Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
This new thread continues a thread entitled ‘A Bride Bought Cheap’.
It started as a discussion of the Lark Ellen Villas proposal.
Dave’s 3/31/04 post, entitled Compromise is often win-win at http://www.covina.com/messages/general/messages/5954.htm#5967 is the one I am responding to. That thread evolved into a discussion about the Von’s Center and IKEA developments, which is good. This matter is too important to bury though, so bear with me and let’s get the facts out on the table.
I think I read you correctly that in your opinion, Lark Ellen Villas SHOULD be argued and considered on a special case basis. It isn’t presented that way though, let’s be clear. 1313 won’t stand on its own merits. Its uniqueness does not make it good.
This dreamy vision you’ve cooked up of rolling lawns, trees and other landscaping features is not supported by the space provided for those things in the project’s design. Do you agree that good planning includes open space? This project provides very little of it.
AND
I did not fail to mention this at all.
Fact is, I attended that Planning Commission meeting on March 23rd, and spoke on the public record directly to that very point. Respectfully, Dave, you were not at that meeting. Neither, for that matter, was the Public Works Director, contrary to your statement. His signature is nowhere to be found in the accompanying documentation either.
It is a ruse but it isn’t my creation. The Lark Ellen Villas proposal at 1313 W. San Bernardino would indeed set a precedent for all of Covina, and it would cement that double-density precedent into the General Plan and the Municipal Code by amending both drastically. These changes, if approved, most assuredly WOULD throw the door open citywide to double density development in ALL of the high-density RD zones AND the yet-to-be-adequately-defined multi-use zones.
Think about that carefully.
I am stunned that you support this project. I can only assume it must be due to limited awareness of its particulars, or failure to accurately grasp its ramifications. There are SO MANY problems with it. I ask you once more…beseech you, really… Do not throw your support to the 1313 project so blithely. STUDY the elevations presented, and READ the full reports on the project carefully.
In particular, consider Item 17b. MANDATORY FINDINGS OF SIGNIFICANCE, in the checklist on page 12 of the CEQA Initial Study.
This item reads:
“Does the project have impacts that are individually limited, but cumulatively considerable? (“Cumulatively considerable” means that the incremental effects of a project are considerable when viewed in connection with the effects of past projects, the effects of other current projects, and the effects of probable future projects)”
The developer wants to build at a density of one unit per 963 square feet of land area. Currently the maximum density allowed is one unit per 2000 square feet of land area.
The mitigation is: increase the maximum density definitions in the General Plan and Municipal Code to one unit per 950 square feet of land area.
The checklist is inexplicably marked ‘no impact’. I beg to differ.
We adopted the moderate growth alternative in the General Plan approved in 2000.
This decision eliminated all zoning that permitted densities in excess of 22 units per acre (RD-2000).
We rejected and declined to adopt the very high-density growth alternative proposed at that time. The city-wide changes proposed with 1313 would reverse our decision and far exceed even the alternative we rejected.
The serious concerns, as expressed by city staff, commissioners, and the public, were NOT answered. There is no way to mitigate these concerns and build the same project. It is SO far outside the variance range that it cannot be built as proposed WITHOUT making these very broad General Plan and Zoning Code Amendments.
The mitigation proposed is, let’s just change the General Plan to fit this project!
I don’t agree with this solution. Should the General Plan guide the project, or should the project trump the General Plan? This project isn’t worth the compromise, and it’ll cost us all dearly in the very near future and in the very long run if we succumb to this developer’s arm-twisting and shabby building standards.
The Planning Department prepared an excellent presentation for the meeting that clearly revealed the density coup. I applaud Head City Planner Carrie Richardson, Assistant City Planner Alan Carter, and the entire Planning Commission for their integrity and their diligence in uncovering and clarifying the nettlesome issues on the auction block.
These include:
· Lots of tiny, cramped living spaces in an already over-developed multi residential living area.
· The sole amenity, a tiny two story recreation room with no elevator for disabled residents.
