HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/15/2019 Item 9, Ayral
Purrington, Teresa
From:Pease, Andy
Sent:Sunday, January 13, 2019 9:39 AM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:FW: 790 Foothill
For the record…
From: Odile Ayral <oayral@calpoly.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2019 8:33 AM
To: Harmon, Heidi <hharmon@slocity.org>; Stewart, Erica <estewart@slocity.org>; Gomez, Aaron
<agomez@slocity.org>; Pease, Andy <apease@slocity.org>; Christianson, Carlyn <cchristi@slocity.org>
Subject: 790 Foothill
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
I am sorry to inform you I will not be able to attend the Council meeting on the 15th because I fractured my
ankle and cannot walk for the moment. Fortunately, I can write, and I wish to add this important information to
the appeal.
1) 22 Chorro has a 2/3 vacancy, and the very low income studios do not appear to be occupied
There are various ways to create ghettos in cities, and one of the most potent is to build buildings that nobody
wants. It is the case for the luxury student apartment building at 22 Chorro. We knew that the entire
neighborhood fought against it, but we recently found out that students themselves did not want to live
there. Presently, this building has a 2/3 vacancy, and the very low income studios--which were the only reason
to approve this building--do not appear to be occupied, and are not listed on the HASLO list
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/538622a1e4b0eca47fbe761f/t/5b2aab4370a6adcd5c4bad80/15295230124
26/Affordable+Housing+by+City_SLOCounty.pdf
In December 2018, I went to 22 Chorro to get information, and they referred me to HASLO, but at the HASLO
office none of the employees I spoke with had ever heard of 22 Chorro (my story is similar to the one told by
Daphne Boatright--see her second letter.) The question is: who is responsible for establishing eligibility for the
low income units and for making sure they are not manipulated? HASLO? The city? We need accountability.
With 790 Foothill, the same developer proposes a similar but much bigger building across the street to house
wealthy students who don't want to live there. I hope you can see the absurdity and indecency of this proposal
at a time when we are in dire need of workforce housing, and when land in the north side of town is extremely
limited. I also hope you see its possible violation of state and federal fair housing law. Your own lawyer,
Barbara E. Kautz, writes on p. 4 when speaking of the possibility of reducing the size of some of the units:
additionally, requiring such small units would likely not accommodate families with children, creating a
possible violation of state and federal housing law.
Yet she did not raise the obvious fact that both 22 Chorro and 790 Foothill are built for students, advertised to
students, and rented by the bed, therefore they cannot accommodate families with children. Also, the very low
income studios are just that-- studios--and families can't live in studios either. Again, this is a possible violation
of state and federal housing law. Furthermore, these very low income studios are a violation of the Housing
Element requirements which state that the affordable housing units should meet a variety of special needs,
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including large families, single parents, disabled persons, the elderly, etc. (H.E. Policy 8.1) and that affordable
units should be comparable in size, appearance and basic quality to market-rate units. (H.E. 4.2)
Please, request a full report on occupancy at 22 Chorro, especially regarding the low income studios, and
require that HASLO (not the new owners) handle the low income studio report. Do not approve any new
project from this developer until these questions have been answered.
Look into the lack of conformation to state and federal regulations of the low income housing, which
ought to be comparable to the other units.
Finally, do not approve another luxury student apartment that nobody wants, but instead, strive for an
affordable workforce housing that will help the numerous struggling families who live nearby (Pacheco
parents, workers from the two commercial centers, Sierra Vista and Cal Poly.)
2) The Planning Commission did not attempt to answer any of the concerns raised by the public on July 25th ,
including the letter sent by the lawyer hired by Foothill Blvd Civic Defense (Pearl Kan) and the Staff interfered
constantly with the process.
Besides the 37 letters sent by various residents to the Planning Commission, 26 residents spoke against 790
Foothill at the meeting. Many deplored the disappearance of the views of Bishop Peak, views that are SLO's
identity, while others spoke in great details about the dangers of the intersection, dangers they had personally
experienced. Their arguments were neither acknowledged nor answered. The P.C. basically said: "We don't
like this project, but the Staff tells us that our hands are tied."
First of all, the job of the Staff is not to ensure that a project goes easily through, on the contrary, it is to ensure
that its quality is high, that it fills the needs of the neighborhood, not take away from it, and that it is an honest
project. This is not at all the case here, and it is unfortunate that the Staff and the Planning Commission did not
have the courage to stand up to what I consider a blackmailing developer, nor to even discuss the most
objectionable aspects of his project.
On December 17, 2018, in Georgetown Preservation Society v. County of El Dorado, the court held lay public
commentary on nontechnical issues concerning the project's size and general appearance constituted
substantial evidence supporting a fair argument that the project may have significant aesthetic impacts, and
thus required an EIR despite the county's findings that the project complied with its historic design guide. The
court also stated that the County never made any explicit findings of any kind in the administrative record on the
commenters' credibility, or regarding any lack of foundation for their comments. This recalls an earlier case
(Protect Niles v. City of Fremont) focusing on traffic rather than aesthetics. In this case, again the judge sided
with the residents and declared that residents' personal observations of traffic conditions where they live and
commute may constitute substantial evidence even if they contradict the conclusions of a professional study.
Please, do not dismiss the observations of the public without giving them full consideration and
answers. Instead, listen to their concerns when they speak of loss of an iconic view, and compromised
safety due to the difficult traffic conditions and lack of parking around this intersection. Listen to them
when they ask for affordable workforce housing, not luxury student dorms, and when they ask for
accountability. Most have lived in this neighborhood for a long time, they understand it better than
anyone, and in view of their comments at the Planning Commission, an EIR ought to be conducted.
I therefore urge you to uphold the appeal, to request an EIR, and to recommend important modifications
and conditions to the 790 Foothill project.
Odile Ayral
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Foothill Blvd Civic Defense
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