HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/27/2019 Item 1, Cochran
Purrington, Teresa
From:William Cochran <bcsloc@pacbell.net>
Sent:Tuesday, February 26, 2019 4:34 PM
To:Advisory Bodies
Subject:Planning Commission Meeting February 27
To: SLO Planning Commissioners Dandekar,
Jorensen, McKenzie, Quncey,
Wulkan, Vice-Chair Stevenson, and Chair
Fowler
Re: General Plan Considerations
From: William Cochran
Date: 26 February 2019
Since your Agenda for the meeting of 27 February
is concerned with the General Plan, I hope you
can include a consideration of the consequences
when the city Planning Staff misstates and ignores
non-compliance with the Plan. For example,
construction at 2390 Loomis Street and 48 (40)
Buena Vista Avenue on a slope of 45% on
property with Scenic Overlay zoning is
represented as compliant; the Plan restricts
building to slopes of 20% or less. Elements of
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equal lack of compliance are obvious and
serious. The current application is a modification
of an earlier application (see Minutes for October
28, 2015) in which the obvious errors of the
Planning Staff still have not been addressed. At
the meeting of October 28, 2015, your committee
properly denied the Staff recommendation by a 5:1
vote. That decision was appealed to the City
Council, which approved the application. When
then-Mayor Marks was asked how she could
ignore the obvious non-compliance, her response
was a non-verbal shrug of her shoulders.
SLO deserves better.
On 12 July 2018 the Tribune published a Letter
from Councilwoman Christianson containing the
following: “…no council can approve any project
that does not fit the city’s General Plan and
policies….The city’s strong General Plan, which
protects our hills from development…has
essentially been in place since 1994.” The hill in
question here is the southern portion of the long-
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recognized and designated Gateway to San Luis
Obispo, deliberately protected from construction
as the first view of SLO seen by south-bound
travelers on 101.
If elements of the General Plan can be dismissed
at will by city staff, and treated with unconcern by
the City Council, what protection of property does
the ordinary citizen have?
I do hope you can address this problem and the
serious concerns it raises.
I apologize for my inability to attend the meeting
on Wednesday.
Respectively yours,
William Cochran
43 Buena Vista St.
3
San Luis Obispo CA 93406
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