· No elevator from the underground parking to the living spaces. Above ground chronic disability parking for placard bearers, but what about acute disabilities? How is one supposed to get from their underground parking to their upstairs apartment if one is on crutches for a while, for example?
· Deficient setbacks in EVERY dimension.
· Air conditioners in the front yard setbacks.
· Deficient parking spaces.
· Deficient open space
· And on and on.
1313 contains a Zoning Ordinance Amendment, application ZOA 03-003, that would “modify certain provisions regarding multiple-family density.” It contains a General Plan Amendment, application GPA 03-004, that would “modify various textual provisions of the General Plan concerning development intensity in order to allow a higher density than is presently allowed for high density residential development.” This was all clearly stated.
Our Planning Commission recommended denial because they could NOT, in good conscience, sign off on a project that was so deeply flawed and so blatantly insensitive to the community’s needs. The project’s design and quality DO NOT exceed the need to abide by the given development standards and its overall benefits to the community DO NOT make its deficiencies insignificant. The Planning Commission and City Council must apply these criteria.
Moreover, they were not about to recommend standardizing its flaws into regular practice by waving the same stale sardine over the General Plan, thereby altering the entire community. Covina residents have been surveyed repeatedly, and they have expressed overwhelmingly their desire for lower densities, not higher densities. The deal is, this development precedent does NOT best further community goals, objectives, and policies.
Why should you hope for the Planning Commission to be overruled? Is there not ample reason to accept their opinions as valid and vital? Theirs are often the sole voices of reason speaking to protect the community from poor development practices and profiteering at the expense of quality. They are NOT supposed to act as a rubber stamp for the Redevelopment Agency, and they are not supposed to allow developers to disregard our General Plan. They did their homework on this project, and they are doing their jobs.
When the developer was questioned by Commissioner De La Torre as to whether he had consulted with the school district or with the nearby elementary school to the immediate north on Lark Ellen, same side of the same block, he answered that no, he hadn’t, and he wasn’t required to consult with the school. When asked whether he had posted notices to all the RESIDENTS surrounding the proposed project, the answer was no, that he had notified the property OWNERS as required by law, and had ‘knocked on some doors but nobody answered’. The commissioners made several other specific queries to the developer, which were answered similarly, or not at all.
There are other problems. There are not enough commercial services within walking distance of these units. A commercial development at 1313 W San Bernardino would meet the unmet needs of the already dense population there, and bring in additional sales tax revenue from the pool of West Covina shoppers across the street.
The developer, at the meeting, claimed vaguely to possess authoritatively signed documents, proving that he had recently performed the requisite soil removal, clean up, and other mitigations. He was, however, unable to produce any such documentation for the public meeting, and its absence from the site plan review was specifically noted in the staff report.
The Initial Study and the Mitigated Negative Declaration, the backbones of the CEQA-required environmental disclosure, as referenced in the staff report, were not provided for public scrutiny during the meeting. I count myself very lucky to have been slipped a copy of both, even if it was after the meeting.
I called the city clerk’s office last Wednesday and was told that minutes of that meeting had not been prepared. Do you somehow have access to a copy of the minutes that you can scan and post here? It’d be awfully democratic for everyone involved to have a complete record of all the comments made at THAT public hearing.
Am I the only one discerning a pattern here?
Surely, one of the primary reasons that this property was left undeveloped was the fact of its soil contamination. The many years of use as a gas station were very hard on this piece of land. Why were the business(es) responsible for the contamination not held responsible for the clean-up? Might not this approach have made the property more viable, sooner? Of course, we can’t go back and do what wasn’t done on this site, but it does make a difference to acknowledge this now. That we do so is of vital importance for future planning.
Doesn’t the city retain a much higher percentage of the sales tax dollar than it does of the property tax dollar? Anyhow, commercial development would yield a property tax generator too, and potentially a more valuable one, on top of the significant city revenue enhancement from sales tax. Win-Win, as you say.
