for Responsible Development
What about trees and parks instead of more cement
and buildings?
It looks like the city's plan for addressing climate change is destroying trees, creating more traffic and walling in neighborhoods with corridors of tall buildings. Midtown already suffers from ugly commercial corridors that serve automobiles, not people. We need more beauty, natural beauty.
MAIN & LOMA VISTA
The Bowling Alley project went thru HAP hearing last Tuesday. The PC/DRC approved the HAP application subject to 3 conditions dealing with timing of historic analysis, parking, and lane width. The PC/DRC noted parking, circulation, and frontages for the internal units facing the proposed lane as outstanding issues. The HAP approval is just the Dear Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and City Council Members, The way our system is set up citizen oversight is paramount. Please when addressing the policy consideration requested by Ed Summers and Brian Brennan remember how the system is set up to work and how an engaged citizenry keeps the process open and honest. Remember, that during the updating of the 2005 General Plan the public was promised that community area plans would be created: 2005 General Plan EIR Action 3.18 “Revise the Residential Growth Management Program (RGMP) with an integrated set of growth management tools including: Our system is designed to work with public input and citizen oversight. If community area plans are not completed, you will lose citizen insight that will help make this community better and even more livable. Yes, we have the Vision Plan and we have the updated 2005 General Plan, but both of these documents are very general documents. Area community plans are designed to seamlessly integrate new development into specific areas of the City with very specific individual area needs that must be taken into consideration. You are blessed in Thank you so much for your time and attention, (Thank you also Bill, Christy and Ed for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet individually to hear concerns regarding the interim Midtown Corridor Development Code and the above referenced policy request.) Below is a copy of comments on the Midtown Corridor’s Negative Declaration EIR. There are suggestions to how this interim code could be improved to get the really great livable community that we all desire while protecting the cherished community character that we want to preserve. Again thank you for your time, Dear Ms. Weir: I have been a resident of midtown It takes me 5 to 10 minutes to get out of my driveway onto the street in the morning due to heavy traffic. You now want to build 25 condos where Molnar Brothers currently sits. Those condos added to the existing condos being built will result in 30 – 50 more cars in my neighborhood. The cars are not going to enter and exit on You also want to build where the bowling alley currently sits. If there is too much traffic on Thompson, those residents will use the side streets between Thompson and Then there is the issue of the water crisis. Do any of you read the newspaper or watch the news? Are you aware there is a water shortage? Where are the natural resources coming from for all these new people? Seeing is believing and if I wasn’t seeing all of this, I certainly would not believe it. The city claims they are for the small business man (not so). If that is true, why not renovate the unsightly areas and make it affordable for the small business owner to thrive in this community instead of adding housing? It will bring in tax dollars and keep the money here in I have never been so dismayed and disgusted at a council in all of my years here. You have all lost my vote as a result of ongoing poor decisions. Jenny McKinney Ventura Lofts Project, 1888 Thompson Blvd. The request proposes to demolish the existing bowling alley/restaurant building and build 29 new residential units within three different building types: Courtyard, DuplexTTriplex, and Side Yard Housing. The three building types employ different contextual architectural massing and treatment. Two Courtyard buildings occupy the approximately northern half of the site. Courtyard elevations fronting Thompson Boulevard will have Stoop and Storefront Frontage Types and be up to three stories in height. A second, two-story Courtyard building and two, two-story Dupleflriplex buildings front a proposed east-west lane with a Porch Frontage type. Two, two-story detached single-family units at the south end of the property are designed as Side Yard Housing with Dooryard Frontages, with primay access off of a proposed lane extending from Ocean Avenue. Access to the dwelling units is provided via new alleys from Thompson "Boulevard and Ocean Avenue. The circulation pattern will connect to an existing alley on the east side, and provide for future connectivity to Langdon Way. however, Langdon Way is a narrow alley further constricted by residential structures with minimal front setback. Parking for each dwelling unit is proveded within garages sited at the rear of each nominal lot, mostly in a tandem configuration. Garage access for the Courtyard units is from a commin driveway entered from the proposed alley. Duplex and Triplex garages are accessed directly from the lane. Five vistior parking spaces are provided along the proposed alley off of Thompson Boulevard. The detached single-family units have conventional garage parking, with four guest parking spaces proved within turnouts off oof the proposed lane. The proposal provides compliant outdoor space (minimum 15% of the nominal lot) on the ground floor. The two Side Yard Housing types are oriented with yards adjacent to existing residential rear yards.
beginning of the process--the project will now go through DRC and PC review, with several opportunities for public input.
Please email the Planning Commission with yourcomments or come to the public meetings to voice your concerns. It's important to the Council that citizens are heard throughout the process.
I'll check on the noticing for the project. There should be a sign posted on the site before all hearings in addition to mailed postcards.
Christy Weir
City Council Member
COMMENTS ON NOTICE OF INTENT TO ADOPT A NEGATIVE DECLARATION FOR MIDTOWN CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT CODE
Dear City Council members;
In view of the fact that four members of the council appear to feel confident that there is adequate community input to go straight to community plans, I suggest you review the proposed interim Midtown Coding Project and compare how it responds to the design guidelines expressed in our mini-plan, Midtown by Design. Illustrating that there is no response to public input, there is no relationship whatsoever between the proposed code and to Midtown by Design. Views, building heights ('some' three stories) massive blocky buildings and small town character were all addressed in Midtown by Design. Basing a block on approximately 200 feet, you are receommending block after block (94 blocks of buildings over 45 feet, (with 17 at 75+ feet), and 14 blocks of buildings over 35 feet.) Keep in mind that when the community said 'some' three story buildings, a citizens reference is 36 feet, not 45 feet. Even then, the community voted against ANY three story buildings and certainly no highrises at Five Points.
On days like this, one has to wonder if you truly ever did want any community input. Based on the responsiveness of the 'Proposed Interim Midtown Code' the effort to input for the community was a useless waste of time.
Bungalow Breakfasts, Balloting, Paying for noticing of meetings that the city wouldn't pay for, flying balloons at 45 feet, endless email and letter writing, endless meetings, Many nights at council till midnight, supplicating at your appointed boards, though we knew that was a waste of time, three weeks of Midtown by Design workshops, numerous research and presentations to the council, forming city-wide advocacy groups, neighborhood groups, websites, ballot initiatives, collecting thousands of signatures from Venturans who want a choice on view protection. It all seems to mean nothing to you. We asked for protection from three story buildings until we could get a Community Plan in place, and you respond with a 'interim' coding that proposes even higher than 3 stories and buildings higher than anything that exists today in Midtown....and have the nerve to call it a response to our concerns. An interim coding is supposed to protect us from anything bigger that we now have until we know what we want and where we want it. This interim code would destroy the character, views, aesthetics and class free culture of Midtown, dividing us and walling us in with highrise concrete walls.
Thank you to Bill Fulton, Neal Andrews and Carl Morehouse for sticking up for our promised community plans. It is unfortunate that the other council members, Brennan, Summers, Weir and Monahan did not feel the need to protect our Community Plans, as they have always been promised to us. I don't think this move is going to speed up development as they had hoped. I think it is just going to reinforce the will of the community that they have to fight harder to ensure the vision is the community's, rather than the elitists or the developers.
No, if this Interim Midtown Coding is an example of your having enough input from the community, it's obvious you just don't want it at all, because what we have input has meant nothing to you.
Yours truly,
Camille Harris
Project Description
