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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPC MinutesPlanning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 CITY OF NEWPORT BEACH Planning Commission Minutes November 18, 2004 Regular Meeting - 6:30 p.m. Page 1 of 71 file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 INDEX ROLL CALL Commissioners Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins - all Commissioners were present. Chairperson Tucker recognized newly appointed member, Mr. Robert Hawkins. STAFF PRESENT: Sharon Z. Wood, Assistant City Manager Patricia L. Temple, Planning Director Robin Clauson, Acting City Attorney Richard Edmonston, Transportation /Development Services Manager Gregg Ramirez, Associate Planner Jaime Murillo, Assistant Planner Ginger Varin, Planning Commission Executive Secretary PUBLIC COMMENTS: PUBLIC COMMENTS Mr. Walchli noted his concerns of rooftop items such as canopies, the matter of 202 Femeaf construction, and the number of outdoor fireplaces that are being placed in yards. POSTING OF THE AGENDA: POSTING OF THE AGENDA The Planning Commission Agenda was posted on November 12, 2004. CONSENT CALENDAR SUBJECT: MINUTES of the regular meeting of November 4, 2004. ITEM NO. 1 Motion was made by Chairperson Tucker to approve the minutes as written. Approved Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Abstain: I None WWW HEARING ITEMS SUBJECT: Gates Residence Appeal (PA2004 -208) 505 J. Street Page 2 of 71 ITEM NO.2 PA2004 -208 Appeal of the determination of compliance with the provisions of Chapter 20.65 of I Continued to the Newport Beach Municipal Code (Building Height) by the Planning Director 12/09/2004 related to the approval of a plan revision for a project at 505 J Street. The appeal contests the correctness of that determination. Ms. Temple noted staffs request to continue this item to December 9, 2004. Motion was made by Chairperson Tucker to continue this item to December 9, 2004. Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None Abstain: None * * W SUBJECT: Cendant Car Rental Group ITEM NO. 3 2101 Dove Street Approved Determine that the suggested office use would be the principal use, and the vehicle rental use would be ancillary. Mrs. Wood noted that this is not an application; however, it is a use determination as the Cendant Car Group is considering moving to the 2101 Dove Street location. The location is in the APF Zoning District, which allows vehicle and car rental facilities only with a use permit as an ancillary use. The way the Code defines ancillary use does not limit us looking at the physical dimension of the use of the property. In this case, and in a similar case several years ago and staff is recommending the same logic here, the extent of the revenue that would be generated with this proposed use would be much greater from the office portion of the use than from the car rental portion of the use. Staff feels office use could be found to be the principal use and the vehicle use is ancillary so that they would be eligible for a use permit. If the Commission agrees with that determination, and the company wanted to move forward, they would still have to file their application for a use permit and then go through that process and have a public hearing. At Commission inquiry, Mrs. Wood noted that a number of car rental agencies have gone into that area mostly in the APF Zoning District over the years under different circumstances. The majority of them went in when the area was zoned industrial and that was a permitted use. Some went in with use permits where the finding was that the car rental use was ancillary to the office use in the area, a finding she does not think is appropriate. None had been approved under this scenario. file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 3 of 71 Commissioner Cole asked if the proposed applicant provided revenues forecasts associated with the use? Mrs. Wood answered that revenue forecasts were provided to the City. If it came to a use permit, there could be a condition of approval that requires some annual reporting. At the least we would want a condition of approval that said they would house various office functions that they described to us at this facility, to ensure that office remains the principal use. Chairperson Tucker noted that on this type of use, it is not only the revenue but the nature of the use that you can end up filling space with inventory in this particular type of use. I am concerned, but I think as far as the use of the property with this location, it is a good use for the location. Motion was made by Chairperson Tucker to determine that the suggested office use be the principal use and the vehicle rental use be an ancillary use. Public comment was opened. Public comment was closed. Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None Abstain: None SUBJECT: Amendment of the Santa Ana Heights Speck Area Plan (PA2004- ITEM NO.4 186) PA2004 -265 Recommended Amend Chapter 20.44 (Specific Plan District V -Santa Ana Heights) to be for approval consistent with Chapter 20.85 (Accessory Dwelling Units). Code Amendment No. 2004 -009 Public comment was opened. Public comment was closed. Motion was made by Chairperson Tucker to recommend approval of Code Amendment No. 2004 -009 to the City Council. Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None Abstain: None SUBJECT: St. Andrews Presbyterian Church "Expansion (PA2002 -265) ITEM NO. 5 600 St. Andrews Road PA2002 -265 file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 4 of 71 Request for a General Plan Amendment, Zone Change and Use Permit for the Continued to replacement and construction of additional buildings and a below grade parking 1210912004 garage. The General Plan Amendment involves an increase in the maximum allowable building area with no change to the existing land use designation. The Zone Change would change the zoning district from R -2 and R -2 to GEIF to be consistent with the existing General Plan, Land Use Element designation. The Use Permit involves the alteration of 3existing buildings, replacement of the existing fellowship hall and classroom building and the construction of a new multi- purpose gymnasium and youth center. Chairperson Tucker confirmed with Commissioner Hawkins that he had listened to the prior meeting tapes and reviewed the documents and is prepared to participate in the proceedings tonight. Commissioner Hawkins stated he has reviewed the entire record. Chairperson Tucker noted this is the fourth hearing on this matter and it is our goal tonight to give staff sufficient guidance on all matters that are still open to allow staff to finalize a staff report and conditions so that a vote may be taken at our next meeting on December 9, 2004. Because much of what we will be doing tonight is operating conditions and other conditions of approval, much of our discussion will sound like approval of the project is a foregone conclusion. However, until the Commission votes nothing is certain. We do expect the matter to go to Council even if we vote to deny the Church's revised plan. We will go through the process assuming a project will be approved since it is possible that the Commission could recommend denial and Council could still choose to approve the project. The Council will expect that we have processed this project so that if they choose to approve it they may do so at the meeting where they have a public hearing. He then noted that the minutes of the meeting will be in detail. My goal tonight is to cover four main topics and discuss what still needs to be done before we are in a position to vote. The main topics are: 1. To acknowledge the Joann Lombardo letter of July 16 and memorandum of November 17, both claiming that a response to the original comment letter to the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in the July 16 letter were not properly responsive. And, to decide whether this information leads us to the conclusion that the EIR needs to be amended to include significant new information and re- circulated, or not. 2. To discuss and resolve each of the operating conditions proffered by the Church and the neighbors and give guidance to staff as to which direction the Commission deems proper on each condition not agreed to by the parties. 3. A decision on the net new square footage of the addition. 4. A decision on the parking needed. This will entail a discussion about both required on -site parking and an off -site agreement with the School District. We will discuss how a condition might be worded on this topic. We will also be talking about the staff generated rough draft conditions but not in as much depth. We will discuss what we expect to see with the next staff report and how to include all stakeholders in the process of finalizing the conditions. We want to hear from the Commission about substantive issues which a Commissioner believes the Commission should weigh in on as far as the conditions are concerned. We will also want to cover housekeeping items to make sure that any unanswered questions that have been previously raised are brought up again and file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 5 of 71 answered. Lastly, after all our discussions above are concluded, we will invite public comment so the public may comment on how we have chosen to handle the issues raised or not, and any other matter related to the St. Andrew project that the speaker may wish to speak about. The time limit for those comments will be three minutes a person. However, the good will that St. Andrew is hoping to accomplish by this project is not really an issue, nor is what happened over 20 years ago and who said what to whom and why, at that time. Only issues related to design compatibility and environmental effects and operation of the project and its impacts that are before us tonight are germane at this stage of the proceedings. Ms. Temple noted correspondence, which has been placed at your chairs. Additionally, staff received a lengthy document from the representatives of St. Andrew commenting on the rough draft conditions that are in the staff report. Staff has not had a chance to review that document. Chairperson Tucker noted that after we get through the four items that I have referred to, we will come back and talk about the conditions and how we get those into a position to be finalized. Any questions of staff at this point from the Commission? Then, I think the first item I would like to acknowledge, is the Joann Lombardo letter of July 16 and the memorandum of November 17, which claim that her original comment letter on the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and the July 16 letter were not properly responded to. The purpose of doing this is, at our last meeting, we went through the Environmental Impact Report in some detail and solicited public comment. We got through everything and ultimately came to the conclusion that the Commission wanted to see a response to the July 16, 2004 letter before reaching a conclusion as to whether or not the EIR was lacking substantial information that should have been in there and making a decision as to whether or not the EIR should be modified to include new information and re- circulate it. It is my feeling from what I have seen in the letter and the responses that I don't believe we need to go through the effort of revising the EIR and re- circulating the document. Commissioner Eaton noted that the Response to Comment number 3 is not there and I think that was one where the Planning Department was relying upon the Traffic Engineer to provide that response. So, I wonder if he could do that tonight so that we could get that on the record. Chairperson Tucker noted that is a good point, I actually had that written on my memo and forgot to mention that. Is the Traffic Engineer here to answer, that was the comment that there was no analysis done Clay Street. Mr. Rich Edmonston answered that there are no established criteria he is aware of for evaluating impacts on a local residential street. From a pure capacity standpoint, a two lane residential street could accommodate at least ten thousand cars a day. An issue for the neighborhood is that there is also, if you will, an environmental capacity that is substantially lower, maybe around two thousand cars a day but above that it is considered to impact the residential quality of the street. Having said that, there are a number of streets in the Newport Heights and Cliffhaven area that today have volumes that exceed that. But again, the analysis was not made because there is no real basis to compare what an increase might be over what the existing is. That is what my approach was in working with our consultant. Chairperson Tucker asked, that is typically what we do in all situations where we have residential streets without traffic signals? Mr. Edmonston answered, yes. file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 6 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: What it comes down to from a pure traffic analysis is the Average Daily Trips (ADT's) are way under what the segment capacity inherently has and what you are really commenting on, I would view as a compatibility issue. The streets can carry the traffic, the question really is whether it is the type of traffic volume that is appropriate for a residential street. Mr. Edmonston answered that is correct. Commissioner Eaton: In Ms. Lombardo's e-mail of November 17, she also suggested that the responses did not address themselves sufficiently to the air quality effects on sensitive receptors and the expected 'exceedence' of the SCAQMD thresholds related to reactive organic gases. I see that Mr. Jones, who is the air quality expert is here, and I wonder if we could get his response for the record. Chairperson Tucker answered, okay, why don't we have him do that. Mr. Jones, of Mestre Greve Associates: The 'exceedenoe' referred to in the November 17 letter basically referenced the URBEMIS 2002 air quality modeling; they don't provide any inputs and what assumptions went in to that modeling. The only thing that I could speculate that would cause the reactive organic gas 'exceedence' would be due to architectural coatings, which is an analysis we don' t perform because the inputs to that are very speculative in terms of what coatings are used, how they are going to be applied, and the specific DOC content of those coatings and how much they are going to be applied. That is an analysis that we do not do because we do not have enough information at this point to do that sort of analysis. Architectural coatings are regulated by the AQMD; they have certain maximum content. AQMD has felt that it is required for the region to meet the air quality standards. That is kind of speculative on my part of what she is saying. Chairperson Tucker: CEQA doesn't require either you or us to consider items of speculation. Would you comment briefly on the sensitive receptors. Mr. Jones: That on the sensitive receptors, again the significance thresholds that they have (labeled as regional thresholds) but they are actually derived from federal air quality guidelines which apply to point sources operating permanently, so that is to mitigate and look at the local effects of those. Our modeling shows that we're even including the construction calculations, emissions on site as well as truck and employee vehicle emissions that will happen far away from the site to some extent. Those are below the South Coast Air Quality Management District thresholds. Chairperson Tucker: In essence, you don't agree with the comments that were put forth? You feel that everything was adequately addressed? Mr. Jones: Yes. Commissioner Eaton: There was a lot of back and forth on whether the Church was a regional facility in the context of the EIR discussions. I was wondering if we could hear from either the City Attorney or Mr. Kreitzer as to whether or not that makes any difference as far as the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA) thresholds evaluations are concerned, whether or not it is a regional facility. Keeton Kreitzer, the principal of Keeton Kreitzer Consulting and preparer of the Environmental Impact Report at 17782 East 17th Street in Tustin. In terms of the Church being a regional facility, I think that may be somewhat of a subjective assessment of what the Church is. I did an EIR for a Church in Fullerton that started out at 3,700. It was reduced to 2,500 people or a 2,500 seat capacity. I am file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 7 of 71 not sure if that was a regional Church. It drew from outside the City of Fullerton, but I am not sure what the definition of a regional church is. There are many more larger churches than St. Andrew in Orange County and I think the comments suggest that this would be one of the largest in the state. I am not sure that is an accurate assessment. Chairperson Tucker: We were not presented with any facts to verify that. That as an opinion. Mr. Kreitzer answered that is correct. It was a statement. Commissioner Eaton: My question went to whether or not being called a regional facility made any difference under CEQA or on the thresholds. Mr. Kreiitzer: I guess only so far as if the draw resulted in a significantly longer trip length. But I think we have used average length and I think our traffic, air quality and noise analyses looked at some of the information provided by the Church where the actual congregation was coming from. So I think we were accurate from that standpoint. That is the only area in which I can say there might be a significant change in any potential impacts. But I think we have covered that and have used the best information we can where the congregants are coming from. Chairperson Tucker asked if Ms. Lombardo was in the audience wants to respond to anything. She was not present. Commissioner Hawkins: With respect to the traffic along the residential streets, have we done an analysis on the increment that the expansion would allow in terms of the traffic generation of that increment? And would that affect the flow of traffic through those residential streets? Do you understand my question? Serine Ciandella with Kimley -Horn and Associates, Inc. noted: . The traffic study was prepared based on the original size of the increase. . The estimate was first of all that a proposed increase of almost 36,000 square feet would generate a little more than 328 daily trips. . Of those trips, it was estimated perhaps fifty percent might approach and leave the Church site using Clay Street, which would be around 160 trips per day. . A couple of changes have been made; one is to reduce the size of the expansion, and two, is to close the access on Clay Street. . We have not been asked to redo the analysis for the currently proposed project, but both of those changes would result in even less traffic on Clay Street. . The impact of. even 120 trips coming either from 15th Street or from St. Andrew Road simply for the purpose of accessing the Church and leaving again, those 120 trips could not be deemed to be a significant impact. Commissioner Hawkins, noting he was on the City's Environmental Quality Affairs Committee (EQAC), stated that committee provided comments on the Notice of Preparation, which were not in the original EIR. The Response to Comments indicates that those will be part of the final EIR, but I don't see them attached either file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 8 of 71 to the Responses to Comments, or to the EQAC comments. I want to make sure that those are included in the record. Chairperson Tucker: If we could put those in the next staff report, so that they are in the record, that would be helpful. Okay, does anybody on the Commission believe that we have heard about any new significant information that should be included in the EIR and that the EIR should be recirculated? I am not seeing anybody that thinks so, so we will consider that item basically closed. That doesn't preclude the public from making comments later on at this meeting on the EIR or subsequent meetings because we really haven't acted to certify it. So, we are just not planning on discussing it further except to the extent somebody wants to bring it up later, then we will deal with whatever issues are raised at that point. Mr. Krotee is not here yet. Continuing, one of the items that is still outstanding is the net new square footage: Mr. Krotee, and 1 believe Mr. Dunlap, worked on a revision to the Church's plan. 1 had agreed with Mr. Krotee that he could do a PowerPoint presentation on that, which was what I was going to do at this point. Instead we will just move on to the operating conditions issue. What I am referring to are the conditions to the manner in which the Church will operate, assuming an expanded campus. The Church prepared conditions that it would be willing to live with and the neighbors responded with their version of basically the same conditions and so we have a matrix, if you will, that has each party's position. I believe the Church came up with some further revisions on what the Church was willing to do that got emailed out. Hopefully everyone on the Commission has seen those. What I would like to do at this point is to have a representative of the Church and the neighborhood come down to this table in front because I am planning on going through each one of these one at a time so that we can either find out that there is agreement where there didn't appear to be agreement before, or there is not agreement, then the Commission will provide guidance to the staff after hearing from the parties as to why they think that their version of that particular condition is the one that ought to be implemented. If we can get representatives from each group to come on down. Excuse us if it is not exactly smooth going here, this is kind of a new approach for us. But I just saw no other way to get this thing resolved. Now, what I am going to have to do is recognize each of you as you speak so that for the record the minutes will reflect who is speaking at any given time. You have to speak into the microphone, otherwise you won't be heard at all. Chairperson Tucker asked Bruce Steward to sit at the head of the table facing the Commission. He then asked each of the participants to introduce themselves.and affiliation and then 1 will go through and recognize you as you speak. Commissioner Eaton noted that you mentioned an email with the further comments from St. Andrew, and I don't believe that all the Commissioners got that. I happen to have gotten that directly from St. Andrew, but I don't believe the rest of the Commission has that. It may be appropriate for St. Andrew's people to go over that when they make their comments. Chairperson Tucker noted copies of the email can be shared by the Commissioners. He then asked for introductions. Representatives sitting at the table: Bruce Steward, resident of Cliffhaven and one of the participants in preparing the homeowners' prepared conditions. file: //H:\Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 9 of 71 Herbert Smith, Chief Operating Officer for St. Andrew Church. . Ken Williams, Chairman of the Building Committee for St. Andrew Church. Gary McKitterick, lawyer appearing on behalf of the Church. Chairperson Tucker noted the first two or three issues listed on the Comparison of Operating Conditions list are the ones where the most discussion probably will take place. I think there are a couple more later that are also important but the hours of operation and the occupancy of the site. Why don't we have the Church just comment on what it is willing to do at this point and why. Mr. Gary McKitterick: First of all, I think it is important for us to understand where we are starting from. We are requesting, in our opinion, a small expansion to St. Andrew. In association with that, we are now considering operational restrictions on our entire campus. To our knowledge there are no other churches or synagogues in the Newport Harbor area that have similar operating restrictions, either in terms of occupancy on a total campus, or on hours of operation. The City Council of course, has R zoning and GEIF Zoning which would have taken into consideration hours of operation. With all that said, we do want to accommodate and want to work with the neighborhood and are sensitive to areas of concern. If you can look at our operation issues, we are committed to do three things that I think are currently not imposed: 1. With respect to associations of people over 400, we will make sure that those will start no later than 8 p.m. and they will be scheduled to end within 30 minutes before the end of the operating hours. This is, of course, to accommodate the exit of the large group of folks. 