I was by there today at about 3pm to look at the property, and I spoke with two residents of the senior living complex to the immediate south of 1313, which is on the West Covina side of the street. They seemed like active and interested citizens, yet they were completely unaware of the proposed development. One thought a storage facility was planned. These two happened to come outside because there was a law enforcement siren incident right across the street, in front of one of the two buildings to the west of the proposed development (which you referenced). While we stood there, I was astonished by the unending procession of semi-tractor trailer rigs that passed us east-bound, likely headed for Azusa Avenue. They said it was like that every day, all day, and getting worse.
These two bright elders also noted that the police are visiting those two existing super-dense buildings all the time. The police representative at the council attested to these existing trouble spots. The quality of life in these spaces is low, and ergo, social problems are high. The non-conforming higher densities already present on the adjacent properties are experiencing problems and disproportionately burdening the public services we are depending on citywide. These people are packed in tight already and they need goods and services.
Completely unprompted, the two I met wondered why Covina couldn’t attract a nice shopping center to the site. I wonder too.
Friday was the deadline for the developer to appeal the Planning Commission’s action to the City Council. Does anyone know if an appeal was filed? If so, it will be very interesting to watch this process unfold. Council members need to have, and the entire public is entitled to read, the full written record of the Planning Commission’s Public Hearing on 1313, including all of their deliberations.
Each council member knows exactly who contributed to the campaigns that put them in office. Make no mistake about that, Dave. You were perhaps fortunate enough to have some strong monetary alliances to disclose during your own campaign. You also frequently (and as far as I know ethically) disclosed your involvement in and recused yourself from voting on projects where there could be any appearance of conflicting interest or other impropriety.
Campaign contribution statements are readily available public records. Copies of these have long circulated within this community, as they should. They can also be viewed at the library, I believe.
This is not about types of people at all, nor should it be. It’s about the types of neighborhoods we design and the types of behaviors that these designs promote and provoke. It is about the reasonable expectation of privacy and personal space, that every family and each individual needs to thrive. It’s about the design and capacity of the onsite and offsite outdoor spaces too, and the shopping-school-work connections.
It’s about planning and creating livable, affordable, walk-able, usable, beautiful spaces that will attract people who want to live comfortably and work close to home. This is what brings families out of their homes and into their communities. Value. Real value. It’s what builds strong, safe, prosperous communities and it’s what’s right. We need to do this city right.
Posted by Pat from Covina on 4/04/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
1.) (Re: Neighborhood pre-notification) Surrounding property owners were notified by mail of the environmental determination of this proposed project and how, in city staff's opinion, if mitigation measures and monitoring are performed, all negative environmental factors would be reduced or mitigated.
Furthermore all residents within a 300 foot radius of the proposed project were notified of the public hearing (sop) by mail on March 11, 2004.
2.) Your concerns about traffic generation (you mentioned the existing unending procession of big rigs) don't fit your suggestion that this project would best be a commercial development. The independent traffic study, submitted by the developer (which means he/she paid for it out of his/her own pocket) showed "negligible" traffic related impact if this were to be the proposed residential project. On the other hand the same report showed more than twice the daily trips would be generated if this were a commercial development.
3.) The police department had "no specific comments" regarding the impact to public health and safety issues upon receiving initial copies of the site and building plans. This would have been the ideal time to raise issues about expected elevations in crime. As for your comment that the police are visiting the neighboring high density apartment complexes "all the time", that is not true.
4.) The general plan should be strictly adhered to. Many staff hours, commision hours, and council hours go into establishing and tweaking the general plan. The plan then becomes a long range planning tool for city staff, property owners, developers, etc.
It is true that the current proposal for this project includes proposed changes to general plan language. However, the point I am making is that this project and the history of the blighted site and it's unattractiveness to developers is unique to others in the city. It is unique enough that effort should be made to make it work within existing planning and zoning requirements if possible.
Perhaps the PCD Overlay process which allows deviation from the general plan coupled with a zone change could accomplish this task. If so, this would not affect the general plan or its 22/acre high density upper limit. If that upper limit must be ammended for the entire city just to accomodate this project, then the project should fail on that one issue alone.
