HomeMy WebLinkAbout8/21/2018 Item 17, Ayral
Christian, Kevin
From:odileayral@gmail.com on behalf of Odile Ayral <oayral@calpoly.edu>
Sent:
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Item 17
Mayor Harmon and Council Members,
Please do not give a blanket approval to the update of the zoning regulations. I have many misgivings regarding
this update, but I will focus on three.
1. Reduction in the power of various advisory bodies and of public input, as well as the reduction of the power
of our elected Council versus the increase in power of the Staff.
In their participation in the governing process, the residents of SLO are driven by their loyalty to the City. I am
not speaking of the new term "stakeholder" that seems to have taken the place of the real residents in City
papers, I am speaking of true residents. You may or may not agree with them on various occasions, but you
have to agree that love of a place is what drives them, and, as their elected representatives, you are supposed to
speak for them. The Staff is hired to work for the City, but does not have to live here, and often chooses not to
live here. Their loyalty to the City is overrun by other concerns, such as speed of decision. We must also
remember the obvious, that the Staff works for the residents, and is paid by the residents through taxes. The
Staff therefore should be bound to answer to the residents through as many public hearings as necessary.
This is why the ARC and the CHC ought to be much more that just advisory to the Director, and their purview
should cover the wide range implied by the term "architecture"--which is much more than paint and
material. The recent unrelenting interference of the Staff into the ARC and the Planning Commission's
deliberations should stop, and the ARC / Planning Commission's deliberations should, on the contrary, be done
freely, and their decisions binding for the Director.
2. Approval of density bonus and various incentives. In this update, it appears that the Director, not the
Council (as it is presently done) will be responsible for the approval of density bonus and incentives. Like other
residents, I believe this responsibility should remain in the hands of the Council, and--very important--proof
regarding the feasibility of a project should be the burden of the applicant.
3. Increase in the height of buildings to 75 feet. We are a small city whose cohesive feeling and harmony arise
from the small size of houses and buildings, the views of the mountains, and the trees. Otherwise, we are a
hodgepodge of architectural styles because we never set into place policies to ensure architectural harmony (as
Santa Barbara did.) Allowing buildings to rise to 75 feet will destroy the harmony we have achieved, and our
city will become another poorly planned city. And I am not even talking about traffic congestion, lack of
parking, and reduced water availability.
As another resident said to you: "Let's take a breath and see how all the current developments end up impacting
our City." What's the rush? When a development is completed, it is here for a long time, no matter how poorly
conceived it may be. I do not believe that it is in the interest of the City to speed up crucial decisions that will
have serious consequences for decades, long after the present Staff and Council are gone.
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Therefore I urge you to slow down this crucial update and really think things through. I also urge you to
increase public input, not decrease it, return full powers to our advisory bodies, demand accountability from
developers, and deny the increase height of buildings to 75 feet. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Odile Ayral
Professor Emeritus, Cal Poly
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