2. In addition, and this is in your packets, the neighbors have requested us to accommodate some of the coordination of funerals and weddings at the Church and how that works with the school district. We would like to propose for all Memorial Services, where there will be an attendance over 250, and of course this will be an estimate based on the funeral at hand, would start after 1 o'clock. In looking at the school calendar, that seemed to accommodate them. I know Commissioner Eaton had raised an issue on that before. This is to allocate resources so that we don't have a conflict or at least minimize a conflict with the school on time frames. With that said, those and any other restrictions 1 guess 1 will cite in this way. The hours of operation that have been proposed by the neighbors would greatly inhibit our right to worship, the way we operate the campus, the way we have the freedom to operate the campus today. We are willing to impose reasonable restrictions, but we need to be careful that there is a nexus between those operational conditions and what we are requesting, which is a 21,000 square foot expansion on the campus. Chairperson Tucker questioned the Memorial Services starting after 1 o'clock. What time does the school get out and how long do those services generally take? Is there going to be a conflict on the way out? Mr. Herbert Smith: I am not positive on the school. The bulk of the school gets out about 12:15 or 12:30, there is a huge transition in parking and traffic issues at that time, so we thought 1 o'clock would be an appropriate time to start. A traditional Memorial Service is not more than one hour. file : //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 10 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: Mr. Steward, any thoughts on what you heard? I guess really the question is, we have a lot of different proposed times and dates, which seems like it might be a little difficult just to figure out if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, but any thoughts on that? Mr. Bruce Steward: The neighborhood obviously feels a little differently about the size of the increase, we don't perceive it quite as small as Gary might, we see it as fairly significant. We think, therefore, it has a potential for significant impact on the community. The focus on the operating hours really is designed to try and eliminate, if you will, the chance of having an added increase in the hours that we thought would be most important to the neighborhood, which is kind of the after Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 , 7 to 5, or 8 to 5, whatever you want to call the normal business day. The neighborhood has already significantly been adversely impacted by the school and other issues, cut - through traffic as well, during that period of time. And there is kind of an acknowledgement therefore that the Church is only part of that issue. But with respect to weekend and evenings putting aside the worship services that normally occur now on Sunday mornings and Saturday there is one evening that is now the larger evening for the Church activities, which is Wednesday. The desire of these hours of operation the neighbors put forth is to try to not have that kind of intensity of use that currently exists on Wednesdays spread to every single night of the week. The neighborhood is really looking to try for ways to accommodate some increase in the Church activities during the normal daily hours but when people were returning to their homes in the evenings and weekends we are trying to have a quieter period with less traffic. Once you get past the hours of 5 - 6 p.m., the traffic in the neighborhood at that point drops off quite dramatically, unless there is an event at the school which does not happen frequently. Therefore the traffic that is generated through the neighborhood at that period of time really would be driven by the Church. So, the desire was really to try and keep the impact in the evenings down to a minimum, acknowledging existing already of what we now have on Wednesday. Chairperson Tucker: The inevitable question is, right now today, they could change the way they operate on really every night of the week. Is there any limitation on the existing use permit? Ms. Temple: I do not believe so. Chairperson Tucker: Really what the trade off is, is that they are willing to have some level of restriction on their hours of operation in exchange for this large or small increase, depending on where you sit. So I am trying to figure out how do we acknowledge the fact that they don't have any restriction today and how much is a reasonable expectation that they would agree to if they get 21,000 additional' square feet. Mr. Steward: Obviously that is part of the balance. I think when anyone looks back twenty years, I don't think people anticipated the types of activities and the extent of activities a lot of churches have, not just St. Andrew, in terms of that intensity of use. So I think we'd all look back at the conditions of operation that were set forth in the initial conditional use permit as not really addressing what is happening today in current times. I think there a lot more activities that the Church does that I don't think people looking at normal Church activities and how they do the sanctuary seating and different ways of trying to look at the parking requirements. So I think we understand and acknowledge that there are those kinds of increased levels of usage, that is just what we are trying to moderate the extent to which they would be larger during those periods of time. That is why we had a problem with the extent of the size that could occur currently, I think on the average Wednesday nights, the larger night in the 600 to 800 range that you have in terms of activities. I think that generates a fair amount of substantial traffic. If file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 11 of 71 you go by there Wednesday nights the current surface parking lot is full as it is a fairly well attended event. It does create a lot of ambient noise in the neighborhood. The desire is not to prevent the Church from having their activities, but try to limit the size of those activities that occur and maybe the hours so that they end at a time to which the neighborhood could return to a quieter period. Chairperson Tucker: I would like to address item 2, the Occupancy of the Site. Gary, would you talk to what your issues are on that. There is an annotation that seems to indicate the Church is willing to do some limitation on occupancy. Mr. McKitterick: One of the things to point out was on the intensity of use, at least in the evening hours, one of the conditions that we are suggesting would be a closure of the exit onto St. Andrew Road at night time to try to limit that traffic too. One of the additional conditions we are working through to recognize that intensity of use to keep the traffic along with the wall on Clay Street along with others is to be cognizant of what Mr. Steward has raised. In terms of occupancy, a couple of things: 1. The issue of intensity of use is very important to the neighborhood. We have looked at this and the way we have to look at this is, they are caps. These are caps, and we must look at it for the future. This has been a long process through four Planning Commission hearings to be where we are today. So, I have a serious doubt there will be at least as much controversy or at least discussions, if there were any discussions on modifying the CUP in the future. Therefore we are looking at this as a cap. Caps are for a long time. We looked at our operations, we looked at and used our numbers based on all people, not just children. Before there had been a lot of analyses done of occupancy on the Church, on all days focused on adults driving because the expansion is tied to traffic, so we were trying to correlate the two together. From a land use planning standpoint, that is the real impact. In this analysis we did it on pure head count. With that, we have Sundays that clearly are the most intense use, On Sundays we have proposed that at no point in time will the campus itself have a concurrent use in excess of 1,900 people. The sanctuary as you know has seating for 1,387. On Sundays, there would be Sunday school concurrently. Those are the current operations today and the Code is based upon there will be no concurrent use of the chapel and the sanctuary. We are proposing in this compromise to impose that on the entire campus. I think that goes to the intensity of use, which is what the neighbors look for. Let me go through some of the other numbers. Also on Wednesday evenings, as Bruce indicated, those are currently higher activity levels during the week. Of course, looking out in the future, one would not know whether that Wednesday night would possibly become a Tuesday night and Wednesday night becomes less intense. So, we certainly do not want to peg, other than Sunday of course, an occupancy to a certain day because it needs to float. With all that, we had originally proposed 1,200 on all other days, which is below our parking requirement and below our current occupancy by quite a bit. We would like to propose that we would limit our evening occupancy to three nights a week to no more than 750 people. We believe in listening; Bruce and I actually had a conversation this weekend in trying to focus on the evening hours, we talked about it. So we feel this would be a reasonable compromise to have three nights a week. Of course we don't want to designate those because we don't know which they will be, but they will be not to exceed 750 people. With the overlay of clearly the operational days, we have noted Wednesdays at 1,300, and I would like to correct the record to 'a day', we don't know that it will be Wednesday. For purposes of clarification, that would not be vested as a Wednesday, but simple a weekday. Chairperson Tucker asked if it could be a floating day on a week by week basis? Mr. McKitterick answered yes. So the way the analysis would be, Sundays would file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 12 of 71 be concurrent occupancy at 1,900, one day a week occupancy would be 1,300; and two days a week occupancy would be 1,200, and three days at 750 people. Chairperson Tucker asked where the 1,900 came from. Mr. Williams: I would need to reconstruct a typical day as we currently have it and then show the growth plan. On a current Sunday at one service we are currently having between 600 and 800 in the sanctuary including the choir. At the same time that is going on, we have a Junior High and Senior High Program for about 100 each for a total additional on top of the 800. For the children's Sunday school at the same time that service is going on, we have another 200. At the same time we could have, and do have occasionally, as many as three adult education programs going on elsewhere on the campus. Each of them in the neighborhood of around 50, so that would be another 150. So you can see by that the current activity is at a level of almost 1,200 or 1,300. As I mentioned, the sanctuary actually seats 1,387 including the choir. What we did was to plow into that figure when we arrived at the 1,900 the ability to fill the sanctuary. Right now, that is not happening but we wanted that ability to do that. That is how we arrived at the 1,900 figure. So it would be the sanctuary capacity plus these other activities. Chairperson Tucker answered okay, but that begs the question, where are all those bodies going to park? We'll get to that issue as well. Mr. Steward, why don't you go ahead and respond then 1 will ask the Commission. Mr. Steward: In terms of the neighbors, there is obviously a concern and question about the existing CUP (Conditional Use Permit) and the condition in terms of how you count it. So the desire was to come up with, whatever the number was that was agreed upon, not just count the sanctuary, there is a question about that. Certainly that is an item the Church and the neighbors agree on that we ought to count based on the entire occupancy of the site at any time because that is really going to drive the parking. The counts were difficult for us to come up with. We ended up with kind of having to rifle shoot and pick this a little bit. We had tried to challenge the Church to get numbers and counts to us so that we could try and react and be reasonable about a response. When it came time to submit this, we still did not have that broken out in categories well enough, so we had to wing it a little bit. What we did in terms of generating the 1,600 was to take a full sanctuary (1,387) and add some for Sunday school. Clearly there was no art to that number, we just guessed as best we could. That is what we attempted to do at that time with respect to other items. Clearly, as you can see what is trying to generate in the evenings, is trying to generate less volume with the intensity of use in the evenings. Sunday is obviously the prime time for Church and therefore we were trying to be more accommodating with respect to those kinds of activities during that period of time. Chairperson Tucker: They have a number of 1,900 and the neighbors have come forth with a number of 1,600. Now that you have heard their rational, is 1,600 still the neighbors number Mr. Steward? Mr. Steward answered that the neighbors did not give him a proxy. Chairperson Tucker noted, you are up here, you are our guy. Mr. Steward: He has the same concern and question in terms of getting the 1,600 how it comes in terms of parking. If you talk about, the part of the conversation Gary and I had, I think we understand there are exceptions to the rule for the Church and that would be Christmas and Easter. So if you throw that out the window a little bit on the idea that those are just like the day just like the day after file: //H:\Plancomm\200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 13 of 71 Thanksgiving, or the day after Christmas that is a different deal. From our perspective, we have to look at it to say this is going from a 1,350 current use on a regular basis up. So to see that almost go up 50% to 1,900 causes me some concern in terms of how that traffic would be handled if this started to be operated at more maximum capacity. I guess Jim Karmak has a different opinion, as he has been involved with these meetings as well. Otherwise, there is no magic of 1,600 versus any other number. Chairperson Tucker, noted that he was going to jump forward a bit and jump around to take the issues that are germane to this main core issue which is the hours of operation, occupancy of the site, and then the parking issue. Maybe we ought to talk about parking because to my way of thinking, if we can not identify where all these folks are going to park, it is hard to justify the number 1,900 when we really identified where, assuming even if there is three persons for vehicle, which there may or may not be, where those bodies are going to put their cars. Mr. Ken Williams: We have several scenarios, would it be acceptable to put a slide up that indicate those? Chairperson Tucker answered go ahead. ParkinglOccupancy Analysis (Contents of slide presented by applicant) St. Andrew's 250 Current NH 15th St. 252 502 1506 :ase I St. Andrew's 400 (Application) Current NH 15th St. 63 1389 I I St. Andrew's 252 Current NH 15th St. 652 1956 St. Andrew's 263 III Reconfigured NH 332 1785 15th St. 595 Mr. Williams explained the first indicator is what is happening today. Currently we have 250 parking spaces on our lot and we have access to 252 across the street in what we have labeled Newport Harbor 15th Street for a total of 502 spaces with a ratio of three that is an occupancy of 1,500 plus. Case I is what is in the application with St. Andrew's with 400 spaces in the new configuration and then we ask for permission to use 63 of the spaces in the Newport Harbor 15th Street lot, which would give us 463 or 1,389 occupancy. Case II is a logical extension of that, which is St. Andrew at 400 and being able to use the entire 252 of the existing lot that would provide 652 or 1,956 occupancy. Case II is the one that we are particularly working on which is St. Andrew at 263 and that is the 400 parking structure number reduced to 263 to produce the funds to enter into an agreement with the high school to re- configure the 15th Street lot and provide 332 spaces that would be 595 or 1,785. On this spread of cases we based and looked at our potential occupancy figures. file : //H:1Planeonun1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 14 of 71 Chairperson Tucker confirmed that each one of those assumes a 3 persons per car. Mr. Williams answered yes. Continuing, Chairperson Tucker noted that the agreement with the school district then that you would contemplate, that would require expending money, am I correct to assume that the agreement if you were to enter in with is having the rights to use all 332 spaces in some formal arrangement. Today you just have an informal arrangement. Mr. Williams answered yes. Also, the agreement would include the 16th Street lot also, which we did not put into this. Chairperson Tucker asked how would you use the 16th Street lot. Mr. Williams answered it would depend on how this unfolds and that would require shuttling. Commissioner Toerge, noting he was not sure if this should be directed to the Traffic Engineer or the applicant, but it appears that the ratio used to determine parking was based upon the sanctuary at 1,387 and the requirement was 465 parking spaces, which I believe is a ratio of 3 occupants per car. Would that same ratio apply for Junior High, Senior High and Sunday School and the three adult education courses? This analysis seems to assume that same ratio would apply to those functions; is that a reasonable assumption? Ms. Temple answered that we do not have a particular parking standard for all the full scope of those activities. They did mention daycare -like activities such as the children's Sunday school, and the Code for daycare general is one for seven children. We would determine this by use permit probably based upon the age of the participants. So, I think just based on that, it is not full scope, but probably some lesser ratio could be considered and be considered addressing those needs. We would probably want to get a few more details from St. Andrew staff as to these types of participants. Commissioner Toerge confirmed that our current Code for Sunday School is seven occupants per car? Did I hear that correctly? Ms. Temple answered, no. It is one space for every seven children that attend the school. It just means that children don't drive as much and are likely to come with someone else. In this particular case that might be appropriate because the children are probably arriving with adults who are in the sanctuary, so that is not an extra car. Commissioner Toerge asked about the discussion on the Junior and Senior High school and the three adult classes, what were those? Ms. Temple answered that we do not have standards for other schools. We would establish them on a case by case basis through a use permit pursuant to the Parking Standards in the Zoning Code. Commissioner Toerge commented, so, no help. Ms. Temple, answered no specific help in the Code, but that doesn't mean we couldn't work and try and propose what we think might be standards for those uses based on the operation of this parking. file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 15 of 71 Chairperson Tucker noted he was not sure he asked this question or Mr. Steward mentioned it. What is the feeling on the 750 caps on three nights a week? Mr. Steward: Seeing how we just heard about this within the last hour, my initial reaction is a concern that effectively takes Wednesday night and having that three nights a week now. That is a concern to me personally. I don't think there are three adults riding in a car to church; this is California. I assume the three to one ratio just doesn't work in terms of how this church or any church would be operating today. I don't think this gives us a lot of comfort. I think with respect to our reaction, I could only comment in this fashion. The neighbors have not been supportive of a parking structure, although the neighbors are supportive in trying to improve parking and traffic. The reason for the concern about a parking structure is just the concern about people don't generally like to use structures unless they have no other choice. There will be other choices by virtue of the neighborhood streets and also the area around it. We certainly want to try and minimize, if not reduce, or eliminate that need. We certainly think that there is an opportunity to improve, and hopefully to improve, the utilization of the high school parking lot that is now under - utilized. If you go by on an average Sunday, usually there are a number of spaces available in the high school lot. Expanding and using the lot in the current situation would be an improvement, if you look at and say that you are looking at a count of 1,900 and looking at Case II, that creates a real concern to me of how you park that in the neighborhood in terms of assuming you are getting everyone to utilize the lot. I don't think 16th Street is a viable alternative. I can't imagine that human nature is going to want to park at 16th Street and wait for a shuttle bus. You can't fight human nature; people want to park and walk the closest they can. That is what people will do. I hope that is somewhat responsive. Commissioner Eaton: That was somewhat responsive and that he has some similar views. You may recall Mr. Chairman that when we first weighed in several months ago now, on how is the Commission going to grapple with this problem, I was the first one you called on and several of the other Commissioners sort of reflected what I said, which was that if there is a way that can be figured out that there is an improvement in the current situation, which a lot of the neighbors are not happy with, in the application then it is worth considering seriously and maybe approving. When I saw the original application which added up to 652 because they were going to build a 400 car garage, and I don't have the fears of an underground garage that some of the neighbors do, I think that decrepit old people like me will love to be able to park very close to the entrance to the Church and would even use the garage in order to be able to do that. So, I saw the 652 as the benefit to the neighborhood substantially increasing the number of cars of what is there now, which is theoretically 502. And of course, in both of those numbers, that is counting all the spaces on the 15th Street high school lot, many of which are behind the storage building and they are quite a distance to walk and it is much easier to park on the Cliffhaven streets, so that is what happens. The church -goers park on the Cliffhaven streets. 1 think the combination of the wall and preserving that 652 number is a benefit to the neighborhood and therefore is worth considering. Therefore I sort of focus on that 652 and say if there is a modification to that high school lot, the resultant decrease in the garage parking ought not to go back down to 600, it ought to stay at the 650. So my opinion would be that the garage should be reduced only so much as to keep the total at 652. So that is maybe at 330, something like that in the garage rather than 260. 1 also agree and I can speak from close experience on this that the three to one parking ratio in the Code is not sufficient. I agree that almost no Church actually averages three persons per car. Specifically I am on the building committee of St. Mark which is also a Presbyterian Church, the site St. Mark is going to as the Commission is aware, doesn't have any street parking of any kind, neighborhood or non - neighborhood, there is no street parking. So, we had to look very closely as to what our parking needs were and provide for them on site or the people were not going to be able to come. What we found was that it was under two per car. So, I have a concern even if we get to file: //H:\Plancomm1200411118.htm 12/0212004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 16 of 71 keep the 652, in my mind that does not justify 1,900 occupants with the exception of those special high days like Easter and Christmas and maybe there are a couple of others. I think there needs to be exceptions for those days, otherwise the occupancy limit ought to be lower. But in any event, the total parking of 652, to me that is the advantage of considering this application, is getting more parking off the street so that when we discourage parking on the street with the wall on Clay, there still will be as a practical matter as well as a Code matter enough parking for the congregants. I guess that is as far as you want me to go at this point. Chairperson Tucker: I guess I will weigh in on a little bit of what I have heard tonight. I don't really view what we are considering as a situation that allows for much growth of the Church and the occupancy. I think really what I was kind of shooting for, was to allow the Church to operate in the fashion that it needs to operate today to continue the good work that it does. But to have or create a situation where more and more and more people keep coming to the campus when we don't have more and more parking spaces being created, I am just troubled by that. The 1,900 number: you know you look at the parking spaces, where are the people going to park? I have some doubts as to whether the Church is going to get there, but you know what, these restrictions and permissions are going to be for a very long period of time and who knows what the future is going to hold. It just seems that the goal I had was to see things made better in the area and I just think that the concurrent site occupancy is really a big issue for me. I never really had a problem with the amount of footage as long as the occupancy happened at alternate times and not all at one time. It was easy to see where you could have different needs for different spaces for different purposes as long as they were not all happening together. It was something that was a lot easier for me to buy off on, but I am kind of troubled by the volume of numbers I am seeing. I do appreciate what the neighbors are concerned with, which is how many days a week is this going to be an intense operation, and I think one of the trade -offs for granting more entitlement is to get a handle on how that ends up working. I am not sure that we are quite there yet, but I would like to get to a point where we can look at giving days of the week and come up with giving occupancy amounts and I think the parking number is probably going to be a little closer to Case III, which I can live with if there is a lower occupancy amount because I won't feel like we are way short of parking. Anybody else want to talk about these issues? Commissioner McDaniel: If we say that the maximum occupancy is pick (one of these numbers), what is the enforcement? How would we ever know? I can't see there being little children, lets count those. I don't see anybody enforcing that. Chairperson Tucker: Initially the enforcement is going to be a reporting protocol of some kind that is going to be in here and the City will have the right to verify it if complaints arise. I mean, I am quite convinced the Church wants to operate in a fashion where it doesn't get complaints. Commissioner McDaniel: Part of my thought is, these numbers we are looking at now, the maximum number of 1,956 or whatever, those numbers in my mind are not happening now; it might happen in five years, or it might never happen. So, as we try to look at capping these people to a certain number that is the future number, that is not the number today. I am not sure that we can do a lot of extrapolating into the future to determine what that number will actually ever be. So I am having trouble saying these numbers are real numbers and I look at what they have now and how do we make that better? If you make better what happens now, we have succeeded. And if the Church loses membership that is a different thing too. Chairperson Tucker: The only numbers I think we can count on, and will be real, are the parking space numbers. file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 17 of 71 Commissioner McDaniel: That is what I am saying, the parking space numbers, the bigger numbers are future numbers that we are capping people at. That's my thoughts. Chairperson Tucker: That is the case; there is no doubt about that. Commissioner Selich: I pretty much agree with the comments that you have made, Chairperson Tucker. I would be looking at capping the occupancy based on the parking capacity. And I think there is a question here, though, as to what the parking ratio should be. I don't know that I have a scientific answer to it; it seems to me that with the extra activities that are occurring in addition to the sanctuary activity that the three persons per car ratio really isn't adequate. I think that ratio was designed for a more typical neighborhood Church than we have here. We have all these extra activities going on so my tendency is to think that the parking requirement needs to be somewhat higher or that the occupancy per car needs to be less I guess is another way of saying it. Exactly where it should be, the figures that Commissioner Eaton threw out, seems to me to be a little restrictive on this particular facility. I don't have an answer for it right now, but that would be the direction I am leading to as far as my thinking on this. Chairperson Tucker: What it comes down to is the Church has a bit of an ability to pick what its occupancy numbers is going to be, but it is going to have to have a parking ratio that works on that basis. Is that what I am hearing? Commissioner Selich: Yes, and I want to add one other. 1 agree with the statement made by the homeowners group on the 16th Street parking lot; I would not count those spaces in the parking. I don't think people are going to use the shuttle, they're going to look for the most convenient place to park. If the St. Andrew's and the 15th Street lots fill up, they are going to park in the streets; they are not going to park over on 16th Street and take a shuttle. Commissioner Hawkins: With respect to the parking requirements or the occupancy levels, it seems to me one factor in this mix that hasn't been mentioned yet is the hours of operation. In other words, the Church is proposing some sort of flex operation. It seems to me there is a desire by the neighborhood to have some sort of fixed schedule and then lessen the occupancy. I think we can come to some resolution on the total parking allotment if there is some give and take on the hours of operation. Thank you. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, anybody else want to weight in on this topic? Commissioner Cole: As I see it, I think the real problem area seems to be on Sunday where the Church is asking for a limit of 1,900. It appears, given that we can work out the hours of operation, and limits on the other days that they are proposing would be accommodated fairly well, particularly if they were able to increase the parking on the 15th Street and I think would be a better situation than what they are today, because remember that will be an additional 150 new spaces on site with the parking structure. I think, in my opinion, it will be a better situation during the week. So the occupancy request, I am personally not as concerned. It appears that Sunday is the day where there is a fairly significant increase in the occupancy limits that they propose than currently don't appear to be accommodated by the actual parking that is out there. And, so maybe there is something along the lines of how we address Sunday and there might be..l don't know, I don't have all the answers either. I would also argue that the ratio being used might be adequate. I think what we heard earlier was that depending on the amount of child care, or children's Sunday services, versus the adult Sunday services but if you really blend those two at the current occupancy levels of the Church, being three people per vehicle seems to be working and seems to be file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 18 of 71 pretty close to what I heard from Mr. Williams, was pretty close to what the Church currently is actually using. So, in my opinion, that ratio is probably a pretty fair ratio to use, short of anything else scientifically we are probably not going to be able to figure out here tonight. I would think that ratio is something we can still use with the blend of the children's, assuming the children's use is roughly equal to what the adult classes are on Sundays. Those are my thoughts. Chairperson Tucker: I guess we probably ought to attempt to come up with some number, I mean we need to bring this thing to a close. We have the concept of operation hours; the Church is willing to live with a certain occupancy limitation; the neighbors have come up with their number; and we have the parking space issue. Maybe I'll go ahead and indicate where I think pragmatically we will end up being on the parking and that is Case III is probably going to be the number. Maybe there are a few more spaces that can be squeaked out on site, but I think that maybe we can drive the St. Andrew's number to 268 so that we have a total of 600 spaces that are available. That parking agreement is going to need to grant the right to the Church to use all those spaces. I don't think the spaces on 16th Street are going to be used either, but if I were the Church, I would go ahead and get them because you never know. Staff could be put over there and somebody would use them. It sounds like they have buses from some of the descriptions here, so maybe if you have people arriving and leaving at the same time that are working for the Church, maybe that is some place where you could at least house a few cars. I tend to think that the 600 spaces is probably doable, it is feasible and probably drives the discussion in reverse in terms of okay, if you have 600 spaces that we can legitimately get, what is the occupancy going to be that is tied to the 600 spaces? Any thoughts or concurrence on that parking approach, or lack of concurrence? Any comments? Commissioner Eaton: I have already stated I like the Case II numbers. I think that is better for the neighborhood. The other thing I like better about Case II, and know this is in disagreement with you Mr. Chair, is that many more of those spaces are much more convenient to the facility itself. Under Case III you have a lot of those spaces a long distance away north of 15th Street and only 15 more on site. Chairperson Tucker: You are not going to have both of them, is kind of what it comes down to. You are either going to have the 400 spaces in the parking structure, which the neighborhood didn't seem to like at all, or you are going to have fewer spaces with a smaller parking structure with an arrangement with the School District and really, what I fell the public benefit was, a big part of it was to re -do that school lot so that it would not only benefit the Church but benefit the neighborhood during the school day by having more parking spaces available. Commissioner Eaton: I agree that is a balancing factor that obviously it would be much better for the neighborhood during the school days and maybe my disagreement boils down to how many ought to be built on site, which is where I started from that I thought it ought to more like totaling 650. Chairperson Tucker: You have been totally clear on that. Commissioner Selich: I did some math here and I am probably wrong, but you can check it. If we took your number of 600 spaces, and this is just information for the Commission to think about, and the homeowners' proposal of 1,600 max of an occupancy on Sunday, that would be 2.66 persons per car. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, anybody else have thoughts on parking spaces? Commissioner Hawkins: With respect to Case III, rounding up to 600, we are file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 19 of 71 relying on the school parking and the character of that right has got to be very, very clear. It cannot be an informal agreement; it has to be something that borders on an easement or some sort of reciprocal easement with the school. I don't know if they are there yet. Chairperson Tucker: I don't know where the Church is on that issue. I know, when it is all said and done, what our condition is going to look like and that is going to be that it is a real agreement that is binding and failure to have those spaces available is going to result in occupancy not being able to occur. We don't have an alternative. We either provide the parking or we don't and it can't be informal and that is what the nature of my question was earlier. It is an informal arrangement right now, and if you pause and think for a second, if the School District threw a chain up and said no Church parking in that lot, the whole area would be a total melt down. As long as the Church is willing to spend money making an improvement that the District would like to see and it sounds to me like the Church expects the District will agree to formalize that informal arrangement, which I think is a positive thing for the neighborhood. Commissioner Hawkins: I do believe that one of the problems is the inadequacy of the school parking. So, to the extent that we can remedy that, I think there is a community benefit. My concern is just making certain we've got more than a handshake. Chairperson Tucker: I will be describing later a condition, some language that I have prepared that is probably not quite there yet, but you will see that at least what I am thinking is very much along those lines. At some point in time, I will release it to everyone and they can take shots at it. I am not sure whether we are at 600 or 652, so we probably ought to decide. And as I say, the parking space is going to drive the occupancy question. My personal opinion is that we don't need to shoot for a number of parking spaces that we have to have, it's kind of like here is what is available and the result of that is that you are not going to have as much occupancy if you don't have enough spaces. If you don't have 652 spaces, you are not going to have 1,956 occupants. Commissioner Selich: I am more in favor of Case III than Case II. Case II provides more parking spaces overall, but I think Case III helps solve the problem of the High School students parking in the neighborhood during the middle of the week. I think that is a big problem out there, so I would be more in favor of Case III than Case II. Commissioner McDaniel: I can support Case III. I do have two concerns. One is that the Church is given a cap for the future, so there is some benefit that ought to be given there for the possibility of what happens in ten years. So, I don't know how you want to calculate it, but three per each works for me. Evidence for being a little different is fine. I could support Case III. Chairperson Tucker: All we are talking about at this point is the parking format. We have a difference of opinion on what we ought to consider as a maximum occupancy based upon the 600 spaces. What I am saying is that I would prefer to see fewer spaces with the school lot and a smaller occupancy lid than larger than more spaces with no improvement to the School District lot. Commissioner McDaniel: That works for me. Chairperson Tucker: That is what the trade -off is. Commissioner Hawkins wasn't here earlier, but the majority on the Commission if not everybody agrees with the premise that we were going to try to make things better on a 24/7 basis, all things file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12102/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 considered. Not necessarily every person but the whole immediate neighborhood would be better off. That is kind of what our goal was. Commissioner Toerge: Case III is the preferred case for myself. In terms of the ratio, I mean it is a little difficult without any codes to guide us. I do recognize the study that Commissioner Eaton has performed and indicates that the ratio that they reviewed was less than two to one. At 600 spaces as Commissioner Selich indicated, at 1,600 occupancy of 2.66, 1 cannot imagine myself supporting a number over 1,600 based upon the 600 spaces. I would probably feel more comfortable around 1,500. Commissioner Cole: I am actually okay with Case II or Case III; 1 think there are benefits to both. To be fair to the applicant, I am wondering, if in trying to determine occupancy, if we should be talking about the ratio as Commissioner Toerge just talked about and then allow the applicant to determine whether Case II or Case III could actually be accomplished. Are we dictating at this point which scenario that they have to do and if they don't do it, what happens? So I think in both Case II and Case III obviously there is an additional community benefit in both scenarios and I would be okay with both. Maybe the idea would be we come up with an occupancy limit based on parking and then they have to tell us how they are going to come up with that number of parking spaces. It seems to be more fair and then we can decide if those parking spaces actually work for the community. Chairperson Tucker: I thought a majority of the Commission, I may be wrong, but at the last meeting concluded that any approval would have to have an arrangement with the School District to provide that community benefit. So you are not feeling that is necessary? Commissioner Cole: No, I am agreeing with that. But both Case II and Case III would require an agreement. What I am saying is that we are not dictating that they have to have a re- configured scenario, it wouldn't necessarily be a mandate in order for us to agree to an occupancy limit. Chairperson Tucker: I guess it was my understanding that it wasn't likely to get us an agreement with the School District if you just didn't do anything. Commissioner Cole: And that may be, I agree. If they can't come up with the 252 in the long term agreement, then they probably have to go to Case III. I agree. Chairperson Tucker: Sounds like we have five that are thinking that Case III and one of them is thinking Case 11. Barry, are you okay with Case III? Commissioner Eaton: It doesn't matter what I think if the majority wants Case III. Chairperson Tucker: We'd like you to feel good about it. I didn't want to say it that way, but you are right. Commissioner Eaton: I would wonder how that would be accomplished in the conditions supposing the agreement with the School District. We are back to this chicken and the egg thing. The School District wants us to act before they really seriously consider a formal agreement. I do like Commissioner Toerge's idea that if it is that, and perhaps combining that with Commissioner Cole's, that we try occupancy limits for both 600 and 650, different occupancy limits. I would exclude Easter and Christmas, so that they can be lower numbers and then let the Church wrestle with the numbers. I think the 600 is based upon their financial numbers and how much they have to reduce their garage. Perhaps it is worth it to 'incentivize' them to have a higher occupancy limit if they are willing to build a little more than Page 20 of 71 file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 21 of 71 that. Chairperson Tucker: I suppose that is an approach. I have taken the neighbors at their word that they would like to see that parking structure not be there, or if it is going to be there, be smaller. I don't know. I tend to think I would rather see it be smaller occupancy and maybe a little less parking rather than have a big structure on the campus. That is kind of my sense right now. Why don't we move on to the issue of occupancy and then we will kind of take a look at the hours of operation next. Does anybody want to talk about the limits on occupancy? Commissioner Toerge you kind of already weighed out on your feeling on Sundays, you want to go ahead and roll into some other thoughts on that? Commissioner Toerge: I am a little concerned about the idea of this floating weekday. I know we have discussed a process whereby there might be some committee formed. I am not sure it would have any enforcement opportunities or responsibilities, but some type of oversight committee. I am not sure how that would work unless the applicant agrees to some day.. How would the neighborhood know they didn't change the day from Wednesday to Thursday, that is why there is 1,200 people on site and that is what is expected to be on Wednesday? Chairperson Tucker: That is a good point. We are going to have to have some clarity on that once we get to it. If you could talk about what you think the restrictions are and then we are going to have to come back to figure out, now how do we do this? Commissioner Toerge: Again without any detailed planning information as to ratio, you know I am more comfortable with the 2.5 occupant per car ratio for this project given what I have heard tonight. So, that would make it actually 1,500 if you were to get 600 spaces and it might increase it if you were to get the larger one. As to the other days, I am not sure where the nexus lies for those. I don't have a handle on this, I would like to hear more information. Chairperson Tucker: Anybody else have a thought on this? Commissioner Eaton: It's easier to talk about Sundays because we can get a better grasp on the overall problem. My thought is similar to Commissioner Toerge's, I would say that, remembering always we have no restriction on them establishing a fourth service. So that if they really started to approach these numbers, they could just start another service on Sunday or Saturday, whenever. So they have the flexibility and there has never been a condition that would limit that flexibility that I am aware of. I would agree with 1,500 if you are talking about 600 parking spaces. And 1,600 if they had 650 with the exception of Easter and Christmas. I don't think you can control the number of people coming to church during Easter and Christmas. Chairperson Tucker: No, nobody wants to try and do that. Commissioner Eaton: The other thing I would do about the other things is I would place different limitations for daytime activities when school was in session. I think those numbers have to be lower. And otherwise, I think they can be higher in the evenings and on non - school nights. I am not prepared to pick a number yet, except that when school is in session under the Case III plan you really are dealing only with 260 on -site spaces. That needs to be a fairly low number then. Chairperson Tucker: No doubt. file: //14:\Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 22 of 71 Commissioner Selich: I tend to agree with Commissioner Toerge on this one. For just the moment you accept the 2.5 parking ration, I think we ought to establish in our approval of the use permit a parking ratio and I presume we can do that for this even though the general Code says three per? Ms. Temple: I believe you can. Maybe Ms. Clauson might want to change my mind but we are looking at a project that includes more than religious assembly occupancy. There are other uses which occur and the applicant is desiring to have occur concurrently on the property. If based on the full scope of the variety of uses and the persons who are using them is viewed to be able to be accommodated under this ratio then I believe the use permit gives you that right. Commissioner Selich: So going beyond that, what Commissioner Eaton says is correct, that the occupancy, we have these numbers here, Wednesday 1,300, well Wednesday the occupancy should be based on whatever parking is available at the parking ratio we select. So, during certain hours, portions of that parking on the High School property won't be available so that has to be taken out of the equation so that I feel very strongly that we have to limit the occupancy to the parking. It really puts our arms around this problem of how to deal with all the square footage and the potential for multiple use of it because the really major problem and the major limitation is the parking. So, if we have a parking ratio established and they can never have an occupancy that exceeds the parking available at that point in time, then I think we pretty much have the situation covered. Chairperson Tucker: But we still have the issue that even though parking is available on weeknights, you know the neighbors have asked that basically to have one big weeknight event that is allowed and then ratchets down a little bit. What are your thoughts? Commissioner Selich: We can put further controls on it. I was looking at the upper end of it, not the lower end. I was looking at how we cap it. We can put further restrictions on for those types of considerations. I was looking at how we cap the upper end. Chairperson Tucker: The neighbors indicated at least on Sundays and Saturday evenings that the occupancy could be 1,600. Did you want it to be a 2.5? Commissioner Selich: For the moment I'll accept that. I pointed out that the 1,600 at 600 came out to 2.66 and they are fairly close. I don't have a strong feeling on it. Whether it is 2.5 or 2.6 or 2.7, it is somewhere in that neighborhood. Chairperson Tucker: We ought to try to figure it out. Commissioner Selich: To keep it simple, I will go along with 2.5. Chairperson Tucker: I am at 1,600 whatever that is, 2.66 assuming your math is right. Big assumption, no calculators up here, we are in trouble. Commissioner McDaniel: It is my understanding that we are going to change from 3.0 to 2.something because there are things other than religious things? Help me understand what you said. We are using 3.0 and we are going to change that because other than religious things are happening on that day, is that what you said? Ms. Temple: What I said was, is we are establishing a parking requirement for an operation that includes a wide variety of operational characteristics. The parking ratio of three, actually one parking space for every three seats is the ratio file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 11 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 23 of 71 established for religious assembly, is one presumed to be sanctuary occupancy. However, as noted, the applicant has said a greater variety are happening concurrently including adult education classes, youth education classes, Sunday school and other things that might be normal office operations occurring at the time. So, if based on that variety of uses the Commission feels that the overall operation would be adequately parked at a ratio of 2.5 per on -site occupants 'in toto', then you can do that through a use permit. Commissioner McDaniel: I am having a lot of trouble thinking that Sunday school isn't the same as religious worship and having the same problem with adult education that is happening on a Sunday. I am having trouble with that, maybe I can get some assistance from our counsel. Acting City Attorney Clauson: The issue necessarily isn't the type of use and whether it is religious worship or not. It is just that the current condition is that there can't be concurrent uses of the site because the parking is meant to address the sanctuary use. So that at the time that the sanctuary is being used, the anticipation is that there be no other sites being used. Sunday school might be an exception because that is to deal with the children that are mostly coming with the people that are in the sanctuary. But for additional adult education and other types of current uses, that is different than their current operations. So all Patty was saying was that if that is a recognized use and it is not being parked because the parking has just been the sanctuary's use. Commissioner McDaniel: I think that calculation has to do with what happens at a church facility that has to do with what goes on through the whole facility. I mean church, Sunday school I think that is where the calculation came from and I think that is how originally we dealt with it. I am having a lot of trouble, I am going to get overruled, but I am having trouble with it. Ms. Clauson: Let me try one more time. That is what the original calculation was intended to deal with, was a Church with a sanctuary with other uses. But they are asking for additional square footage that has additional worship areas and the additional potential uses that can go on site and there is not going to be a requirement here that there is no concurrent use of the facilities. So, if you don't have the idea that on a Sunday that once that sanctuary is full and you don't have a way to park the rest of the uses on site because you haven't accounted for them. The idea of the current regulation was intended to deal with a facility that was mostly just a Church with a sanctuary with some small offices, not all the additional areas that this church is operating with. Commissioner McDaniel: I hear your explanation. I am still having trouble with it, but I am going to be overruled. That's all. Chairperson Tucker: I am not sure you will be, we haven't gotten to four yet on the 2.5 ratio, so we are at 1,500 maximum occupancy or 1,600 maximum occupancy. We need a number from you, do you concur with 1,500 or 1,600 ?. Commissioner McDaniel: I would like to see the bigger number. Commissioner Hawkins: I am sympathetic with Commissioner McDaniel's concern over the basis for the reduction from 3.0 to 2.5. 1 wonder if the General Plan designation can assist us. The application is seeking a General Plan Amendment, is that going to factor in and provide us with any guidance on parking ratios? Ms. Temple: No. file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 24 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: It is just our Zoning Code that does that. Is 1,500 occupancy maximum or 1,600 are the two choices right now. You can throw out a third choice on that if you want. Commissioner Eaton: How did you record me on that tally? Chairperson Tucker: I thought you were at 1,500. Commissioner Eaton: I was at 1,500 if it is 600 parking. At 1,600 it was 650 and excluding Easter and Christmas. Chairperson Tucker: I think everyone is in agreement with Easter and Christmas and there may be other holidays that we don't know about that they will remind us of. I think, Barry, the consensus on the parking was that Case III, which is 600 spaces, so I don't think the 650, not sure we got to the point where they would have 400 on site parking spaces. Commissioner Eaton: Does that mean we would actually approve a project with less than 400 in a garage if the school deal had not been done yet? Chairperson Tucker: We would do a subject to the school deal being done. If the school deal isn't done then they don't get the 600. My personal feeling, I don't know where the rest of the Commission is, but at this point I am not willing to vote for the project with a 400 space parking structure on the site and no deal with the school district because I don't believe that gives the level of community benefit that I personally have indicated that I think is necessary. Commissioner Cole: I would prefer the 1,600 and I guess that is 2.66 at 600 spaces, assuming that is correct. I think it is more important to determine the ratio because I guess if the Church comes back with a different parking amount, I guess we need to have that ratio kind of as what we are agreeing to that we can apply going forward. There could be a variation of a theme up here. Chairperson Tucker: When I get to my condition on what I think the school agreement ought to be, it doesn't really contemplate a sliding scale. They either get an agreement that basically complies, or they don't, although it will come back and I will suggest that it come back to the Commission for confirmation so that we can actually see the real agreement. We do have that chicken and egg problem with the District wanting to see that we actually have approved of something and that is far from a foregone conclusion. Commissioner Cole: I would prefer the 1,600 since the community actually agreed to a 1,600 maximum as well. Mr. Williams: While you were on that subject, I just wanted to point out that on Case 111, the variable could be how far we reduce the structure from 400 to 263. So, that is what I think Commissioner Eaton was referring to. Chairperson Tucker: Yes, he has referred to that and I guess really where 1 am coming from is that I prefer to see that structure not get too big and that the occupancy be held down a little bit. That would be my preference rather than having a humongous parking structure and the deal with the School District across the way, an occupancy that becomes very large. I think that becomes problematic and really does get out of scale. What we are trying to do is take a facility that already fills the lot pretty well; add a little bit more, and get some benefit for the neighbors in exchange for that and have a tightened up use permit so that everybody understands what the ground rules are so that we don't hear about it it file: //HAPlancomm \200A1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 25 of 71 five years or twenty years. Okay, does anybody want to change their minds before we ask Mr. Hawkins to decide which way it is going to go? Don't see any hands. Commissioner Hawkins: I am very sympathetic to Commissioner Eaton's point; 1 do believe that the community benefit is going to be shared either in Case II or Case III. The condition on the agreement is going to be a reciprocal agreement, so you are going to have the ability for the school to park in the Church's structure just as well as the Church is going to be able to park on the school's. Chairperson Tucker: I don't think that is a foregone conclusion. I think the Church is allowed to permit some use by the District of the Church property, but it is not something that we are contemplating as a requirement that the Church allow that to happen. All we have before us is the Church's application. We are saying to them here are the conditions under which it would work. Commissioner Hawkins: Understood. But the Church could allow the District more parking under Case 11. So my point is that you will get a community benefit under Case II when the School is allowed to park on the increased site. Chairperson Tucker: That assumes that there are four Commissioners that agree that the Case II scenario is the one that they will vote for. I don't think that was the last resolution on the last go- around, I think we wanted the expanded School parking lot, because we felt that would be the most convenient for the students and would reduce the problems in the neighborhood. Commissioner Hawkins: Understood. So if we are at Case III then and we are parking at a 2.5, 1 think I am at 1,500 rather than 1,600. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, so we are at 2.5 and 1,500 with 600 spaces. Let's go back and talk about what the occupancy limits would be on the other six days of the week. Are there any holidays other than Christmas and Easter? Thanksgiving is a big day? Why don't we throw in all holidays? Commissioner Eaton: I would suggest that we ask the Church. I know in our Church we have certain Sundays which are holy days which are not public holidays. Ms. Temple: Why don't you just establish a maximum number of days per year and then they can choose which ones they want on a yearly basis? Chairperson Tucker: That is probably a better idea. Commissioner Hawkins: If we do allow that floating, then you have a problem with the neighborhood expectation. Chairperson Tucker: 1 think the neighbors expect there is going to be a certain amount of holiday types of events. I guess we will come back and figure out how to do that. Ms. Temple: Mr. Chairman, there is one point that I need clarified. You're basing these estimated occupancies based on a certain ratio and number of parking spaces. It would be my intent to structure the condition such that it would be an occupancy limit based on whatever spaces they end up with under the preferred scenario, because the 595 that was on the chart under Case III gives different numbers than the ones that you are working with. So are you establishing a number even if the yield is somewhat smaller after the project is finally designed, or are you establishing an occupancy based on the number of spaces that are actually file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 26 of 71 arrived at? Chairperson Tucker: What we are doing is, we have said to the Church, there needs to be a total of 600 spaces. Okay, they were at 263 with a structure, they need to go up to a structure of 268 and 332 at the School District site. If it turns out they lose a few at the School District site then it is going to drive down the occupancy. The occupancy maximum on a Sunday is 2.5 times the number of parking spaces that are available. Commissioner Selich also pointed out that 2.5 ought to be for the spaces that are available at any given point in time. So, if they can't have, other than Memorial Services, during school hour times, they are not going to be able to use those school District parking spaces because their use is subordinate to the School District use of those spaces. So, it would cut back their occupancy to 2.5 times the number of parking spaces available for school hours. Ms. temple: Okay, and I do have that number based on the 263. Chairperson Tucker: The number is 268. That is where the five spaces came from. Mr. McKitterick: Mr. Chairman, are we going to be able to respond at some point or are you going to wait for later? Chairperson Tucker: We will come back to you. We are trying to sort this out ourselves and then we will hear what you have to say. Ms. Temple: That number is 670, based on 268 parking spaces for the daytime school hours. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, go ahead Mr. McKitterick because we want to go through the rest of the days of the week. Mr. McKitterick: I want to first start with the ratio. I completely disagree with you guys' assessment. This is a religious institution and the Code is clear, it is three to one, and I think that is a significant restriction. This Church operates, even though it is a vibrant member of the community and has been there, it operates like every other Church. You guys have approved other Churches, and to make up a parking ratio is to impose something different on us than what you are doing on other Churches that come through here. I am sympathetic and we are trying to work within the parameters of the Commission and we want to reach the parking, we are working hard with the School District, working hard to do this, but if you look at the real occupancy of the Church, it is different. I respect Commissioner Eaton's analysis, but it depends on the age of the congregation, the type of uses that are there and the fact that we have buildings on our campus, every Church has buildings on their campus. The use of Sunday school is absolutely a religious use, the adult education, absolutely a religious use. The Code, it is not as if they did not think about this. They have made a Code determination of three to one. It baffles me that at a minimum we have at least, as we discussed with our neighbors, we came in at 1,900 because it is a cap. Right now our regulation is based on the sanctuary and the chapel and a concurrency. We want to work within the concurrency of the entire campus. That is a trade -off and I understand that. We are the applicant, so we are going through the process, but I want to have at least a nexus to what other approvals you do for churches in the community. Maybe 1 can be corrected, but I don't believe that the analysis for any other churches is different. If there has been a special parking ratio, I stand corrected. But, as far as 1 know, the Code is three to one and I don't think there is flexibility in doing that. Now, if we can work within those parameters, I totally understand the availability of those parking spaces and when they are available. I think that is an excellent file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 27 of 71 point. I think we need to work within that. We don't want to cause a burden but you are placing a cap on us. I don't think the cap can be any different than what the law imposes. I am concerned about that. Maybe, this is a legal point and we have a lot of lawyers here so maybe we can analyze it differently, but to single out this Church and an application for 21,000 square feet, to be different, that is trouble. I don't think you can do it. Chairperson Tucker: Let me respond to a couple of things. First of all, it is a General Plan Amendment, so part of what we are looking at is the totality of the circumstances. Right now, today, something is not working. So, what we are attempting to do is to make sure whatever we do now in granting this further entitlement, which you don't need to seek and you can go ahead and continue operating within the General Plan that you have today. This is an opportunity to try and figure out what is going wrong and we have opinions as to what it ought to be, and how it ought to be rectified. This is the opportunity to try and figure out how can we make this use work. So, I think we are just grappling with, not with trying to treat the Church differently because we wouldn't be having this discussion if the parking situation worked today. So, we are sitting here grappling with how can we make this situation better than it is today. I think that is where the basic thought process is coming from as opposed to, 'let's pick on St. Andrew's,' because they happen to be before us. It is unusual for us to get General Plan Amendments for churches, except that we just had one for St. Mark but that was a fairly low intensity project, very low intensity. Even the Mormon Temple project was not a General Plan Amendment, the only issue before us was primarily the steeple height. You have to get use permits for churches, but the steeple height was the only real substantive issue. Mr. McKitterick: The only thing I want to keep in mind is that the sanctuary is 1,387 on a normal Sunday. We are operating now under capacity and it flows as every religious institution does. In the event that we were able to have services that are better attended, we then have Sunday school, which goes concurrently that is the whole purpose of the Church is the family comes, the children are in Sunday school and the choir sings and the Church is there. If you add up those numbers, I guess I just want you to think about, you are picking numbers of 1,500 or 1,600 but try to put it in view of if that sanctuary is used and we are talking about a cap, it is not concurrent use. I mean the challenge is it's not as if it goes out tomorrow and we have 1,900 on Sunday and we got 1,300. It would be better if there was some kind of a CPI growth. Something that you could put in economic terms, deal with on a growth basis, but that is not what's before us. What is before us is a cap. So, we are trying to deal with it in terms of: the sanctuary today, Larry, was filled at 1,387, the Sunday school would primarily probably be full because you have that many people. Herb how many people are in our Sunday school. Mr. Herb Smith: 200 Mr. McKitterick: 200, so okay, you are at 1,600 if we fill the choir and everything today. So, what you are doing is actually restricting growth that we've got and we are actually going down. I just want you to keep in mind, and I totally understand the General Plan and what we are doing and that it is all balancing. We're very focused on that. I just want everyone to understand, to restrict what the operation currently is on a Sunday, it is troubling that with a normal Sunday, the numbers you guys are talking about, we would be able to kick some people out. Chairperson Tucker: Well, it wouldn't be a normal Sunday from what we are hearing. The dilemma for us is where are those people going to park? The whole goal is to keep them out of the neighborhood and at some point in time, if you don't have the parking spaces, they are going to end up in the neighborhood and how do we deal with that issue? It is an issue that exists today; that is not lost on me. The file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 28 of 71 problem exists today and the Church could come in, and the neighbors certainly believe that the Church could remodel within its General Plan allocation in which case, be highly unlikely we would touch the parking issue. If you just came in and wanted to re -do your Use Permit with no additional footage and wanted to re- deploy your space for other purposes, your space entitlement, then the neighborhood wouldn't get anything out of it other than probably more use because you'd be doing it because you are expecting to have more use out of it and they wouldn't get any benefit at all. There definitely is a benefit to the neighborhood and I think it is just a challenge that we have to try and figure out where are those people going to park. Anybody want to change their mind on the land use limitation? I keep giving them that chance. Ms. Clauson: Just to kind of address the Church's point of view and also I know Commissioner McDaniel's. My understanding of originally the idea of this additional square footage was for this youth center and that is not part of the religious assembly uses that parking is for. The parking, as Patty was just pointing out to me, under religious assembly it is identified as facilities for religious worship and incidental religious education, which is what they describe is going on now. So, the three per seat is for that use and those uses, which is what was originally envisioned here. But in this particular case, they are asking for an additional 21,000 square feet of it, a portion of that is usable space and there is no condition being proposed that prohibits concurrent use of that additional square footage in addition to the sanctuary and all the other religious uses that they have that day. So, if there is not a proposal for the concurrent use, it was my understanding that they were approaching the concept of having an occupancy cap, so that you didn't have any restrictions on the use of the various buildings, but you had a way to address the parking demands that would occur if there was concurrent use of the buildings. So, I think for the Commission and maybe for the applicant and the neighborhood it probably would be a good idea to look at the fact that if they don't want to have occupancy caps then they need to have stricter regulations on the Use Permit with the concurrent uses. In other words, no use at all at the Youth Center during services. That might be another way of limiting the occupancy and it would be more in keeping with their current activities on Sundays. It is not my understanding that they want the youth center to provide a place for religious worship; they need it for a youth center purpose. Chairperson Tucker: 1 do think for our purposes too, it is just easier to come up with one occupancy number because I don't think we want to be in the business of dictating what parts of their facilities they can use when. It is just the maximum we want to be concerned about. Ms. Wood: I also don't think that it's the Commission's intent to reduce activity from what the Church has at present. I am not sure that the 2.5 or 2.66 number versus the 3 that is in the Code for religious assembly is something that we really understand the basis of. Maybe what we ought to do before the next meeting is to go with the 600 parking spaces and use the one parking space for three persons in the religious assembly to cover the sanctuary and the Sunday school for the younger children, and then let staff look at those other classrooms and figure out what kind of a parking ratio would be logical for those so that we can get to an occupancy that way rather than just picking a 2.5 or 2.66. Chairperson Tucker: Is that okay? Commissioner Toerge: That makes sense to me. My guess it will be lower than 2.5 if you do that, that is my instinct, but I agree with that approach. Commissioner McDaniel: I agree with that, too. I don't think they are playing religious basketball on Sundays. I think they are going to be used for religious file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 29 of 71 services or whatever else in there. However it works, it works, and I am happy with that. Commissioner Hawkins: I agree with Ms. Wood's approach. Chairperson Tucker: That is going to deal with the issue on Sunday, and the other days of the week we still haven't gotten to dealing with those. Commissioner Toerge: Maybe if, while staff is doing that for the Sunday analysis, we could have staff concurrently look at what the ratios would necessarily be for the facilities other than the sanctuary that might be used Monday through Friday. It is my expectation that would fall to a more, I assume, administrative office kind of a ratio and maybe there is more than administrative functions going on during the day. But it would seem to me that because the sanctuary is not being used Monday thru Friday during the day, that the three to one ratio is irrelevant and we should be looking at a ratio that is more commensurate with the types of occupancy and uses that they are putting it to, which in my opinion, lower that to more like 2 or maybe even under 2 during Monday through Friday business hours. Chairperson Tucker: I am not sure that is really the issue at this point. I think the parking issue is really the biggest problem, apart from where people park, but the amount of parking that we are running into a problem with is Sunday with 1,900 people and what ratio and how many cars is that going to generate. But, if we have the other days of the week at 1,300 or 1,200, let's just assume we took the Church's numbers, I think there would be ample parking at 600 spaces for non - school hours. It really isn't a parking issue at that point and now it becomes a neighborhood compatibility issue of how many days a week are we going to have a heightened level of activity. Commissioner Toerge: Yes, you said it for non - school hours. I am thinking concurrently with school you've only got 263 spaces, apply the ratio to that, which I think is going to be somewhere around 2, you get 550 maybe 500 people that can occupy while parking on site Monday through Friday during the day during the school year. I don't know if summer school is different, if we get into the spring break issues and when that parking lot is free. But from my standpoint, it looks to me like Monday through Friday during school year they're going to be limited to the parking they have on site and if we can develop some kind of a ratio that is reasonable, that is the number I would apply it to. This would be the limitation Monday through Friday during the school hours anytime in the morning until four and then after four or five, it might be another number, a larger number because the parking lot at the school would then become available and there would be more parking available. Apply the ratio there and then on Wednesdays or 'the day', we would apply the sanctuary parking ratio because of the day they're having their service. It becomes a blended element of the ratio applied against these different uses depending on the limited parking that is available Monday through Friday during the school year. And that gets me down to a number of 500 -600 maximum occupancy, maybe its 450 -550 maximum occupancy during the school day. Chairperson Tucker: I am not so sure that is more complicated than it needs to be, frankly. You're probably right, but looking at the scenario that exists today, I don't perceive that the Church has been a problem Monday through Friday and school hours. I am not seeing that's where the problem is; it's the evening and weekend hours that seem to be more problematic. I am not sure that we are going to be out there addressing something that hasn't been identified as a problem. Commissioner Toerge: I understand that there might be memorial services. They tend to fall during the week and could be a number that could cause the capacity of the on -site parking lot. file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 30 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: It is such a basic function of the Church and I think that is part of living in that neighborhood that is going to happen. Commissioner Toerge: I think we also have to recognize that if they build these improvements, they are going to be there for a long time and the current scenario is the current scenario and placing caps that are reasonable based upon logical parking ratios and capacity of parking should be in place regardless of what the current issues are, because we are trying to plan for the future and limit its impact on the neighborhood given variable sets of circumstances that could evolve over the next ten to forty years. I think we've got to come up with some kind of limitation of their site occupancy based upon the available parking whenever that parking is available. I don't know how else to do it. I don't know how else to be fair about it. Chairperson Tucker: Today they have no restriction at all. They have 250 spaces on site. What the proposal is now is for them to have 268 spaces on site, so they will have 18 more spaces on site and then we'll have created spaces for the School District. I am not sure that I see a reason to start tinkering with their Monday through Friday occupancy at this point on the speculation that there might be growth. I don't know whether there will be or there won't be during the days. Obviously after school, they are proposing to spend a lot of money with the thought in mind that people are going to use their facilities, so I am fully expecting growth after school hours are over if they are truly performing that function of serving youth after school. I am just not sure that it would be fruitful for us to get into those levels of details. Commissioner Toerge: Can I ask a hypothetical question? If 1,200 people show up Tuesday afternoon during the school day to come to some function, where are they going to park? Chairperson Tucker: The same place they park today, in the street. It will still happen then as well. The only thing that we are doing now is we do have the ability to.. Commissioner Toerge: But the probability that they have that number is greater if we give them an additional 22,000 square feet of space. The probability that they'll get there is greater. That is the whole purpose of the expansion: to increase the use of the facility. So, their motivation is to do that. It seems to me that almost every project that I have ever reviewed, the occupancy, whether it is seating in a restaurant or seating in a theater, is the function of the available parking. The available parking is going to be different during the day than it is during the evening. Chairperson Tucker: I agree with that and I guess that I would tend to pick a number rather than to go through, it is either school hours or it is not school hours. That is kind of the way I view it. Commissioner Selich: I'll just go back to what I was saying. I think it should be a function of the parking and using the parking ratio and if staff is going to develop the rationale for a parking ratio, then whatever the number they come up with, apply that to the available parking. If there is X number of spaces available during school hours that is the occupancy and then the evening hours when the school parking is available, there's another number and then as you mentioned we can put further restrictions on that for the evening time use. That is the ceiling they would have and staffs going to develop some ratio with some justification behind it so we are not just picking it out of the air. It seems pretty simple to me. Commissioner McDaniel: I think I would agree with that completely. It gets us kind file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 31 of 71 of through some of these and then we can deal with some restrictions after hours on some of the specifics, but that certainly gets us through a lot of this. I concur with that. Commissioner Eaton: Having been a one time staff faced with that task, I will say it is not going to be simple. But, I agree there needs to be a limit during school hours; I wouldn't make it during the school year or some overly broad thing like that. While school is in operation, there ought to be a limit based upon the parking on site. And, inasmuch as the Church has suggested the compromise of having the memorial services after 1 o'clock, I would put an exception in for that. Clearly they are going to have memorial services during the week, sometimes when school is in session. There is a difference nowadays; there are a lot of seniors that only go in the morning, because they have earned enough credit in their prior years that they don't have to go a full day and I have seen that in operation at Corona del Mar and I think I have seen it at Newport Harbor as well. The 1 o'clock to me does have some meaning. Commissioner McDaniel: The 1 o'clock hour is a time when school is in session and there is not a lot of traffic, so that the traffic and the other issues that go on while students are still in class will pass while those memorial services have come and gone. When the school lets out at 3 or 2 o'clock, that traffic issue will have come and gone as well. So, that 1 o'clock is important to me as well. Commissioner Cole: I am in favor of Commissioner Selich's suggestion. I think we establish whatever ratio that staff comes up with for available parking during the week and then we use the same maximum for all other days accordingly. Then we can carve out a couple of exceptions later on. Chairperson Tucker: That seems like a majority for the staff to come up with some type of parking space rationale. Okay, lets talk about further restrictions in terms of evening time hours. We've got ,certainly for three days a week, the Church has suggested 750 as the maximum, which means that Sunday there is a different number and then they had three other days, one day at 1,300, two days at 1,200 concurrent occupancy. What's the thought on what we are going to do with the limitations? I had spoken to this a little earlier about a concern that we have some type of limitation on it so that the facility isn't intensely used seven days a week. Anybody want to weigh in on that? Commissioner McDaniel: I am not having a lot of trouble with 750, but I guess I need to have some understanding what 1,200 equates to. What's going to go on that we need 1,200? 1 would give some thought at 750 but maybe the applicant could give us some indication why they need these kinds of numbers. Chairperson Tucker: I know they have services Wednesdays and Saturdays. Mr. McKitterick: Currently the Wednesday night is the most intense use during the week. There is a Saturday night service although the attendance of that is roughly 300 people, so it would be Sunday, Saturday and Wednesday. Part of the EIR there was an analysis done, kind of on a per week basis, which I am looking at now. It looks like also on Tuesday and Monday nights, Tuesday night in particular, at least on this chart, there is a much smaller use in the evening. Currently Monday nights there are concurrent covenant groups, Bible Studies and on Friday nights it file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \l 118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 32 of 71 fluctuates. It depends upon, currently, programs that are there. It does not look like a large children's activity on Friday nights other than special occasions. So currently, again from our perspective, what we tried to look at is a cap. It is difficult for us also to project out into the future, but our current uses are definitely much less than this, there is no doubt. Wednesday nights are very well attended, however, with Bible Study and the sanctuary is in use. There is one other night during the week that the sanctuary is in use and then Saturday and Sunday. So, by doing that we backed in, that is why we offered and tried to pull down the cap during at least three days a week to a number that would be from a concurrent use. What's hopeful is that the Youth Program will, and we don't know until if grows, hopefully it will because we have an opportunity for the High School and Junior High kids, there will be a night, don't know whether that will be a Wednesday night; or Tuesday or Thursday night. So, we are trying to maintain some flexibility and I appreciate you guys' and the neighbors' desire to have caps, so we are trying to live within those. As the current use stands, Wednesday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday nights are clearly the most intense and then Monday and Tuesday are lesser. Mr. Steward: I may be wrong in this, but in taking the uses that the Church had provided to us, I think it is one of the schedules we got, I did as best I could to make a calculation. Based on the numbers they have provided, just to give you a flavor for where that comes now, it indicated in my calculations based on the current program or attendance, it showed 960 people on Wednesday night, 670 on Thursday, 365 on Friday. Actually, that is daytime uses so the night uses would be far less. Just in terms of the caps and the numbers, just to give the perspective of impact to the neighborhood, what would happen if those numbers went up to 1,200 or 750? 750 right now is only exceeded one night per week currently. Commissioner Eaton: I wonder if Mr. McKitterick could expand on Sunday night. I have never heard high numbers before. Mr. McKitterick: Sunday during the day. I apologize if I said Sunday night. Commissioner McDaniel: I was trying to listen to those numbers. The highest number that you were quoting was on a Wednesday at 960 in the evening, is that correct? Mr. Steward: Based on what the numbers were that the Church provided us. Obviously we don't have any other way to verify. Commissioner McDaniel: I guess I am looking at the numbers; 960 is the highest usage and that right now is a Wednesday night and all the rest of them are before 400. Mr. Steward: I believe the number that sticks out they indicated is approximately 600 for Bible Study. That is the largest event that they have on Wednesday nights and that is obviously the big driver of that group. Commissioner McDaniel: But 400 is the highest number for the rest of the time? Mr. Steward: Actually, I think it is lower than that. file: //H:1Plancomm\2 00411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 33 of 71 Commissioner McDaniel: But it would be under 400 is what I meant. Mr. Steward: Other than Thursday night I think, if I have added all the stuff right, was 670. Commissioner McDaniel: On Wednesday night it is 960 and Thursday it is 670. 