About two years into my term the redevelopment agency was preparing to file the paperwork to add certain blighted properties into a redevelopment project area. I asked them to include the gas station at Cypress Street and Glendora Avenue (now an auto repair facility), the gas station at Grand Avenue and Edna Place (now a Farmer Boys Restaurant), and the gas station at Lark Ellen Avenue and San Bernardino Road (this proposed site). Perhaps that application has succeeded and perhaps this site is now in a redevelopment area. If so, this would give us one more option for development, but not necessarily the best option. Even with redevelopment, money is never there to fund all desired projects, and so they must be prioritized. This site would doubtful have as much priority as the Azusa San Bernardino Development.
5.) The amount of money (in percent of each dollar collected) that Covina receives back from property taxes is about the same amount (again in percent of each dollar collected) we receive in sales tax. Somewhere in the 15-16% range. Additionally, commercial developments do not help the city meet her RHNA targets.
6.) As for the deficiencies you list, a two-bedroom unit for a single resident would not be tiny or cramped. Prospective tenants have the option of turning their backs on the project if they feel the living area is too tiny or cramped. In today's housing market I suspect the units will lease/rent before the project is finished.
Deficient setbacks are proposed, but again these are things that can be negotiated on this unique, win-win project.
Air conditioners will be screened from view, in some cases by landscape (which does not currently exist at the site at all, not counting the weeds).
Parking is only four spaces short of the required 127 spaces, and the independent traffic study said that this is still sufficient as the four spaces can be taken from the required ten "visitor" spaces.
One of the project's stairwell's doubles as a future elevator shaft.
And on and on.
The Planning Commission was established as an extension of the city council. It is a unique commission in that it exercises council level authority over the building and planning issues that come before it. Its decisions can be appealed and can be overturned by the council, but I do not think this is the best way to handle planning issues. A better way is for council and the planning commission to meet in joint session to understand the vision of the council relative to planning, building, and development issues. The planning commission should then administer within that vision as an adjutant to the council.
This joint session should take place at least every two years, after elections wherein council's gain new members. It can be a difficult meeting as this brings together ten people in authority often with ten different visions. In fact when we conducted one of these joint sessions in 1999/2000 (can't remember exactly the year but it was early in my term) it led to three planning commissioner resignations. The joint session setting is where the disagreement should take place if it exists. That way the commission and council come from that meeting presenting a united approach. This is better for staff and for the developers and property owners who do business with the city.
Since this particular project was already voted down by the commission rather than continued, I simply feel, in this case, it deserves another shot. That shot, if the developer decides to appeal, now has to be decided by council.
Regards
Posted by Dave a 47 year old from Covina on 4/04/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
The developer has indeed filed an appeal to the City Council. The matter is not yet scheduled, but it deserves the careful attention, scrutiny, and attendance of all citizens who care about the future of this community.
Dave, can you be any more specific about your reference to the planning commission resignations during your council term? I'm not aware of that series of events, and would like to know more about the political dynamics that spawned it. Who were the commissioners, and if you can remember, why did they resign?
Also, you mentioned the need for the planning commission to understand the vision of the council relative to planning, building, and development issues. I thought the deal was that they both were to implement within and according to the General Plan. Are there misalignments between council and planning commission in terms of their collaborative implementation of the General Plan or in any other frame of reference that you are aware of?
I'm working slowly on a detailed continuation of this discussion and I appreciate your candor, for its educational merit.
Posted by ArborTender from Covina on 4/13/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
Are Arbor Tender and Duff the same person? You might be interested to know the Montessori school on Rowland cut down a beautiful tree last week.
Posted by L on 4/16/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
Yep, same person. Pat Duff, Arbortender Consulting, ISA Certified Arborist, lifelong resident, yak yak yak.
I am interested, but I also recognize that you can't teach everyone and even if you could, not every tree should stay standing. Beautiful doesn't always mean healthy or low-risk. I don't know of this removal, but precious few actually cross my radar. Do you know why it was removed?
