; Advisory Bodies Subject:1027 Nipomo Street Attachments:907_22_18...1027nipomo.pdf Dear Rachel and Brian - Would you kindly forward this letter (attached below) to the Cultural Heritage Committee before their Monday, July 23, 2018 meeting? Thanks! - Allan -- Allan Cooper, Secretary - Save Our Downtown, San Luis Obispo, CA Website: www.SaveOurDowntownSLO.com 1 To: SLO Cultural Heritage Committee Re: 1027 Nipomo Street From: Allan Cooper, Secretary Save Our Downtown Date: July 22, 2018 Honorable Chair and Committee Members - At their August 14, 2017 meeting, the Cultural Heritage Commission made and passed the following motion: “,,,to recommend the ARC deny the project based on the finding that the proposed new building is inconsistent with the Historic Preservation Program Guidelines Section 3.2.1 because the building is not compatible in scale and massing with the Downtown Historic District’s structures and provided direction that the project reduce the height of the building to three-stories with the third story setback.” Although we commend the architect for significantly scaling back the fourth floor with increased setbacks on all four sides, this project continues to remain, according to the Cultural Heritage Committee, incompatible “in scale and massing with the Downtown Historic District’s structures”. We concur. Even though the material selection and step-backs above the second and third floors do help to bring down the scale of this building, this project presents a very tall 3-story building near the 2-story Soda Water Works building (see rendering below) and a very tall 2-story building immediately adjacent to the 1-story historic Creamery. In Figure 4 you can see how much taller the 2- and 3-story buildings facing Nipomo Street are in the revised elevations compared to the previous elevations. The only neighboring building currently taller than 2 stories is the 3-story Kraker Office building at 641 Higuera Street. We acknowledge that the 4- story South Town 18 project has already been approved. We also acknowledge that the updated Downtown Concept Plan is recommending that 4-story buildings be located on this block (so-called “Block 18”). However, this recommendation was made in direct contradiction to nearly all public input. There were two public outreach workshops, an online survey (393 survey responses) and a neighborhood group meeting with a near unanimous recommendation of either maintaining the current “look or feel” of downtown or keeping downtown 2-3 stories. Lowering the plate heights of the 3-story building facing the creek (see below) will also open up more sky and sunlight for those pedestrians using the Creek Walk. In light of all of this - and short of asking the architect to eliminate the entire 4th floor - we believe it is incumbent on you to ask the architect to decrease the floor plate height of the 2- and 3-story buildings facing Nipomo Street so that they are the equivalent height of the 2- and 3-story buildings shown in the previous elevations. We commend the architect for stepping back the fourth floor further as shown in Figure 10, but we are concerned that noise disseminating from the large fourth floor decks, particularly the deck at the northwest corner, will encroach onto the Dana Street residential neighborhood. We are therefore recommending that the northwest deck be encircled with a glass sound wall (which could double as a wind buffer). Finally, the balconies facing the creek should be eliminated to prevent the possibility of additional tenant-related noise encroaching onto the Dana Street Neighborhood. Thank you!