1 am trying to get an understanding of what the numbers are today. Mr. Steward: That is based just looking at the program that was a one page sheet that you guys have, it is not that scaled sheet program. It is based on the Summary of On -Site Programs at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church as of September 24, 2004. It is in the Needs and Assessment that St. Andrew did and is on Table VI. Mr. Smith: That Table has the regularly scheduled events and there are some Thursdays when the DRW Program, which could be as many as 400 -500 at its peak, but hasn't been recently as it has been at 200 to 300. Those were higher numbers on a Thursday which is a more active night on the campus. Chairperson Tucker: Any other questions or comments? Does anybody have any ideas as to what type of occupancy limits seem fair? Overlaying all this of course is the basic occupancy limit that is going to be driven by what the parking ratio is, but this is to go beyond that limit. Commissioner Toerge, contrary to my views on Sunday, I don't feel as restrictive given that the parking is available across the street at the High School in the evenings Monday through Friday and there is available parking on site. 1 think it gets more to an issue of the hours of operation, and maybe I am misreading the input I hear from the residents, but if there is parking and there is capacity for parking. and they are not disruptive late at night, it seems to me that I am not as concerned about the limits as I was on Sunday. So, I am not sure 750 is the number but I am not sure the lower number is the same. I am just expressing openly here that I personalty am not as compelled to be as restrictive as we were on Sunday because of the available parking, so long as the hours of operation and the time that these services or activities end is reasonable so as not to create disruption to the neighbors as they disembark. Commissioner Selich: I agree with that and I want to make just one other suggestion: if we are going to limit occupancy three evenings a week, to name the evenings so that they are not moving around all the time. Keep them constant. Chairperson Tucker: I guess I feel the same way. I do feel like three evenings a week, it ought to be a little more peaceful around there, so I would be supportive of a lower threshold three evenings a week. That allows the Church to operate, from what I am hearing from the other Commissioners, is a pretty good level for four days a week, well three days plus Sundays, because there will be parking that is available. I am not sure what the number is; I am not sure it is 750. Maybe it is a slightly smaller number in the range of 600 and then am I hearing that Commissioners Selich and Toerge are okay with the 1,300 one day of the week and 1,200 how many days of the week? Commissioner Selich: Yes, I am okay with Wednesday 1,300, 1,200 for the other days except for the three evenings that it is 750. file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 34 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: Are you okay with 750? Commissioner Selich: Yes, I haven't heard any arguments for anything else. Chairperson Tucker: You heard an argument, just not a persuasive argument. Commissioner Cole: I agree with those time limits. I think we really have to condition this to try to limit the Church need to reasonably connected to the land use. if we have the parking, and we clearly do, then I think that with the hours of operation restrictions that we are going to get to next, I will be in agreement with the proposal which will be 750 three evenings a week, 1,300 one day and 1,200 the other two, not counting Sunday. Commissioner Eaton: I could live with that if you put Sundays in the quieter days. I haven't heard the Church argue for a higher restriction on Sunday evenings. What I have heard, to the contrary, that is a quiet evening for them. So I would say you got to put Sunday somewhere, and if you have three and three, I would put it on the quieter day. Chairperson Tucker: So then you are really saying four evenings at 750? Commissioner Eaton: Yes, including Sunday, again with the exception perhaps of the holy days. I am not sure whether they have special evening services on their holy days or not. Chairperson Tucker. I tend to think that what the Planning Director suggested in terms of coming up with a number per year of whatever those days are and they will figure out what those days are, such as Christmas, Easter, etc., maybe a maximum number of special days. It strikes me that maybe we are not going to be doing this, hopefully the neighbors and the Church will start trading off Sundays versus weeknights, is what it sounds like to me. It might be the makings of a deal here to give the Church a little more flexibility for occupancy on Sunday and a little bit of reduction on weekdays. I just throw that out there. Okay we've got hours of operation now, and I think we have been through a lot of the worst of it. I had a dental appointment today and 1 was sitting in the dentist's chair and I was thinking, you know this might not be the worst thing I go through today. Commissioner Toerge: What are the hours of your service specifically on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday? Mr. Smith: Current service starts at 5:30, on Sunday morning we have an 8:30 and a 10:15 service and on Wednesday night we start at 6:30. Commissioner Toerge: Why is the Church proposing 11 p.m. as a closing time on Fridays? Mr. Smith: The reason for that is that we have envisioned some youth activities in the Youth Center, which on Friday and Saturday nights kids are out until all hours of the night and we would like to propose a slightly later limit for that particular purpose. Chairperson Tucker: Mr. Smith, just let me follow up on that. So, if you had an file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11 /18/2004 Page 35 of 71 earlier closing time for all of the facilities other than the youth facilities, would that work for you? Mr. Smith: 1 would say except for Christmas worship services and special events. Chairperson Tucker: Special events you are going to have a certain number of days per year to do whatever you want. Mr. Smith: The way that we currently operate, yes. Chairperson Tucker: The neighbors had different hours: 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturdays and that would go back to 11:00 p.m. for the youth facility; 7:30 on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, versus 10:00 p.m. Do we have any thoughts in terms of the operating hours and what that might be? Commissioner Selich: Absent any compelling arguments from the homeowners beyond what is in their written things, I really don't see anything really unreasonable in what the Church is asking for. It is not out of line with the hours of operations we put on similar restaurant types uses, let's say, so I don't see anything out of line there. Mr. Steward: I guess I would say we don't have any restaurants in R -1 neighborhoods. You've got to keep in mind what this is. This is an R -1 neighborhood. I think the compelling argument is this is an R -1 neighborhood and you try to minimize the impact on the quality of life in the R -1 neighborhood. As such, having the later hours of operation or something to be very commercial, would say is not appropriate in an R -1 neighborhood. As such, that is why we have tried to say we want something a little earlier so that it retains its R -1 neighborhood characteristics. I would hope that the Commissioners would consider that as they would consider their own neighborhood in terms of what they would like to see in terms of level of volume and activity. Commissioner Selich: I would just say that it's really a borderline between residential neighborhood and Institutional Government Facility neighborhood with the school and the other institutional uses that are out there, and it really isn't that much different than we have in other areas in the City where we have restaurants that are adjacent to residential neighborhoods such as we have in Corona del Mar or out on the Peninsula, Balboa Island and other areas. In those instances where the two uses interface, they need to learn to live with each other. One of the things that has been successful is the limitations that we have been putting on the hours of operation on restaurants, so I would take a little bit different viewpoint from what you just stated. Chairperson Tucker: Anybody else want to weigh in before I start calling on you? Commissioner McDaniel: I concur with Commissioner Selich. I think the uses will work just fine. Commissioner Hawkins: Well, one of the concerns that I have is the hours of operation. I think that the neighborhood is obviously an R -1 neighborhood. So earlier I mentioned some sort of accommodation of operation with more flexible hours. But I am concerned that the neighborhood get some sort of additional file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 36 of 71 benefit in terms of an hourly operation. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, the Church has proposed a 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday. I heard the applicant indicate that they would agree that the rest of their operation would close down 10:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays except for the Youth Center. Is that correct? Mr. Smith: Yes. Chairperson Tucker: So the question to you, Mr. Hawkins, is Mr. McDaniel and Mr Selich have agreed to that. What hours of operation are you proposing? Commissioner Hawkins: First of all, I am not proposing anything here. The applicant has made some proposals. Chairperson Tucker: We have to make some decisions here, so what hours of operation, strike the word proposal, what hours are you in favor of that the Planning Commission include in conditions? Commissioner Hawkins: It seems to me that the applicant's proposal for 7:30 on Sundays is fine. But I am concerned about the late hour of operation on Friday. Chairperson Tucker: The 11:00 o'clock hour is problematic for you for the Youth Center ? What are you suggesting instead of 11:00, 10:00 is what you would like to see? Commissioner Hawkins: Yes. Chairperson Tucker: It's not 7:30, its 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. is what you would like to see. Commissioner Eaton: This is all a balancing act. I went a little more liberal on the occupancy in the evenings, but I agree with Mr. Hawkins. With the more liberal occupancy, 10:00 p.m. ought to be the limit. If 11:00 p.m. ends up being the consensus of the Commission, then I think we should reconsider that 750 number, maybe go back down to the 600 you were talking about. Chairperson Tucker: It's like an auction. That item is closed. Commissioner Cole: I think the proposed hours by the Church are reasonable. Commissioner Toerge: I think they should be earlier. 10:00 p.m. would make sense to me and I would propose 9:00 p.m. on the days other than Friday and Saturday. I think it is realistic to assume that if you close the facility at whatever time, people are not going to leave right away. If you close it at 11:00 p.m., people are going to be there until 11:30 p.m. If you close it at 10:00 p.m., people are going to be there until 10:30 p.m. I know from my own habits, if I live in that area, people leaving at 11:30 p.m., that's late. During the week, I think it should be earlier. I am proposing 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday with a 7:00 a.m. start time on both days. file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 37 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: I am going to be the fourth vote for the hours that the Church has proposed, with the exception as we have discussed that they close down their operation Friday and Saturday at 10:00 p.m. except for the Youth Center. Well, we got through the toughest one, hopefully we can make a little speed here. Does the applicant want to comment? You've commented already on the parking requirement and I guess that one is under evaluation. Do you want to comment any further on the hours of operation or the occupancy of the site for the other days? Mr. McKitterick: Can I go out and talk to my client? You know what, generally we want to reach, as the. Commissioners do, a reasonable compromise. So, I want, in all seriousness. It is just some of the devil in the details. There are going to be some exceptions and we are all recognizing that, but as this plays out generally I think it will work. I would like to have a discussion with Herb on the operation of the Church to make sure that these make sense. Commissioner Hawkins: We have been here for a while. Perhaps we can take a short break to allow the applicant to discuss this with his client for about 5 minutes. Chairperson Tucker: Does anybody else want to take a break now? Do you need a break? No, (the applicant indicated by a nod of the head) okay then I think I would just as soon grind this out and get a few pages along and we will feel better and then take a break. Chairperson Tucker: [The underlined issues are being read from a Comparison of Operating Conditions listed in the staff report]. So the Special Occupancy /Special Events based upon what we have done here is that we are going to get a list of special occupancy events or actually a number of occupancy events so that would be the exceptions to the occupancy. That is going to be whatever the maximum occupancy could be is what I am understanding. Special occupancy /session - I don't think we need this either. Ms. Temple: Please back up. Did you want to tell us what number per year of the special occupancy events you are comfortable with? Chairperson Tucker: No, I wanted the applicant to come forward and give us some idea as to what those might be so that way we can figure it out. Halloween doesn't count either, so keep the list reasonable. Commissioner Eaton: If I can weigh in, that was suggested by the neighbors but I think they were expecting much more restrictive conditions and that is why they talked about as many as twelve. I would hope that it is less than twelve. Chairperson Tucker: I am not expecting twelve as the number; it is going to have to be a legitimate holiday expectation. The No New School language, is that now agreed to by each side? Mr. Steward, do you have the comments of the Church along the right hand margin? Mr. Steward: Yes, but I think the difference is it appears that by the Church's actions, they have deleted the maximum occupancy of the school, is what I think they have done. We were looking at maximum size of the school, is what I think file: //HAPlancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 38 of 71 the neighbors were trying to achieve. What we didn't know in terms of setting the number at that point because we didn't know what the exact current number was today in order to try and deal with a rationale relationship to the number. Chairperson Tucker: Guess I am not... the way the permitting works for pre - school, you have a certain amount of classroom space that you have, I think is like 75 square feet of play area per child. There is actually a requirement as to how much space can be occupied based upon how much playground space that you have. I would suspect that there already is a limit. I couldn't tell you what the number is, but they are going to have a limit. They just can't have a limitless amount of preschool occupancy because they don't have a limitless amount of space. Mr. Steward: I think from the neighborhood's perspective the issue was that there is, certainly at peak periods of times because of Ensign and Harbor, there is a lot of drop off traffic in the area, certainly in the morning. So, if the preschool automatically increases, you would be adding a lot more traffic to that drop -off period. So, we were trying to work with what the Church had now and trying to at least find out, based on what their request was, as to whether or not some growth over what is now would be fine. So that is why we did not have a number. It was not because we weren't willing to consider a number; it's just because we did not know what it was now. So, we are saying we know what the situation is today and if you increase that dramatically, then that would increase a lot of drop -off traffic in an otherwise very high congestion time in the neighborhood. We are trying to be flexible enough to deal with what they had, but we didn't know what our reference point was. airperson Tucker. Mr. McKitterick, why don't you give us some type of response to what the Church would like to see if anything. Smith: The Church would like to continue its ability to have a preschool and ergarten program. We are limited as you indicated based on square footage child in the classroom and in terms of playground space. Because the kids iot go up and down in elevators and so forth, we are limited basically in having e kids on the first floor and the rooms that currently exist at grade level. So, we iably can't have more than 250 or 300 kids if we stacked them in every room currently exists. rson Tucker: It sounds to me like there is a limitation that already is in Is there a problem putting the limitation down in the conditions so that e knows what it is? By the way, that was Mr. Smith, I had identified Mr. Smith: I don't think there is a problem, but I would like to go back and check square footage. airperson Tucker: Okay, then on the No New School part there will be a ximum and you will provide that information to us and the neighbors will get a ance to react to that. By the way, provide us with what your enrollment is today well. That way we will have a starting point to compare it with. ioner Eaton: Could I also have the Commission ask a correlating which is as I understand it, you would still like to be able to have some of :1Plancomm\200411118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 39 of 71 preschool play space on the parking area. Is that true and if so, does the rth in the school mean a growth in the amount of play space on the parking and therefore less parking available? Smith: That would be correct. If we were to grow we would have to allocate laps additional space. Right now, I believe we calculated about 10,000 square of the parking lot that qualifies for playground area for the existing school. person Tucker: I guess that also gets to.. see what happens when you start g all those details? I guess that gets to the question in terms of occupancy: do you do with children? How do you park on their playground? What do you in terms of occupancy and parking spaces that are used for another nissioner Toerge: Less. Fewer. In the St. Andrew's sponsored list of ttion conditions number six, it indicates that use of the parking lot for other parking and unloading for events shall be limited to preschool through sixth ;. As I understand it, there is no grade school. Is that correct? Smith: There is no grade school. issioner Toerge: So this must be an error? This is number 6 on page 2, is it r 8 on the new one? Smith: No, that is a different use. That is because we have vacation Bible cool and occasionally use the parking lot for that purpose during a week in June, we asked for an exception for those six days, I believe it is, and that is why the er kids would be on the parking lot at that time. missioner Eaton: How do you handle it currently when you need to have the space available for your preschool and you know you are going to have a big t at the same time? What do you do about the parking in that case? Smith: In the event that we need the parking space, we open up the parking lot do not have a playground area for the children for that period of time. That is ally at the 11 o'clock hour for a memorial service that requires the use of that re, which is about the last hour for the school so they keep them in and do ;r activities. iissioner Eaton: So, if your memorial services weren't to start until 1 o'clock, that conflict no longer happen? Smith: There would be no school conflict. We are proposing though, if you will that for memorial services for over 250, not the ones that occur in the Chapel :h are more like 100 to 150 people. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, so we will then get a number from the Church and give it to the neighbors as well so we know what that is. That is on A.S. A.6 Buses and Church Vehicles Used For the Transportation of 10 or More People - Mr. Steward is .the explanation given by the Church on this topic, does this bring it to agreement? You can draft someone out of the audience to help you if you want. file: //14:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 40 of 71 Mr. Steward: If I can just ask a question of the Church. 1 take this to mean that there would be a coned off area during that period of time so there would just be a temporary loss of that space? Mr. Smith: Nodded agreement. Mr. Steward: I think that is probably fine. The main focus of the neighborhood was to get it off St. Andrew Road and keep the traffic on 15th Street. Chairperson Tucker: A.7 Bus Storage - looks like you are all in agreement. A.8 On site Parking Lot Use - we kind of, at least on the homeowners side, now wait a sec, maybe we haven't resolved this. I think we need additional wording on this A.8 that it refers to preschool through 6th grade that identifies that this is a one week a year event, a one week a year exception. Is that acceptable to everybody? Mr. Steward: Yes, I think everybody knows about vacation Bible School and so I think one week a year is not the issue. Chairperson Tucker: So, if it is modified that way, is the condition then acceptable to you? The deletion at the end, we have kind of beaten that up. Mr. Williams: On item 8, what we were really after there was to say that there are as many as, and not more than, 6 times a year where we would want to use that parking lot for other than parking. The Vacation Bible School is an example, by while that is a week long affair, it is only one of the days that we use for that activity. We are saying in general that there are six times a year that we might want to use that parking lot for other than parking purposes. On those days, we would have to make sure that we would have that properly coordinated and then because of another objection, we said there would be no sound amplification. Commissioner Selich: Are you talking about using the whole parking lot or just the playschool part? Mr. Williams: Just a portion of it. Chairperson Tucker: First of all, is this non - school times or would you potentially be using this during school times? Mr. Smith: We would do this when school is not in session so we would have access to the school lots. This has been in the past an issue because we had a skateboard park on Friday afternoons, which was a concern to the neighbors; we have had a pre - school graduation program out there in the past with amplification. We understand their concerns and what we are trying to do is to say we will limit that to no more than six times a year and no amplification. Chairperson Tucker: What do we do about all the occupancy issues, though? Now we've got that, would that fall under Commissioner Selich's perception of how much occupancy they can have because they no longer have those spaces available? Commissioner Selich: Yes, to the degree they lose the parking spaces, their occupancy needs to be adjusted. file: //H:\Plancomm \2004 \l 118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 41 of 71 Mr. Steward: From the neighborhood's perspective one of the things we were told, with respect to the benefit to the neighborhood of the play use area, was that these outdoor activities that had been outside, would now be going indoors and therefore it would be quieter. So, obviously it raises a little bit of concern to the neighborhood that seeing they would come back outside again seems to be a little bit contrary, except for the one time Bible School, which is no big deal. But we want to understand what the scope of this idea is. Chairperson Tucker: Sounds to me like the parking is going to constrain the size of the event. How many times a year is this happening now, whenever it is that the parking lot is not available? Mr. Smith: Are you talking about school, number 8? Chairperson Tucker: Number 8, how many times, basically during 2004, a typical year, would you take the parking lot out of service for some type of special event? Mr. Smith: I don't think we have done it more than once or twice in the entire year this year because the skate park is gone and we no longer have the graduation. The only thing it has been shut down for is the Vacation Bible School. I would have to go back and double check that, but to my knowledge, not more than once this past year. Chairperson Tucker: Maybe the number 6 times a year can be skinnied down a little bit? Three is being thrown out up here; is that going to be something that will work for the Church? Mr. Smith: I believe we could do that or we could simply say that the week of vacation for Bible School, and I am not sure that we even need it for the qualified days for that. We could accept the three, yes. Chairperson Tucker: When you do the Vacation Bible School, is it an outdoor event every day? Mr. Smith: Because of the way we use the facility now, we are accustomed to having the kids have a barbecue in the parking lot and they go in that direction for their snacks. With the Youth Center, I don't think we fully envision how we would utilize that for that particular event. So, I believe we could substantially reduce the amount of parking lot use. Chairperson Tucker: Time Between Events - We have 35 minutes and 45 minutes. I am not sure where the 35 minutes came from, nor the 45 minutes. Unless you just want to pick 45 minutes and call it a day. Which really wouldn't be a great disappointment at this point. Commissioner Eaton: That is what I weighed in on a long time ago. 35 came from the current practice and the 45 came out of the Mitigation Measures. I think, with the complexities of the parking with self service and surface parking, they really need the 45 minutes. I think the Church is concerned about that because if they ever feel they need a third service they are going to want to squish that down. Commissioner Toerge: I felt the same way until we chose Case III that results in no file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 42 of 71 parking structure. Chairperson Tucker: No, that is still going to be there to the tune of 80 to 85 spaces or so. The Mitigation Measure says 45 minutes, but that was also contemplating a bigger garage. So, if it ends up being a smaller garage, then maybe 40 minutes. Do I have a problem with that under CEQA? Staff nodded, no. Okay then I don't have to pick 45, 1 can pick 40 minutes. Does anybody object to 40 minutes? No one. Is that okay with the neighbors and the Church? Mr. Williams: Our primary concern on the time, as Commissioner Eaton mentioned, in the event that we would go to a third service, then we would want to be able to manipulate that time a little. So, to be bound by 45 or 40 is a difficult situation. We were proposing that we would kick in the Parking Management Program anytime the attendance was over 800, which would help expedite people through there. So again, most of us from the Church sitting in this room would not argue about 40 minutes until we got down to the discussion of, are we going to have a third service. Then we would want a bit of wiggle room there. Chairperson Tucker: Is five minutes really going to make that much difference? I guess I could see where you would say, well jeez, we only have 200 people; we don't need 40 minutes between services. The practical matter is that the neighbors are going to notice if it is stacking up. If it is not stacking up, they are not going to be calling. They are only going to be calling if a problem manifests itself, but I don't know. Does anybody else have thoughts on this? Mr. Williams: Could I just expand on this? When you add the third service, where you become sensitive on that time is if you go from 35 to 45 minutes, you're adding 10 minutes between each service. Chairperson Tucker: We didn't propose that; we proposed 40 minutes. Mr. Williams: Then you add ten minutes to the overall time that we currently have. So, it is just a matter of how long the morning will be. Chairperson Tucker: You know, I guess I am inclined to go ahead and go with the Church's way on this thing because of the Parking Management Plan. If the Parking Management Plan identifies an issue then it will end up being a longer period of time. Mr. Steward: I don't have the Parking Management Plan committed to memory, so would like to ask a question. If there is a stacking problem, how is that resolved, because obviously you have hit the nail on the head. It is the concern of the neighbors, obviously, you get a stacking problem that results in lack of utilization of the on -site parking and on the parking lot across the High School; therefore, it is back to parking in the neighborhood. People are creatures of habit and will go to whatever is the closest. The idea is obviously to try and space enough time to have an opportunity to clear out and proximate spaces be available. The concern that the neighbors would have in a situation where it doesn't work at that kind of level, what is the mechanism short of coming back in here and trying to re -open things to do that? That obviously has been a concern. Chairperson Tucker: Well, I guess I will jump ahead to a point that I was going to file: //f1APlancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 43 of 71 raise later. We have the Parking Management Plan that the Traffic Engineer has commented to. We haven't seen the revision come back to us yet, but I think that will have to be addressed in that plan as to how to deal with stacking problems that come up. I am not sure that setting that time frame, I don't know, to me it seems like 40 minutes is probably just the easiest thing to do and if it ends up the service is ten minutes later its ten minutes later. Commissioner Eaton: I was going to say Mr. Chairman, that I would be willing to go along with the 40 minutes in the efforts of compromise, but I don't think I would with 35 minutes. Chairperson Tucker: 35 wasn't suggested, I think 40 minutes was. Commissioner Eaton: I thought you said you were going to go along with the Church? Chairperson Tucker: Oh, I've switched gears again. I am back to 40 minutes. Okay, I think we have a consensus for 40 minutes, so I think that is what we will leave it at. Again, I think you will hear about that if it is a problem, and if it is not a problem and you tighten it down because you add a third service and your expectation for attendance is less, then I think really, as Mr. Steward has indicated, it is going to be the actual effect on the neighborhood. Lighting /Glare - We have our Codes that require that the spillage not reach some other private property, as I recall. Ms. Temple: Or public right of way. Chairperson Tucker: Or public right of way, so I don't think there is a special need for mitigation measures in here or agreement on a condition because our standard conditions will apply and that will mean the spillage won't end up off the site. Noise - Noise issue is really the same thing. The activity is allowed to make a certain amount of noise and at 10:00 p.m. it has to make less noise. It is not a lot of noise to begin with, certainly putting a wall up will help that situation. Maximum Floor Area - We haven't gotten to that issue yet, but that is not going to be in the conditions. It is actually going to be part of the General Plan Amendment and that is all the applicant is going to be able to do based upon this General Plan Amendment. There is nothing that we can do as a Commission that binds future Planning Commissions and City Councils. So, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that whatever our General Plan number is, it won't be able to exceed that without another General Plan Amendment, the way our General Plan is presently written. Traffic Calming Measures - There is no basis for the Planning Commission at this point on a policy level basis to set up any type of contribution to a program that