Posted by ArborTender from Covina on 4/16/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
I own a business close by and we loved the tree, it shaded our parking lot, now it looks sterile when I drive in.All I know is when I came to work last week they were rude enough to arrange for all the branches and equiptment to be thrown on my lot taking up a row of parking.We are separated by a fence and it was so inconsiderate, I just couldn't believe it, not to mention the liabitity if they had been hurt.They are really different, to say the least!
Posted by L on 4/16/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas force double density citywide?
Here again, this discussion merited a new thread, but:
What kind of tree was it, do you know?
Do you know your neighbors at Montessouri School? Maybe it's time to build a better bridge of communication with them. Can you find a place in your lot to plant a new tree? Did they plant a new tree? Maybe together you can pick and plant a good new tree.
Ask them for a referral to the company that did their tree removal, and post it here so we know to look out for that practice. Was the company licensed to do tree work in Covina?
The tree removal contractors should have had full written permission from the property owner of your lot (maybe that's you?) to stage their gear and their drop (and, I assume, their chipping of debris), on your side of the fence. If they didn't, for future reference:
One of your options that day was to ask them to remove all of their gear immediately, another was to contact Covina Code Enforcement (during regular City Hall business hours) at (626) 858-7214, another was to contact the Covina Police Dept. (non-emergency) at (626)858-4413, should such a problem occur at a time that you can't contact Code Enforcement.
If the tree workers did any damage on your side, or to the fence between you, there's grounds for something maybe. If not, probably not at this point, though you could still file a formal complaint at code enforcement, against the property owners and the tree company, depending on how ticked or determined you are about it still.
With a few notable exceptions, I have found that schools, churches, and church related schools are some of the most likely places to find long-mutilated and now-risky trees, largely due to long-term, somewhat-benignly-oblivious land management practices and a pervasive low-bid mentality in contracting for key professional services.
It's not a guarantee of quality work, but you can check tree workers credentials as ISA Certified Arborists, or the absence thereof, at www.isa-arbor.org. Click 'find an arborist' and enter your zip code.
Children spend a lot of time in these same places, but people still don't screen their housekeepers and babysitters as well as they might either...it's an evolutionary thing. We wait until some real disaster happens near us before we awaken to the need to know more, and begin to take certain matters seriously.
Posted by ArborTender from Covina on 4/18/04
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Sorry, I don't know what kind of tree it was and my parking lot is asphalt with no place to plant a tree.I do not own my building, the owner a an elderly lady who will not do anything in regard to the use of her property without permission. Thank god no one was injured,or was looking for a reason to sue her.The tree was completely on their property and I'm sure they would'nt want any assistance from me as to the type of tree to plant, if they do plan to plant another tree.There are six business's in our complex and we have had trouble with the school before. The children play in sand and were allowed to through it into our lot, over the fence damaging a clients car. They threw a toy or rock over and broke a windshield of a worker in my business.I have contacted code violation in the past.
Posted by Linda Evans on 4/19/04
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- Re: Lark Ellen Villas
I am a current resident of this so called "cono project" and have read p on the comments, agenda meetings, etc. When I moved to this location, I expected it to be teporary and was injured at work and now suffer from chroic medical problems and agree that these units violate all ADA requirements and ofer no access from the garage to the third (or even second floor) for a disabled person. I have been personally harrassed by the leasing staff (withexact words "I dpn't care apout our problems, I thought I was renting to an EMPLOYED person not a DISABLED person: verious violation of FEHA. I am employe but also disabled notw and required multiple medical interventions. Yet this is being held aainst me and used as a discriminitory action.
A muder a couple of months ago (maybe a month ago) was witnesed by my then 4 year old son across the street. The the False sign outside the condos state that the property is secured and monitored by monitoring devices, both of which are untrue/ I had a theft in the front of my home in broad daylight and was told my the JB Development, that there are no such survellence cameras, only put there to "deture crime". Deture it how???
Posted by P4disney  on 09/13/06
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