does not exist. So, even if we wanted to do it, there really would be no authority to do that. If it was going to be based just upon the average daily trips that the addition was going to be causing, we heard earlier we are not talking about a lot of trips. So a traffic calming measure really is not something that is within our purview. file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 44 of 71 Youth and Family Center. the Gymnasium - Commissioner Eaton: Mr. Chairman, did you skip over monitoring, or will that come up later? Chairperson Tucker: Skip over it? Oh, I didn't see it, it didn't have a caption separately. Okay. Monitoring - I had asked the City Attorney's office earlier about the proposals that the neighbors had included to have some type of private sanctions or private approval process. To paraphrase those advisories, we really don't have the ability if we wanted to, which is a big leap of faith even it we would want, we couldn't effectively delegate that right to enforce that condition or grant the rights to another to approve. So, it is going to have to be done on a voluntary basis more like what the Church has proposed in terms of having a neighborhood communication group of some type. The neighbors would have to come and complain directly to the City if there was a problem with the conditions. Commissioner Eaton: That issue comes up I think a couple of pages later. I was thinking more in terms of what St. Andrew 's listed here that is in the current Use Permit. I don't think the monitoring that is in the current Use Permit is good enough for the new set of conditions. I think it needs to be more comprehensive in terms of measuring the entire occupancy and I think it needs to be recorded more often. Chairperson Tucker: I did jump ahead. My own notes to myself said 'need more complete monitoring to confirm occupancy.' So, to the extent that we have occupancy requirements, we have to have some type of monitoring program that confirms those occupancy levels. Ms. Temple: Mr. Chairman, in reading that, we would adjust that to be monitoring of the occupancies of the site as limited by the Planning Commission. The current CUP is just monitoring the sanctuary utilization. Additionally, if you do want monitoring reports more often than quarterly, which is the current requirement, you need to let us know on that as well. Commissioner Eaton: This says semi - annually, is it quarterly? Ms. Temple: I thought I saw those every quarter, but if it is semi - annual, then it is. Commissioner Eaton: I think it does need to be at least quarterly for my point. Actually, Mr. Williams is raising his hand frantically. Chairperson Tucker: Go ahead, Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams: I would just take you back to item two on the first page. In the bottom the subject of monitoring is there and it envisions monitoring whatever the occupancy numbers were. Chairperson Tucker: So then you don't have a problem basically with what is being proposed? Mr. Williams: No, we had suggested semi - annually. file: //H:\Planeonun\2004 \l 118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 45 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: I think quarterly might be better; it sounds like we want to make sure, especially at the outset, that we are all off on the right foot on this thing with what ends up happening. Okay, am I back to the gymnasium use? Yes, it seems that I am. Gymnasium Use - Once again, I think to handle the easy one, the noise issue will be regulated by City Ordinances. Commissioner Toerge: Are there different Noise Ordinances for different zonings? Ms. Temple: There are different noise thresholds for different Districts. Commissioner Toerge: So, if we change the zoning, does it change the threshold on this site? Ms. Temple: Actually, it reduces it and makes the noise standard lower. Commissioner Toerge: If we change it from Governmental /Institutional it lowers it? Ms. Temple: Well actually, I did mis- speak. It actually doesn't change it because its noise as received from the site to the adjoining district. The adjoining districts are not changing and residential provides the lowest noise threshold. So, it is no change, but it is the lowest standard in the Code. Commissioner Toerge: Is it measured at the public right of way, or at the residential property line? Ms. Temple: At the residential property line. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, back to the gymnasium use. It seems like we have a bit of a difference on this. Has anything been resolved on this? Mr. Steward: No, I don't think so. I have no idea what "use by Newport Mesa Unified School District or the City will be limited" means. Obviously, one of the big concerns the neighborhood had was expanded adult recreational leagues in terms of intensity of use at night and in terms of that sort of thing. What we were saying, what we were trying to achieve in saying, that if there were Church generated activities in connection with its own programs, that is fine. But we kind of didn9 want the facility to be effectively utilized by a bunch of different or other groups in terms from a purely intensity use. We thought, since there are gyms at Ensign and Harbor and other gyms as well, we wouldn't think it was necessarily as needed. Chairperson Tucker: Well let's see if the Church can shed some light on this one Mr. McKitterick: Two things. One, we felt that the occupancy of the site, whatever it was, would regulate parking and occupancy. So, whether it was used by someone else or not. The second issue really relates to that we feel, to the exten we can accommodate the City and /or the School District who have beer cooperative within this process to an asset that we feel we are adding to the community on a limited basis, that it seems to be an asset that we would like tc make available, but again on a limited basis. I understand the neighborhood': concern. It is a tough one in the sense that this is something that we are offerinc file: //H:1Plancomm\200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 46 of 71 as an asset, which we are going to pay for, to have some limited use by the City. We do not envision recreational leagues at all; this is a special use events. It could be a charity, basketball game for the Newport Harbor if they couldn't somehow schedule their gym. I think that is what is envisioned in terms of limited use. Chairperson Tucker: Well, can we come up with some definition of the number times of limited? Mr. McKitterick: The option is, I guess we could candidly, if the Commission came back and said to exclude that, we would do that. This was a thought because we are offering this, but if you felt that in the use of that from a land use standpoint you felt it should be limited to the Church. Chairperson Tucker: The problem is that we have adopted kind of the hours that you wanted and the occupancy that you wanted and now, with the thought in mind, it is just for the Church, it gets a little bit bigger. How many events a year Mr. Steward would fit your definition of limited? Mr. Steward: Yeah, the first thing, we were trying to be reasonable in the sense of when someone says limited, we have no idea. We have not discussed with the Church, but we made it clear to the Church that we did not want recreational adult leagues and we did not want a lot of activity. In having this effectively be another gym or another assembly or another auditorium area because it is not part of the sanctuary-- it obviously has a lot of other uses. I think we look at it and want to have a specific number and be small enough that it would be infrequent. Chairperson Tucker: Pick a number. They are willing to settle at zero, but in fairness to the District and the City... Mr. Steward: I am seeing zero, one and two from the crowd. Chairperson Tucker: This is just the gymnasium. I am just to who is going to be able to use the facility. Mr. Steward: I am not hearing support for a large number. Commissioner Selich: Do we get to pick a number? Chairperson Tucker: Pick one. Commissioner Selich: I'm for zero. I definitely remember in the initial presentation the Church was very specific that this gymnasium was for Church activities only and no outside activities. I am sure it would be great for the School District and the City to have use of it, but I think it gets above and beyond what we are doing here. This whole project is promoted for their Youth Ministry and I think it should be limited to that. Commissioner Toerge: Yes, I agree, especially considering that we are talking about an educational program to help the congregation learn how to get to the site, how to park on the site and if you are now opening it to the public to come one, two or three days a year, it is clear they are not going to be educated where to park, when to park and how to access the site and what streets to use to get there. It file: //HAPlancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 47 of 71 flies in the face of other conditions that we are trying to impose. Chairperson Tucker: Is there anyone for a number above zero? Okay. Commissioner Eaton: I would like to hear what Mr. Williams has to say, and I have another question too. Mr. Williams: Would it be maybe appropriate to think in terms of the limit being for sporting events? The bulk of the use of Newport Harbor High School is when they need and use our facilities for sporting banquets, not sporting activities. So, maybe the concern is not allowing sporting events as opposed to other uses. Chairperson Tucker: It would probably be inconsistent with what Commissioners Selich and Toerge have said. Commissioner Selich: It is inconsistent. I think zero is zero. Commissioner McDaniel: I think what the Church may be trying to do is, they have asked for the opportunity to use the parking of the high school across the street. Not to be able to extend the hand out to them and be able to say if you need a banquet facility, we have this space that nobody is using. It seems that is what they are trying to do, reciprocate to some extent: you use our facility, we use your facility as they're needed. If we want to say zero, I don't have a problem with that but it may facilitate in terms of the parking and anything else we are asking of the school. Commissioner Selich: The reciprocation is in the fact that the Church is paying to improve the School District's parking lot, so that is where the trade -off is. Commissioner McDaniel: I am okay with zero. Chairperson Tucker: I am not seeing anybody else jump up and suggest another number, so it seems like it is zero. Now the part here that says the maximum outside use shall be limited to not more than 300 persons as assembly use or 150 persons with athletic use. I guess I am confused by that. Ms. Temple: With zero, you don't need it. Chairperson Tucker: That was modifying the prior sentence? Ms. Temple: That was limiting the numbers associated with outside use. Commissioner Eaton: It did raise in my mind the curiosity what kinds of assembly uses they anticipate in that gym. The neighbors had talked about even much more than 300 for their own uses. I am curious, are you envisioning that as an assembly use as well as a recreational use? Mr. Smith: We envision using that for assembly purposes for the youth on Sunday mornings as part of the area in which their Sunday school classes are conducted, the part of which are recreational and sport things they are doing, games and so forth, as a place to play, as opposed to the current facility which is at Dierenfield Fellowship Hall. What we were trying to do in that particular request was to say file: //HAPlancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 48 of 71 that if the Newport Harbor High School wanted to have their Mr. Newport Program, which they currently have in our Dierenfield Fellowship Hall, that we would allow that to be done but we would perhaps use the gym to do that rather than the current fellowship hall, or the da Vinci luncheons, those kinds of events. That is why the assembly use number was put on that; it wasn't envisioned to have recreational needs and that kind of thing. Commissioner Eaton: But, you could still do those things in the expanded Dierenfield Hall, right? Mr. Smith: We would then end up doing them in the Dierenfield Hall, yes. Chairperson Tucker: Sounds like that is what is going to happen. Okay with the change then; are we now in agreement? Is the gymnasium use now agreed to or is there something that the neighbors want? Basically, it is going to be subject to the noise restrictions the City already has; occupancy will be controlled by the Building Code requirements. Maximum use limited to more than 1,500 persons, I am not sure where that came from. At any rate, it is just subject to the occupancy limits that the staff is coming up with whatever that happens to be at any given point. I think the rest of it is has been covered, has it not? Commissioner Eaton: I think it is a great advantage to be able to try and encourage the youth events to use the lower level because you are still going to have a garage, I assume. I'm just wondering how you do that for events that are in the main level in the gym; how do you get them to use the lower level entrance? Chairperson Tucker: Is that a question for the Church? Commissioner Eaton: Yes, for the Church because it is an operational question. Both you and the neighbors felt it would be an advantage to be able to use the lower level entrance into the youth center. It implies that the gym events will also be using that lower level entrance. I am wondering, is that what you meant that the events in the gym would also be using the lower level entrance and, if so, how do you get that done? Mr. Smith: What we envisioned there was that the youth offices and the main lounge area were in the basement. So, the bulk of the kids coming, would be going into the basement and entering the facility that way. They would go up through the stairwells to use the gym, which is on the second floor. So the circulation was controlled so that on Sunday mornings, they would be going into the building but primarily entering in the lower level. The same thing for other youth events that are going on after school. Commissioner Eaton: But, if you had an event in the gym breaking at 11 o'clock on Friday night, you don't have a way to get them down to the lower level so that they are not all out at the parking lot at the same time. Mr. Smith: They will be using the stairwells from the basement level. Our intent was to try and park their cars down below and therefore encourage them to use the lower level. Commissioner Eaton: I hope that works. file : //H- .T1ancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 49 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: Are you suggesting a condition on how that works, or are you just talking? Commissioner Eaton: I would feel more comfortable if there was, and I think the neighbors would feel more comfortable. However, I don't know if it is practical or not. Chairperson Tucker: So I guess there should be some language to the effect that the applicant will endeavor to encourage the youth to enter in and out at the lower level to the maximum possible, so that it is not death by execution. Commissioner McDaniel: You can put that in if you want to, but I don't know how you are going to enforce it. I think it is a lot of wasted effort. Chairperson Tucker: That is why we have an enforcement provision. We just make them up and hope the majority of them fly. That is our goal. I think we are done with that one. Youth Center Occupancy In agreement, okay as written. Commissioner Toerge: I don't see why we need to limit the excessive noise to not occurring just in the at -grade parking lot. To me it should be anywhere on site. I don't think there is any need for anyone to loiter and make excessive noise anywhere on the site, not just in the parking lot. So, I would propose changing that condition to delete the "at -grade parking lot" and replace it with "anywhere on site." Chairperson Tucker: Okay, anyone have a problem with that? The applicant have a problem? I think excessive noise on the site will be fine. It won't be excessive noise if nobody can hear it. It's the tree falling in the forest thing. Limited Overnight Use - We have a fair amount of differences here. Does anybody want to weigh in on this one? Commissioner Toerge: Under the St. Andrew's proposal, the second sentence, "when requested in writing by a resident, the Church will notify residents within 100 feet of the property line 24 hours in advance." How does that work? How does a resident know to ask about noise that has not occurred yet? Mr. Smith: What we envisioned there was working with the neighbors, that if a person requested in writing to know we were going to have those events, that as part of the scheduling of those events, we would send a notice or note to the neighbors saying, for example, we have booked a youth overnight activity on Friday, November 21, and we would mail that to the address that is requesting. Commissioner Toerge: So the letters will be on file and so long as the residents submitted a letter at anytime then you would just send a notice of this. Mr. Smith: Yes, we are willing to do that. Commissioner Toerge: And 100 feet is like across the street? Mr. Smith: Ye, we tried to pick a number, we are open to that. file: //1l:1Plancomm\2 00411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 50 of 71 Ms. Wood: I think that is one where staff has no means of enforcement. Chairperson Tucker: It seems like what the Church is proposing is probably okay. They have to comply with the Noise Ordinances and that is where the problem is going to be. The bigger issue is probably how many people are going to be there. Commissioner Toerge: Yes, limit the number and the occurrences. Mr. Steward: Yes, if I read this right, there is no limit on overnight usages. If we just set an 11 p.m. deadline on Friday and Saturdays, how does that work with no limit on overnight usages? It strikes me as somewhat inconsistent. Chairperson Tucker: Well, I guess for me it is an indoor activity so the Noise Ordinances would apply. The parking, I guess, would allow for a huge group so it really comes down to the issue of how big the group is. Does it really make a difference if it is a small group and they can't make noise, how often they are there? Mr. Steward: That is where a great leap of faith comes in. Assume that the number of youth can't make noise. Certainly it has not been the experience so far by the neighbors in the area. The Church can only do so much with respect to supervising youth and everything else. I think, if you are assuming that they can be silent and stealth in their movements coming and going, I just don't think that is realistic. I think that is what the neighbors' concern is; how many overnights do you have? Chairperson Tucker: You will have a supervisor that is going to be reachable by phone. Of course, if it really isn't enforceable or very easily monitored, then maybe there is a point on that. Why don't we take up the issues, then, of the number of overnight uses and the size of the groups? Commissioner Toerge: Well, I have no clue what is reasonable for the Church. I don't know what they are proposing; I don't know what they want to do. You know, people coming and going, is it like a High School Grad party when they are locked down and don't leave until the morning? Can they leave at 2:00 a.m.? I think this is problematic. I am not sure that I have any advice to it other than, let me ask the applicant, how often does this occur, or does it occur now, or is this something you want to do in the future? Mr. Smith: Again, my recollection is it is less than once a month and consists of a couple different types of events. One, the Youth Program has what they call, an "All Nighter" program. They take the kids and do different things and come back to the Church. Basically it is an all night program and they break in the morning. The other use is on occasion we have youth groups from other churches in the area. They are traveling and going to Mexico and want to sleep in the gymnasium, so we open our facility. Again, that happens very infrequently, but that was what was envisioned, a limited use. Chairperson Tucker: So it sounds like some type of reasonable limitation really would be acceptable as opposed to no limit on use. It is not something that you are planning on doing every night, or every week. It is more of a monthly type of thing. How many people attends these events, approximately? file: //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 51 of 71 Mr. Smith: I'd say they are less than 200, but I don't know the actual number of the particular events. Our All Nighters would be less than 200 because there are less than 200 kids in the program although they tend to be a big draw for the kids. The outside groups are usually two or three van loads of people, so I would say about 50 kids from another youth group traveling through town, that kind of thing. Commissioner Eaton: I was just going to say, Mr. Chairman, even in the Church's version, they say limit overnight use. I think there should be a limit maybe twelve or fifteen times a year. Chairperson Tucker: I am leaning towards twelve, once a month. Commissioner Eaton: Once you get up to 300 high school kids, that is a big group to try and keep control over. I think 200 ought to be the absolute maximum. Chairperson Tucker: I guess the other thing, too, is the expectation is that this is going to be indoor as opposed to outside. So, I think we ought to say it will be inside as well. Does that sound okay, twelve times a year inside, 200 people maximum. Mr. Smith: Yes, that would include the chaperones as well. Mrs. Wood: As I was striking verbiage on the notice, I thought perhaps you would like to add a requirement that there be a certain number of supervisors or chaperones, or at least there be adult supervision. Chairperson Tucker: Why don't we say adequately supervised? Commissioner Toerge: How about the notice to the neighbors? Chairperson Tucker: You mean the amount of feet? Commissioner Toerge: Well, and who is doing it and when and the number of feet. Chairperson Tucker: Well, it's not going to be us. Mrs. Wood: Which is why we couldn't enforce it. Chairperson Tucker: I think maybe 300 feet? Ms. Temple: We can enforce it if we got a report of an activity beyond the stated hours of limitation and that they were prohibited. If we know they are happening and they go beyond the number we can enforce, we can cite. But there really is no way for us to know if they are sending these notices, I suppose we could ask to be noticed too. Mrs. Wood: Have the resident request the notice from the City instead of the Church and then we can send the notice. No, then we are doing the Church's work. Chairperson Tucker: I think our enforcement is going to be if there is a problem with this report, then we will ask for copies of all the things that they were supposed file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 52 of 71 to have done under the Use Permit and deal with it after the fact. I don't think there is any other way to do it. So, twelve times a year, indoors, maximum of 200 people with adequate adult supervision. And then the notice. How about 300 feet, that is kind of what the City does. Is that too much? 300 feet from the property line, so that is probably going to be four houses. Ms. Temple: 100 feet, given the location of the gym, would get you all of the first row of houses. It all depends on whether you want to go deeper beyond that first row of houses into those adjoining neighborhoods. Chairperson Tucker: Is 100 feet from the gym or the property line? Ms. Temple: The property line. Chairperson Tucker: What do you think? Bruce, do you have any thoughts on this? Mr. Gary McKitterick: This is an easy one. Whatever list that they give us. Mr. Bruce Steward: The idea was to try and give some pre- warning to the neighbors that there might be a little bit more noise and activity and at least a sense of when this was going to happen so that those people, especially those who have experienced problems in the past, would have a heads up that something was happening. Also, that way they can contact, if they were concerned, the Church's supervisor's number. Chairperson Tucker: Why don't we make it 300 feet because I don't want to have the Church get a list of 100 people that are all over the place? So, if we can just make it 300 feet, I think that might work. Anybody have a problem with that? Commissioner Toerge: I kind of visualize, and correct me if I am wrong, that you would simply just hand a bunch of flyers to the youth and have them go hand them out in the neighborhood. Or, would you mail them? Ms. Temple: Does this still include that it's only if requested in writing by a resident? Or, do you just want a 300 foot radius? Chairperson Tucker: No, I'd like them to request, but they only have to request one time. It is not perpetual, they don't have to keep sending notices. It was pointed out to us that the expectation of the Church is that they are going to get a list of people. Ms. Temple: Well, and I know Robin is going to overrule me or something, but I will just say, what happens when the next round of residents come in and they know nothing of these conditions? Chairperson Tucker: They will figure it out. I have great confidence in the network. I have seen the network in Cliffhaven and Newport Heights. I went to a meeting at the Newport Arts Center one night, and they all figured out where they were supposed to be pretty well. Okay, I think we are done with that one. Parking Management Plan - did I skip one? Where am I, 1 am on 5 of 8. file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 53 of 71 Ms. Temple: This is on the original one, item 17. Chairperson Tucker: I am working off the one with the comments. Weekday parking. Ms. Wood: Number 17 in page 5 of 11. Ms. Temple: It is also C2 on the list. Chairperson Tucker: C2? Okay, so it got re- organized a little bit. I am going to continue working off the latest version because that is where I have all my notes, unfortunately. Parking /Parking Management - Rich, are we getting a revised Parking Management Plan? Do you know the status of that? Mr. Rich Edmonston: No, I am not sure what the status is at this time. Chairperson Tucker: Would that be our expectation? You made comments to it; were you expecting that we would get a revised plan? Mr. Edmonston: Yes. Commissioner Eaton: There was a response to both my comments and staffs comments in our packet. The engineer said they were going to submit a revised plan for approval. Chairperson Tucker: I think the revised plan, I am not sure what's not covered in these conditions here. We do have the issue of no monitoring committee that I spoke about earlier. I think no Newport Beach police officer is going to be true as well. We are not going to be involved in management of this particular operation. So I guess, I will throw it back to the neighbors. The Parking Management Plan, is there still a difference between the neighbors and the Church, and if so, what are the issues that you need us to weigh in on? Mr. Steward: Other than the two you threw out, I think those were the two principle differences between us. A point of clarification: so the ones that are listed as the Proposed Operating Conditions 18, 19 and 20, you are going to come back to? Chairperson Tucker: 18, 19 and 20 1 think may be CA, C.5, and CA Mr. Steward: That's fine if they are in a different order than what we are looking at. I just want to make sure we were not missing something. Chairperson Tucker: Right, but if I do skip something, please let me know. Okay, what I would like to see from the applicant is the revised Parking Management Plan so that we have something that is at least based upon what we know at a point in time. When December 9 comes along, it looks like it has everything covered. So, I would like that back in to the City in enough time to be included in our agenda packets for December 9 so that the neighbors can also see it and make any suggested changes at that point. I think all these things are going to end up being in the plan and why don't we just defer deciding on those conditions because I think file: //HAPlancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 54 of 71 they will be in a document that is going to be covered actually in our general conditions, staff conditions, where we have a Management Plan that has to be approved by the Traffic Engineer. When you go into design you end up with something different than what your preliminary version is and so some things might change in it. Basically it will end up containing all the provisions that are important to the neighbors. Weekday parking - In agreement? Mr. Williams: I just want to make sure that there is no confusion on our part. I am not sure that we know for sure what to do on the revision to the Parking Management Plan. Does that mean incorporate these suggestions that were made? Chairperson Tucker: You've gotten staffs conditions, Commissioner Eaton has made suggestions, the consultant who prepared that plan responded to those suggestions and comments and now what our expectation is, is that the parking management plan will now be revised to be consistent with what those comments and answers were. Mr. Williams: Our expert on parking management, Ron, back there is shaking his head yes, so I guess we are alright. Chairman Tucker: He's got it, perfect. Weekday Parking - It says in agreement, so hopefully that means I don't have to read anything here. Assigned Parking - The no Newport Beach police officers, are we in agreement on this, or are we apart on this? It's kind of hard for me to tell. Mr. Steward: The two variances were that in terms of enforcement mechanism and also the concern, it goes back to the size of the structure and utilization as to where staff would park, those being the one group that the Church can control as to whether they will be parking in the lower level, as to whether or not that would be a more productive use of parking, or have them park in the more farther reaches of the 15th Street lot and have them walk. That is the only question as to whether or not which would be the better way to make sure the on -site or more proximate parking is better utilized. Chairperson Tucker: Does the Church have a thought on the best way to handle that? Mr. Smith: Our original proposal was, if we understood the neighbors' comment that it wouldn't be used, we are trying to guarantee its utilization by parking staff at the lower levels and to assure the at -grade spaces would be visibly available for members coming and going. If you wanted us to change that, I guess we would be open to that. We still believe that parking in the lower levels for people who are going to be there all morning is the better alternative. Chairperson Tucker: Okay. file: //H:1Plancomm \2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 55 of 71 Commissioner Eaton: My experience has been that the only times you need off- duty police officers is when you are directing traffic in the public rights of way and that has been a requirement for other churches. I think the original, maybe staff can correct me on this, or look it up between now and the 9th, but my recollection is that the original Parking Management Plan did suggest the possibility of having someone on 15th Street directing people into the high school lot when the on -site lot was improved and that needed to be a police officer. But, then I think they kind of withdrew that later on and said maybe that wasn't necessary. Can someone correct me if I am remembering that right or not? Mr. Ron Hendrickson with the St. Andrews contingent: In those responses, which are in your staff report, one of the comments from Rich Edmonston, City staff, or at least from the Traffic Department, was that they didn't feel it would be appropriate to have a police officer conducting traffic out there. So that is why the traffic consultant changed, and in the response, that would no longer be what they would propose. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, I guess we are to the question as to where do the personnel get assigned? Do they get assigned to the lower level or do they get assigned to the back reaches of the school parking lot? Mr. Hendrickson: For the TMP? Chairperson Tucker: Yes. Mr. Hendrickson: Well, they are assigned all over. The plan proposes a maximum of ten people in this parking ministry and they would be assigned... Chairperson Tucker: I am not talking about them. Wasn't that the question, where do the cars go first? Do you try to fill up the basement first, or do you try to fill up the far reaches of the school parking lot first? Mr. Hendrickson: No, the first parking is in the lower levels and then coming up to the upper levels and then once the parking garage is filled, then parking is directed across the street. Chairperson Tucker: The question I guess is, Mr. Steward, you are not sure which way that goes, or would you prefer to see it the opposite? Mr. Steward: Obviously, we are tying to get to an effective plan. It strikes me that as parishioners show up for church services and you are filling up, and they are automatically directing it, wouldn't you have staff park in the least favorable spot, which is the last spot you would fill at the far end of the lot? Chairperson Tucker: I suspect that, if the parking structure is now quite a bit reduced in size, then I'm assuming it becomes a little more favored location and maybe the staff does park in the far reaches. Commissioner Eaton's theory of the old folks not wanting to walk very far, maybe that is the way we do it. Would that be acceptable to the Church? Would you have a problem with that? Mr. Williams: It is not a problem. We thought we were complying with the neighbors' wishes by putting staff down there in the undesirable area. file: //H:1Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 56 of 71 Chairperson Tucker: Well, it became more desirable than the other undesirable area. It was the lesser of the two undesirable areas. Clay Street Parking - In agreement, oh boy. Clay Street Entrance - In agreement. Clay Street Pedestrian access - In agreement. St. Andrew's Road Entrance - Now that was part of the Parking Management Plan. As 1 recall staff was looking at the concept of having one way circulation through that lot. Is that still something that is on the table? As I recall, Rich, you were thinking about not only one way during peak times, but then you were thinking, well maybe it ought to be one way all the time so that people didn't get confused as to which times it wasn't one way. Mr. Rich Edmonston: That is correct, I thought it might simplify things, but again we are waiting for more direct feedback. Chairperson Tucker: And that feedback would come from? Mr. Edmonston: It would be from the Church as to whether they felt it would fit their overall program and need. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, I am not so sure that St. Andrew's parking lot entry/exit should be a right in/right out only and be closed except for emergencies after 5:00 p.m. I understand that is the neighbors' version, but .there is no response. The Church says not, unless limited to exit. I think, in terms of circulation, I'm going to tend to suggest that maybe the staff ought to figure that out. The goal clearly that we have is to try to have as much of the traffic stay out of the neighborhood. Exactly how you do that, that one way in and out does have, at least one feature of it, is they are in or off St. Andrew but they have to exit on 15th. I am not exactly sure we can answer that tonight. I think probably in the Traffic Management Plan and staff would figure that out. Mr. Steward: Clearly what all the neighborhood is trying to see and obviously we look to see what the experts would say, we are trying to come up with ways to try and encourage people to and from the site more on 15th Street and Irvine than anything else. So, whatever staff can try and encourage, that is really what the neighborhood is trying to do that is the preferred and we are doing as much as reasonably possible to get people to come and go in that direction. Commissioner Toerge: Doesn't a right -in promote traffic going through the neighborhood? Why would you want that? Mr. Steward: I am not saying we wanted it, but in terms of the direction of what is happening with the closure of Clay Street, the real question is how do people enter at all on St. Andrew and if so, they are entering on St. Andrew, how do they get in? We are really saying that if they are going into the parking lot, they are going to be directed presumably to come down 15th Street and enter the parking lot on the 15th Street side. So, we are trying really to not encourage them to go in that direction, but also, practically speaking, people are going to come up Cliff Drive. file : //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 57 of 71 That is the inherent problem with the whole issue here on traffic. So we don't have a magic bullet to figure this out, that is just what we are trying to do. Chairperson Tucker: It is going to be part of the overall circulation and it may not end up being the exact way you are proposing, but what staff is going to look for is the best possible function considering entries and exits, the whole nine yards. Commissioner Eaton: I just wanted to say that one of the conditions that I have suggested, and I think which the Church agreed to, has not been plugged into either these restrictions or the conditions that I can see. It is the requirement that the Church keep on publishing in their bulletin the suggested way of entrance to the Church of the long way around, because that will help. Chairperson Tucker: That was in the staff condition a little bit and one of my comments was for them to have a more frequent admonition. Maybe that needs to be filled out a little more just what that admonition should be. Commissioner Eaton: So long as that ends up in the final conditions, I think that is a good thing. Chairperson Tucker: That is there as a place holder now, so when we go back and look at the conditions, I have at least put something in that addresses that. Hopefully, we will all remember that as well. Mr. Edmonston: I think that is also addressed in paragraph CAA where it talks about regular and ongoing parking education, it talks about when to park and how to approach the campus. Chairperson Tucker: So, it is in the Parking Management Plan. Newport High parking - Those are all to be determined items. Enforcement - I think those are going to be enforced the same as all our other use permits are enforced. I would encourage a neighborhood communications group because I think that would take care of a lot of the issues and problems and especially the festering nature of what has gone on before. Monitoring - I think, once again, that is best left to the neighborhood communication group. We have already talked about the occupancy that will be recorded on a quarterly basis. I think the ad hoc committee actually having any power to do anything really isn't going to work. Enforcement is really the same thing; it has to come back through the City. How the neighbors set up their system for monitoring things, I think we will have to leave it up to them. Now, when these monitoring reports come into the City, is that something that we are going to know what to do with them and how to make sure that the neighbors know who to check with to see what these monitoring reports are revealing? Ms. Temple: The monitoring reports are maintained in the Use Permit file. Given the number of these, 1 suspect that this is a Use Permit that we will always retain in hard copy; we tend to keep some that way. I think if you can just let us think about how best to deal with, not just the actual receipt of the monitoring report, but what is done with it, maybe firm that up. I haven't really thought it through to suggest file: //H:\Plancomm \2004\1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 58 of 71 something to you tonight. Commissioner Eaton: It did appear to be agreement to at least a neighborhood coordinating group and that maybe we should make that a condition, that there be a neighborhood coordinating group and that they be copied with the monitoring report. That would be a way to keep them going. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, does staff have a problem with that? Ms. Temple: I thought I heard that a neighborhood group of any sort really hasn't any status with us. What if they disappear? Ms. Wood suggested that perhaps we could just regularly post them on the City's web site and anybody who wanted them could find them there on a quarterly basis. We would like to think some of that through. Ms. Wood: Or, anybody who requests it from us, we could send it to them. But, as time goes by and there are not problems with the operation, there may not be interest from the neighborhood in maintaining this group. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, I guess then we will have one less condition then. know the neighbors will figure it out; they've figured everything else out. I think this brings us to a close on the operating conditions and as I understand it, poor Ginger is going to have to type all of this verbatim so that Jim Campbell can work off it. Hopefully we were relatively clear on what our conclusions were on each one of these items. Ms. Temple: Jim will also be able to use the recordings, but you had stated you wanted extremely detailed minutes, so Ginger will work mightily to accomplish that mission. Chairperson Tucker: I do. I want to have a hard copy so that in twenty years from now somebody doesn't come after me and say that wasn't very clear. Okay, here we go; something that is very thick and very clear. At least I hope it was clear. Okay, we are going to take a five minute break and then come back and have Mr. Krotee talk to us briefly about his ideas on the plans, we will make a decision on the square footage, and then we will talk about where we go from here. Continuing after the break: Chairperson Tucker: Okay, we'll come back to order, please. The neighbors have asked for an opportunity to make a brief PowerPoint presentation, I believe on the square footage issue. So, we'll ask Don Krotee to come up and make that presentation. Don Krotee, representing the Newport Heights Improvement Association: After the stakeholders first went into negotiation session with the Church, we were asked if we could get closer to the issue of square footage. One of the things we did was to come off a zero square footage, or a new expansion up to a modicum of 5,000 square feet. At that time, we had several conceptual viewpoints of how that could be established, but none of them were delivered. In hearing from the Church that they really regarded that as a no project, we really hadn't pursued it very much. Subsequent to that, and probably about a month and a half ago, we had occasion file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 59 of 71 to have audience with Earl McDaniel. He suggested really that we pursue the relevance, and show the relevance to all Commissioners and really everyone associated with this, especially the stakeholders, as to what could be done with a lower square footage and how that might look. With that we sat down and, sort of hard -lined if you will, made this presentation. This isn't very long and I will kind of leap through this. In the broadest sense, we are going after two buildings on site. This proposal is established through their scope of work. They are dealing with the Fellowship Hall as buildings D and E. These buildings are going to be torn down and will be reconfigured and reconstructed at a larger size. That total is short of 25,000 square feet and we want to remind everyone, this is a campus of 140,440 square feet now. Buildings E and D are situated on the site as you see them here, and if we just focus in on building E, you can grasp the main youth area in the lower right hand corner of this floor plan. This is the building E, and if you segregate just the primary youth area, you have about a 5,000 square foot module. That 5,000 square foot module, if it happened to be separated, in our concept we placed it in the basement below building D in the neighboring building. The question comes up, how do you handle the remaining multipurpose rooms? These appear to the neighborhood to be places where they can have four weddings and a funeral. We want to avoid that and in asking the Church, their response was they needed a place to separate the Junior High and the Senior High. We were of the thinking that if they could jointly use some of their space and put some of these multi- purpose spaces in other areas that weren't used, that would really be terrific and would keep them really from building this unneeded space. So, if you really study the shapes of the multi - purpose rooms here, as we did, they really are relatively the same size. If you take a quick look at the classroom configuration in building E, the three classrooms that are right beside one another are approximately the same size space as the multi - purpose room. So, if you combine all three of them and construct them with divided partitions and jointly use them, if they are not going to have a school at this facility, these are going to be open for these multi- function purposes. When they become jointly used, they're much more successful. This classroom in building E represents the area that 1 am talking about and is just about equal to the size of the multi - purpose room. To recap, what we would do with building E, we would abbreviate the size of the classrooms to associate themselves with the 20 to 1 studentheacher ratio, which is now at the forefront of public education. That allows the classrooms to become slightly smaller. So we have moved the corridor in, made the classrooms smaller, suggest that they construct those with bi -fold partitions to allow them to be jointly used as we mentioned before. So, we are generally doing this, having the education building back in a way that the applicant would intend and then shortening the classrooms as we show here. The boys and girls rooms are the same area; the offices and the resource rooms could be slightly reconfigured. The biggest change is down below here, the shape of the gymnasium. The greatest savings is if the gymnasium were to be reconfigured on the gathering area of the Fellowship Hall. They are almost exactly the same size if you constructed the gymnasium out to the edge of the planters and seriously thought about joint using this space. Then, you could save the entire area of the new gymnasium and this is an enormous saving in the square footage of the concept. So, we really made a sketch overlay of the gym and call it the gym multipurpose area. The idea is in building D/E that, instead of introducing conditions that would have to prohibit the joint use of different buildings, you would just allow them to build the one central space and have it jointly used. This would allow for, and obviously they couldn't file: //H: \Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 60 of 71 have a spaghetti dinner in there for the water polo team at the same time the kids are playing basketball, so the use is much more self - regulating. There is a little bit of change to be made to the stair configuration. The platform and the presentation area could all be the same, it would just be jointly used area. I am trying to make a point here that you can't have a huge meeting at the same time while playing basketball. 1 would summarize that what is happening with building D, we have moved the core youth and family below this gymnasium and 5,000 square feet which wasn't there before, we have expanded the ground floor area about 1,000 square feet to 11,150 square feet and the upper floor is just about the same. They have in the lower left hand corner an exterior mechanical well and in the center you might have remembered they modified their plans to have an outdoor deck area. If you put those two together, you get to the point where it is just about the same size as the ceiling of the gym. So, this really works quite well. The recap on D would be 5,000 down, 11,500 in the middle for 21,338. What this means overall, in combination with the 6,300 we had talked about on the educational building, and if you really focus in on the building D and building E horizontal lines and follow across, the existing footage on D, for example at 17,762 we're going to be building it back larger for a net change of 3,500. The E building with its gymnasium removed and jointly used disappears. So, you are really building E back at slightly less square footage. The total new square footage on the site would be 2,846, so there really is quite a bit of room if you jointly use the facilities between this and the 5,000 that the homeowners had offered way back when. The biggest gainer for this is on the site plan. If you study the site plan, and we are almost working as the Chair recommended at one time tonight, you might end up working with the same conditional use permit. You really don't need a parking garage. We did a sketch overlay focusing on some of the savings, but the biggest thing is if you surface park that thing and use some of the parking management to manage valet or stacked parking, you could still get to the 260 easily on the surface. The greatest gainer, well there are a few other small issues. We recommended that they reconfigure the exit out on St. Andrew Place as a right turn exit only. This would not function as ingress, but the general thinking there was if the parking lot only has an exit, it is only having half the action and that makes it better for the residences that are across the way. The other thing about right turn only is with the wall and some landscape, exiting at night, the headlights are blocked from shining into the residences. We do very much back the Traffic Management Plan suggestion and also the traffic calming measures to provide a segregated place along 15th to stop and pick up. As Commissioner Selich talked about the analogy with restaurants, there is no pick up or delivery spot that is really segregated, the public right of way. We think that would be a big gainer here. The greatest savings is the edge all along Clay Street, under the current proposal, is slated to be scrapped and entirely bulldozed and constructed back only about 30 to 40% of its original. There are no site sections the way there were on St. Mark's, so we are not able to tell from the small scale drawings. But from examining the landscape drawings, we're losing a great deal of landscape along Clay and it is being replaced with quite a repugnant and ugly wall. So, this concept would allow, for the entire landscape that is there now to be enhanced with any wall design that you wanted. file : //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 61 of 71 In short, it would save the applicant, we figure, somewhere between 7 and 10 million dollars to build this less than the proposal. So, it is an enormous savings and the greatest regard they have two neighborhood associations that almost have a standing ovation for this whereas they can't get behind, you know from Bruce's disclaimer on the conditions, the current proposal at all. That is the last slide and thanks very much. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Chairperson Tucker: Any questions of Mr. Krotee? Okay. Thank you very much. Can we have somebody from the Church respond whether all or any part of this plan is feasible or infeasible? We would appreciate hearing about it. Carl McLarand, with McLarand, Vasquez, Emsiek and Partners, the architect for St. Andrew, I believe. Thank you Mr. Krotee and I will remember repugnant and ugly. Before I get into kind of counter balancing what Mr. Krotee has indicated, I think it is appropriate to talk a little bit about the project. We have been involved in this since March 2002. We submitted our initial package to the City of Newport Beach in December of 2002, which maybe next meeting is almost two years. It has been a long process. I want you to understand that from the beginning, I personalty approached this as an attempt for a win -win situation, both for the Church, which is my client, and the community, which is a part of it. By doing that, I listened to the programmatic request of our client, I certainly reviewed the campus of the Church which has its goods and its bads, and I also listened to what the concerns of the community were as I understood it at that time. I tried to develop something that would be aesthetically complimentary and work with and look almost seamless when complete; add significant parking, because as I understood it the community was concerned that we were under parked, so we were offering to put a parking garage on the site; and in an effort to make it more appealing to the community, we offered to put it below grade, which is substantially more expensive as you know. We were adding another 150 cars. One of the other concerns I heard was the concern of noise from the kids in the existing Fellowship hall, and I know they're up on the second floor of Dierenfield Hall and they have guitar playing and things of that nature on Saturdays and Sundays and the existing Dierenfield Hall is somewhat acoustically coarse and I can understand some noise probably comes out of there. Yet, that is part of the whole Christian routine of singing and having a lot of fellowship. So, what we decided to do and thought was appropriate was to take the youth center and expand it, because that really was the keystone for this entire development, was trying to bring more youth into the facility. We have the youth pastor here; David can talk about that. But, the idea was to bring more youth into the Church and in doing so, we don't want to upset the community, so let's put them down in the basement so that if they have any noise or anything like that occurs, it is going to be contained and you will never hear it. There was other concern that we were using athletic things out in the parking lot and we decided we needed a gymnasium; let's put it there. We can contain the noise; there won't be any noise coming out of the gymnasium. In doing so, we discovered we needed to rebuild Dierenfield and create basically two thirds of the campus, sort of new. Now, as I mentioned, we submitted our initial proposal almost two years ago. In that initial proposal is approximately 36,000 square feet that was requested by the Church. As you know over the last two years, we have had a lot of meetings with Mr. Krotee and other members of the neighborhood and even members of the City, both the Commission and the Council, and tried an effort to come to some sort of consensus to develop a plan that would work for all parties. In doing so over the last several iterations, we have cut corridors, elevators, storage, toilets, back of file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 62 of 71 house, church offices, and anything that we could cut except for the essential elements that were required of the program. Today, we have I believe 21,741 square feet or there about that we have requested. That is bare bones to meet the requirements of the Church as it sits today. I believe it is appropriate and reasonable. I believe it is consistent with the requirements that you are setting forth yourselves. By setting forth determinations of when we can use the facility, the occupancy, the date, and the time, you have essentially eliminated, irrespective of how many square feet are in the facility, the amount of use that can occur within it. So I believe that the 21,741 square feet, which we have already pared down to the absolute minimum, is very reasonable, fits and is consistent with the previous determinations that this Commission has made. Speaking directly to Mr. Krotee's presentation, while it is attractive, it is somewhat misleading. I think our President would have referred to it as fuzzy math. Anytime you can take 21,000 plus square feet, and reduce it to 2,000 plus square feet, that is a 90% reduction any way you look at it. We have already voluntarily reduced the overall facility by 40 %, getting it down to the 21,000. To replace the gym and the Fellowship hall into one space is sort of akin to saying, the next time you do a residence, okay, because your living room and master bedroom are about the same size and configuration, we're just going to use one room. You don't really need the master bedroom the same time you need the living room. The difference in this case, we actually need both of them simultaneously, so it doesn't even work that way. But, to cut the youth center to 5,000 square feet from over 13,000, which is in our proposal today which is the cut version, is not a fair comparison. Additionally, to cut another 3,000 square feet out of the second floor at Dierenfield and a couple hundred square feet ends up, yes at 2,000 plus square feet, but it absolutely negates the entire program and negates the entire ability for the Church to really function in its youth program as it is intended. I will be happy to answer any questions you have. Chairperson Tucker: Does anybody have any questions? Commissioner Eaton: Can you or one of the church members comment on the compatibility of the use of attempting to put a Fellowship use and a gym use in the same space? Mr. McLarand: It doesn't work for a couple of things. When we need the facilities simultaneously, so from that standpoint it doesn't work. Secondly, a gymnasium has a gymnasium floor on it and people are expected to be there in sneakers and other things and it doesn't function very well as a Fellowship Hall either from an acoustical standpoint or an operational standpoint. Thirdly, in doing what Mr. Krotee has suggested, we have to push the building further into the courtyard, which reduces the courtyard that is already smaller than it ought to be. That is the primary gathering spot after the service on every Sunday morning. That is where everybody gets together and has fellowship in that area. To squeeze it further is not appropriate. Chairperson Tucker: I had a question as well. You do not see any benefits of combining some of the uses or skinnying down some of the space further than has been suggested? Mr. McLarand: Mr. Tucker, I have whittled, chiseled, scraped and cut as much as file: //H:1Plancomm\200411118.htm 12102/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 63 of 71 could absolutely cut. We have gone through this, as you know, three or four times. We have brought it down to what I believe and the Church believes is the absolute bare essentials to operate the youth center as it stands. If you look at the 21,000 plus square feet that we are suggesting, every square foot of that is in the youth related facilities. Chairman Tucker: Okay, anybody else have any questions? Thank you Mr. McLarand. Okay, well let's talk about the square footage. We've now seen an alternative plan, kind of wish we had seen it a little earlier in the process, but better late than never. We've heard the church's representative's response as well. Who wants to start on this topic? Commissioner Selich: I think that what Mr. Krotee presented has a lot of merit in the thoughts and the ideas that he has presented. I guess my problem is, seeing where we are at in the process, I don't see how we close that gap. The Church has brought it down, not quite as much as I had hoped. I had hoped that they would at least bring it down under 20,000 square feet, but they are pretty darn close to that 20,000 square feet. So I guess at this point, I would be inclined to go along with the 21,741 square feet as proposed by the Church. Commissioner Eaton: I have a similar view but maybe from a slightly different perspective. I went through the whole programmatic process as a member of the building committee at my church and I think it would be possible to put some of the youth facilities there in the basement at the E building currently into the now vacant basement of the Dierenfield Hall. But the heart of the matter is the gym. The primary benefit that would come from consolidating space is being able to move the youth and family center out of the parking lot. To do that, you have to move the gym and the Fellowship Hall, and I just don't think that works programmatically. What a church needs out of a Fellowship Hall is a much different feeling and character and use than they get in a gym, in my opinion. Therefore, I just don't think it works for St. Andrew. I said last time that I could live with the 21,200. 1 think if they were forced to cut it down to 20,000, say they could find a few more bathrooms and corridors and storage places to do it, I don't think it would severely affect their programmatic areas, but because of that I don't think it would affect the traffic either. Commissioner Toerge: Thank you, Chairman. I too would like to see the expansion much smaller; however, I think it is somewhat meaningless. The Church understands the desire of the neighbors, and they have for months and maybe longer, and they've chosen to stick with 21,700 square feet and that is the application before us. I don't know that I have any ability to assuage or persuade them to do anything different. I think it should be smaller. Commissioner McDaniel: Since I am the one who suggested maybe there be some alternative to this whole situation, I would've really liked to have seen that early on in this situation. That is kind of the problem that I am having now. Maybe I should have suggested it earlier, I don't know. I think what we have before us is the 21,700 square feet and I think that is what we are going to have to vote on. I'm Willing to support that and I have been willing to support that kind of number. If 1 had seen something before and how it worked, I would have been really interested to see how that worked, but I think we are beyond that now. file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 64 of 71 Commissioner Cole: I think the Church obviously knows its programmatic needs better than anyone and I am going to take them at their word that they've got this down to the bare bones minimum and that we need to address what we have in front of us and focus on the size that meets the findings that we can make for a General Plan Amendment and the conditions that we can put on it for a Use Permit. l am in favor of proceeding on the 21,000 square foot number. Commissioner Hawkins: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am concerned that the Church came in with a 34% increase and then we are down to the 21 plus percentage reduction or the current percentage. I am concerned that we have still, perhaps, percentages that can be reduced. Chairperson Tucker: My feeling on it is probably similar to Commissioner McDaniel's. I wish it had gotten here a little earlier. It is kind of a provocative alternative. There may be something to it, but I don't think it is going to get down to the number that the neighbors are proposing, but it probably combining some things maybe would have reduced it a little but further. But, the question for us is not what is the perfect plan. The applicant has put forth a plan and I think as we have seen tonight, if the conditions can be written in a fashion that governs how it will be used and occupied, then that really has a lot more to do with the impacts than the shear size of it. I would like to see the size reduced further, but that doesn't sound like it is going to happen. To me, if there is all the benefits and restrictions that are put into place and the Parking Agreement with the School District, then the size is, I don't want to say a secondary issue, but it is something that I can live with as long as everything else works in a fashion where I feel like, on balance, it is better for the neighborhood. I think it sounds to me like the Church's plan has at least a majority of support to be the plan that we decide on. Once again, tonight we are not deciding anything, but at the next meeting we will be. It sounds to me like that is what is going to be before us for the vote. I think we've kind of jumped ahead and did the parking issue early on and now I would like to talk about the staff generated general conditions. Those were a rough draft, Jim Campbell was leaving on a long- planned vacation and I asked him to make sure that he got the staff conditions out. He did that; he ran out of time a little bit towards the end, so they weren't as spiffed up as they usually are, but I think they serve the purpose. They provoke the review and decision making by everybody or consideration. I know Commissioner Hawkins has commented specifically as has Commissioner Eaton and I have as well. I am sure the other Commissioners will be weighing in shortly and the Church has given us some comments on the conditions and I am sure we will get some from the neighbors as well. What I have asked the staff to do is to go back through, and we are going to end up with an amended and restated Use Permit. I am not sure what it will be called but effectively it will pick up all the old conditions that apply, re -word those conditions so that nobody has any confusion about what they now say. Then we are going to add on all of the conditions that staff has already prepared, the operating conditions that we have talked about tonight, a condition with the School District and any other conditions that we think are appropriate. They will all be included in one document which will be available when the staff report is issued for the December 9th meeting, so that means it will be on December 3rd. Then I would encourage everybody to go back through and nit pick them again. I would like to get them back to staff by the Tuesday before the meeting so that the staff can then look at all the comments and hopefully generate a marked for changes version so that everybody can go through and see what the staff is suggesting be file: //H:\Plancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 65 of 71 the final conditions. But, by all means feel free to comment, but it would be helpful if you could comment within the next three or four days. I think Jim will be back on Tuesday. So, get them in as soon as you can because that poor boy is going to have a lot of stuff that he is going to pull together. We've kind of decided on what the conditions ought to say, the operating conditions, but nobody wrote them so he is going to have to do that as well. The other thing that is going to happen, which is the way the conditions were put together because Jim was heading of to vacation, he got the comments from the various departments, just kind of put them in the conditions in order and we've got some inconsistencies and duplications and all that will be wrung out of the document so that it all fits together in a nice orderly fashion. The next item, are there any unanswered questions that the Commission has that you want answered in the next staff report? If it does come to mind, be sure to send an e-mail to staff on that. You know, I did have a question for Mr. McLarand that I forgot to ask; could I get you to come back and answer the question? It was a point that Mr. Krotee asked about and I was kind of interested as well. What is the minimum area going to be behind the back of the sidewalk and the masonry wall along Clay Street? How much planting areas are there going to be? Mr. McLarand: I'm sorry, I don't recall exactly. It has been over a couple of years since we drew that. There is adequate room for both landscaping for an espaliered plants to grow on the wall so the ugly and repugnant wall will be invisible and covered with ivy. There will be trees in front of that ground cover, so there is adequate room to get all that in there. Frankly, it will be much more attractive than what you look at today when you are looking across Clay Street at the surface existing parking lot with a bunch of cars and buses and other things that are quite visible. So, I believe it will be a much more attractive solution for the community as well. Chairperson Tucker: One of the conditions that I have suggested to staff is, I don't have a problem with the Planning Director approving the landscape plan on the inside of the wall, but I would like the landscape plan for the outside of the wall, the exterior of the wall, to come back to the Planning Commission so that we can have it in a public forum so that the neighbors will have a chance to actually look to see that what you say is going to be the case, will be the case and be able to comment. Mr. McLarand: Very good, I will verify, but I thought it was originally submitted in the original application. Lightscapes was the landscape architect. Chairperson Tucker: It may be the version that I have is kind... Mr. McLarand: You have the hardline version which is probably the refinement after several refinements down the road. The landscape plan probably did not get included in it, but it is in the original submission. Chairperson Tucker: Okay, I have something that kind of shows the area, but you didn't have a wall in the original submission and I was just kind of curious as to what that distance is going to be between the two and how you plan on, now that you have a wall, it changes what you are able to do in there, I would think. So, that is something that 1 want to have come back to the Commission because how that wall looks on the Clay Street side is near and dear to me, because I have kind of file : //H:1Planeonun1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 66 of 71 promoted the wall as a part of the solution and I don't want to hear about it being an ugly wall. Mr. McLarand: The idea is that you see ivy and espaliered plants, you don't want to see a wall. Chairperson Tucker: No, you are right. That is why I want to see the plan, to make sure we don't see the wall. I did have one other suggested condition and that is, and the Church has seen this as have the neighbors, I forward everything that I do to each of them. One of the things we are going to be expecting, or least that I am going to be expecting, is anything that is a corridor, vestibule, a foyer, lobbies or storage areas, any of those types of things shown on the floor plan are going to be prohibited from being meeting areas or having any seating areas in them. That is something that I want everybody to know that is where I am headed on those. The areas that are going to be occupied by people will not expand over time. Mr. McLarand: There will be no loitering in any of those spots. Chairperson Tucker: Any other details? Nobody have anything? Commissioner Toerge: l have a question about construction. One of the conditions suggests that there won't be any noise generating construction activities on the site between 6:30 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., which I know is one of our standard codes or ordinances. Is it reasonable or is it even possible that we indicate that no construction before 7 and after 6:30 as opposed to noise generating, provided the applicant agrees to that? Ms. Temple: Typically in construction projects, there sometimes is purely inside construction activities such as installation of electrical, that sort of thing. That is why the Code says you simply can't do anything that would generate noise outside of the permitted hours. I would have to defer to the Church as to whether that would be acceptable. Commissioner Toerge: I put it out to them. Ms. Temple: I don't think a lot of that kind of noise on a project like this, its probably mostly going to be in the standard construction hours anyway. Commissioner Toerge: Except that my experience is that if they start at 7:00 a.m. they arrive at 6:15 or 6:30 and they generate noise when they arrive. Ms. Temple: That is an on -going enforcement problem and we deal with that when it arises. We try to task the job superintendent to make sure that the workers do not sit out with their loud radio drinking coffee, but we know it happens. When we find out about it, we deal with it through code enforcement. Chairperson Tucker: Next, I would like to talk about the school parking lot parking condition that is going to change based upon the discussion that we have had tonight. But what I am envisioning happening is something that basically says, prior to acceptance of working drawings for plan check, in other words I do not want the applicant to be drawing these drawings until the school agreement is reached. I would like to ask that you not do that because I don't want you to spend the money file: //HAPlancomm\2004 \1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 67 of 71 and then find out that the school agreement isn't reached. I would like to say something to that effect, that, "prior to acceptance of working drawings for plan check, the applicant shall enter into an off -site parking agreement with Newport Mesa Unified School District in a form that is acceptable to the Planning Commission. The parking agreement shall contain the following provisions or reasonable variations thereof and such other provisions that may be required by the Planning Commission." Then, I will just kind of paraphrase because things are going to change after tonight, but there will be a duty to reconfigure, repair and refurbish the parking lot owned by the district to add an additional (some amount of spaces) right now it appears to be 80, but if there is not 80 spaces there, it will have some effect on the occupancy, 80 additional spaces. Then, the agreement will also grant the right to the applicant to use all of those spaces in the lot during weekday non - school hours and on all days when the school is not in session. That will be for no or nominal compensation or consideration, other than the Church is going to have to pay to do all this work, so that obviously is a consideration for the District. Then the parking agreement will end up specifying the location and dimension of the parking spaces that will be used, which will end up being all of them. Then the right to use those spaces is going to exist for some period of time, hopefully it will be longer than 30 years, I have heard 30 years bantered about, but hopefully there will be consecutive extension rights that will be in that agreement if the lot is still there and has not been sold by the District and they don't want to re- develop it. Now, here is kind of the key, until the added parking spaces are in place, then I don't think there should be a building permit issued. I think it really is kind of critical that the parking spaces be there. The first thing that happens is the agreement with the school and those parking spaces get created, because then the Church is going to take a bunch of parking spaces out of play and I would like to have at least a part of the school parking spaces available at that time. I think it will just make life a little bit easier. The key is, if the applicant loses the right to occupy or to use those spaces, then the whole concept of the occupancy of the additional space that has occurred, the occupancy of the space is contingent upon having the parking spaces. So there is going to have to be some game plan for replacing those spaces and that game plan is going to require the Church to come back to the Planning Commission to have some type of finding that those spaces that are replacing lost spaces are reasonably, comparably convenient to the lost spaces. That is kind of how I think we ought to handle this. I think the Commission can certainly weigh in when you see the written version; the neighbors and the Church will be requested to do so as well. I'll just kind of put something out there on the table and I expect it will be kind of focused on rather heavily. The whole thing is predicated, at least my vote is predicated, upon getting those additional spaces and they have to be there in order to occupy the additional 21,000 square feet. That is what I am thinking on that one. Commissioner Eaton: I wasn't sure when I heard you say you wanted the spaces on the school, and I assume that is the extra 80, in place before what occurs? Chairperson Tucker: Before a building permit is issued. Commissioner Eaton: So, it is not just occupancy, it is actually building permit issuance? Chairperson Tucker: Yes, because once you start tearing up one, you could end file: //HAPlancomm \2004\1118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 68 of 71 up with both of them torn up at the same time. You have to have one of them that is in play. If you are adding those extra spaces, it ought to be done before the church starts its work. Commissioner Eaton: I'd be curious to hear the Church's reaction to that. Chairperson Tucker: I'm sure we will hear it, but I haven't completed this yet so if they want to give impressions tonight, I think it will be discussed as a work in process because I will end up turning this over to staff and let them work with it. I told them I would come up with something that would at least get the discussion started, at least as far as I thought ought to be the way to handle A. Ms. Wood: Mr. Chairman, one comment on that. I don't think that the staff can refuse to accept an application for a plan check and start checking the drawings. So, I think it would be better to say that we wouldn't issue a building permit until we have the agreement with the School District. If the Church wants to take the risk and spend the money on doing the drawings and paying the plan check fees, that is their decision. Chairperson Tucker: I guess that is their decision. My thought was that sometimes we find ourselves in a position where people say, well gosh I spent all that money and now find me some way out of this problem. The way out right now is that the way this condition will be set up and what we will send along to the Council, is a condition that says basically that if the school agreement isn't in place, there is no approval. That is the essence of this. We haven't voted to approve anything. Now, mechanically, we are going to have some other issues that we are going to have to work out between now and December 9th as to how all that is going to work and how it is going to be presented to the Council. I don't think we are at the point now, that we figured out exactly what we are going to do. Okay, the last item on this issue tonight. Oh, I did have another comment, maybe for Mr. McLarand as well. The plan that we've seen shows parking spaces at 8 feet 3 inches width, which is, I don't know, a city standard, but I think we are going to need wider spaces than that. So, I just raise this as an issue. Is 8 feet 6 inches our Code requirement? Ms. Temple: Nodded yes. Chairperson Tucker: I guess the other concern that I have raised on that is that if you have a bunch of spaces that are 8 feet 6 inches, then you are going to have a lot of people with nice cars that are not going to want to park in the parking lot. So, I am not sure what we do about it, but you know it would be nicer if the spaces could be a little wider. Okay, the last item, because it is getting late, is public comment. Once again the good work that St. Andrew's does or what happened twenty years ago are not really before us. We'd like to keep it to just items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. That is design, compatibility, environmental effects and then obviously the operation of the property under the Use Permit. So, with that I will open it up and anybody wishing to speak to the Planning Commission on what you've heard tonight or anything else that you have heard on St. Andrew, come forward and you have three minutes. file: //H:1Plancomm\20041I 118.btm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11118/2004 Page 69 of 71 Public comment was opened: Bill Dunlap, Snug Harbor Road, part of the community association: I guess one thing that we've been having discussions with the School Board staff and some members is the concept which they have seemed to support so I am just going to put this out there. The school is available for use after school and we talked about this at this Commission way back when we started this debate. I think both the Church and the Commission kind of took that as being very nice, but there is a proposal here from the Church to build more square footage, blah, blah, blah. With all this reciprocation going on between the Church and the School District, the School District is now putting out a hand. They have classrooms and they have space available, the school shuts down about 3 o'clock, about the time this youth program kicks in and we have hundreds of thousands of square feet across the street available to the Church and youth programs. There is no problem with allowing a Church to go occupy and use space at a school facility. We've got through all those legal issues as the school is being used by multiple outside community groups, just not school functions. So, I put that out there because we are in discussions with the School Board members about that and we will continue that process with them as we go down the road, with the understanding that you have now come to a square footage that is not acceptable to us. Thank you. Chairperson Tucker: Once again, that would be a great solution, it is just not the application that is before us. Hopefully something will come of that, it may end up being the perfect solution for everybody. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak on this matter? Commissioner Eaton: Can I ask the Church about the provision of the additional school places having to be in place. My recollection of the EIR is the intent of the EIR, if not the requirement of the EIR, was that the grading construction on site had to be done during the summer. If the facilities in the School District have to be in place first, does that mean that the project gets setback an entire year? Is that the Church's understanding of what would happen, and if so how do they arrive to that? Chairperson Tucker: I do think that is a result. I am sure the Church won't want that to be a result, but I am just one of seven. Does anybody else want to speak to that or anything else at this point? Going once, going twice. Okay the public comment part is closed. Chairperson Tucker: I did have a question on the emergency access the Fire Department requested. We got a letter from the Fire Department. Is that an acceptable way of handling this as far as everybody is concerned, a Knox box? I am not exactly sure how that works; what is it? Ms. Temple: That is just something that allows them to unlock something that might be locked or to control it with a remote device. It is a standard thing for the Fire Department to request. Chairperson Tucker: So the thing won't be jarred open? Ms. Temple: Correct. Chairperson Tucker: Alright, does anybody else have any comments they want Me: //HAPlancomm1200411118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 Page 70 of 71 addressed on St. Andrew's? If not I will entertain a motion to continue this item to December 9th. Motion was made by Commissioner Hawkins to continue this item to December 9, 2004 Chairperson Tucker: Any discussion on that? Please vote. Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None Abstain: None SUBJECT: Medical and Dental Office Parking Requirements (PA2004 -007) ITEM NO.6 PA2004 -007 Proposed amendment to Section 20.66.030 of the Municipal Code (Off Street parking and loading spaces required) to increase the number of parking spaces Continued to required for medical and dental office uses beyond the existing 1 parking space per 01/06/2005 each 250 square feet. Motion was made by Commissioner Selich to continue this item to January 6, 2005. Ayes: Eaton, Cole, Toerge, Tucker, Selich, McDaniel and Hawkins Noes: None Absent: None Abstain: None ADDITIONAL BUSINESS: ADDITIONAL BUSINESS a. City Council Follow -up - Ms. Temple noted: an item on the Study Session of a review of the current condominium conversion regulations, particularly as it relates to parking and other development standards. Staff was directed to bring forward an amendment that would require new condominium conversions only if the development met the current parking requirement, so that should be coming back to you after the first of the year. The City Council considered an ordinance to amend the Modification Permit procedures that involved an enactment of three new findings which need to be made in order to approve a modification permit; they agreed that the conversion of the three - member Modification Committee to a zoning administrator format was preferable and that is part of that ordinance. That will be, if it is approved on the upcoming Council, the second reading and become effective December 23rd. There was an approval for a telecomm facility on Superior Avenue on city light standards. b. Planning Commission's representative to the Economic Development Committee - none. file. //H: \Plancomm \2004 \1 118.htm 12/02/2004 Planning Commission Minutes 11/18/2004 c. Report from Planning Commission's representatives to the General Plan Update Committee - GPUC recommended eleven candidates for the Council to consider for the four vacancies. They went through the recommendations of the study areas that will be coming back to the Commission. This will be a study session on the 9th starting at 4 o'clock. d. Matters which a Planning Commissioner would like staff to report on at a subsequent meeting - none. e. Matters which a Planning Commissioner may wish to place on a future agenda for action and staff report - none. f. Status Reports on Planning Commission requests - Ms. Temple distributed the updates. g. Project status - Ms. Temple noted that several Commissioner had expressed interest that a Use Permit issued by the Planning Director at 3600 East Coast Highway, we anticipate issuing an approval letter tomorrow. That is the small retail over parking on the old service station site in Corona del Mar. Its at- grade parking. This will be in your weekend report. h. Request for excused absences -none. Page 71 of 71 ADJOURNMENT: 11:54 p.m. J ADJOURNMENT JEFFREY COLE, SECRETARY CITY OF NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION file: //H:1Plancomm1200411 1 1 8.htm 12/02/2004