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Home My WebLink About14 - The Residences at Newport Place Appeal (PA2014-150) - CorrespondenceDAVID T. STOWELL RICHARD S. ZEILENGA JAMES D. VAUGHN ADAM K. TREIQER SHANE M. MAGUIRE STOWELL, ZEILENGA, RUTH, VAUGHN & TREIGER LLP ATTORNEYS AT LAW 4590 E. THOUSAND OAKS BLVD. • SUITE 100 WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA 91362 TEL: (8051446-1496 • FAXi (8051 446-1490 www.azrlaw.com July 21, 2016 Via Federal Express Overnight Delivery RECEIVED AFTER AGENDA PRINTED July 26, 2016 Item No. 14 DAVID C. RUTH 111TIRE6 ERIC H. HALVORSON OF GOUNBEL Mayor Diane Dixon & Members of the Newport Beach City Council City of Newport Beach 100 Civic Center Drive f l Newport Beach, CA 92660 rQ� Re: The Residences at Newport Place (PA 2014-150) 1701 Carinthian Way, 1660 Dave Street, 4251, 4253, 4255 Martingale Way, and 4200, 4220, 4250 Scott Drive APPEAL OF PLANNING COMMISSION DENIAL OF PROJECT (RESOLUTION NO. 2019) Dear Mayor Dixon & Members of the Newport Beach City Council: This law firm represents the applicant, Newport Place Residential, LLC (the "Applicant"), for the above -referenced Residences at Newport Place project (the "Residences Project"). The applicant has worked with City Staff for over two years on a mutually acceptable development plan, and proper entitlement applications, and invested $1.5 million in City fees, consultant fees, costs, and non -renewal of leases prior to commencing re -development, based upon the input and guidance provided by City Staff. Background: The Residences Project is proposed on a 5.7 acre site, that is 45 years old, very "tired" and in NEED of redevelopment. The Applicant proposes redevelopment with a mixed use development, consisting of four buildings, four stories each, with a more costly podium design, with parking below the residences. The four buildings contain 384 rental units, 86 of which (30%) are for affordable housing, in compliance with the City's redevelopment vision for the Residences Project site. The Residences Project also includes 5,677 square feet of retail uses. See attached Site Plan, attached as Exhibit A. July 21, 2016 Page 2 City Staff determined that the Project is consistent with its General Plan designation of Mixed Use Horizontal 2 (Mll-I-12), and supported three deviations from applicable site development standards, for setbacks, building height and how the 0.5 -acre park is owned, consistent with the requirements of State Law, which entitles this project to three concessions from site development standards. Despite City Staffs recommendations for Project approval, and the caution of the City Attorney's office regarding the Planning Commission's repeated demand for a Development Agreement, the Planning Commission voted 4-1 to deny the Project, by its Resolution No. 2019. The Planning Commission also denied the Applicant's request for a continuance to allow the Applicant time to revise its plan in response to sortie Commissioner's objection to the three development standard deviations supported by City Staff. This action by the Commission strongly suggests that any referral back to the Planning Commission at this stage, as recornmended in the City Staff report, might be futile. Apparently the PIanning Commission will appose the Residences Project as is, or as revised to remove the three deviations to the development standards, if the Applicant does not relent and agree to the Commission's unlawful demand for a Development Agreement. This letter responds to a letter sent to the Council by Shopoff Realty Investments ("Shopoff'), dated July 13, 2015, opposing the Applicant's appeal of the Planning Commission's June 23, 2016 denial of the Residences Project. A copy of the Shopoff letter is attached as Exhibit B (the "Shopoff Letter"). This letter is also offered in further support of the Applicant's appeal. Introductory Observation about Shopoff Opposition: Before responding to the Shopoff Letter's four points, we generally note that the Shopoff project, Uptown Newport, is a direct competitor with the proposed Residences Project, albeit of much larger size (1,244 units for the Uptown Newport Project versus 384 units for the Residences Project). Shopoff s Uptown Newport site is also approximately 20 acres in size compared to the Residence Project which is 5.7 acres. Shopoff s four arguments, all of which have been reiccted by City Staff, must be understood in that context when Shopoff demands the imposition of millions of dollars in additional "public benefit fees" upon the Residences Project, in the interest of "fairness" and "equity." A careful review of the facts demonstrates that Shopoff seeks to eliminate a much smaller competitor by imposing millions of dollars in additional financial obligations, and imposing strict physical constraints with respect to setbacks, height limits, etc., that will severely damage the proposed Residences Project. We respond to Shopofl's arguments in the order presented. Sho offal Demand for a Development Agreement: Despite both City Staff and the City Attorneys' office repeatedly confirming that this much smaller project does not require a Development Agreement, because it does not require the "legislative approvals" that triggered the Development Agreement required for Shopoff s July 21, 2016 Page a Uptown Newport project, nevertheless, Shopoff argues that "fairness" requires the City to impose a Development Agreement on the Residences Project. Why? Because Shopoff knows that burdening this smaller Residences Project with $12 million in Development Agreement related fees will likely kill it. Shopoff lets the "cat out of the bag" on the last page of its letter, third paragraph, when it states: "The applicant's requests for (setback) deviations are an attempt to circumvent the appropriate zone change, which would in itself trigger a legislative action requiring a Development Agreement." That statement is a tacit admission by Shopoff that it is a "legislative action," for example, a change of zone or General Plan Amendment, that "triggers" the requirement for a Development Agreement, and thus the $31.5 million in associated public benefit fees that Shopoff paid for its much larger project. 'Shopoff s letter glosses over this key legal distinction in suggesting that the Residences Project is the same as the Uptown Newport project, and thus should also pay millions in additional Development Agreement related fees. The matrix below compares the Residences Project with the Uptown Newport project, regarding necessary legislative approvals, and graphically shows how very different the two projects arc in terms of what each project required to proceed. The Residences Project never required the legislative approvals that triggered the Development Agreement requirement for the Uptown Newport project. Development Agreentent Rgjmdremeaal/Need Comparison Residences at Newport Place Uptown Newport Pursuant to General Plan Section LU6.15.12 Utilizing additive units No yes Pursuant to Municipal Cotte Section 15.045.021).A.2.a & c General Plan Amendment No Yes Zoning Code Arnendancnt No yes Legislative Action Required No yeti Other Subdivision Map Required No Yes Traffic Study Required No Yes Vested Rights Req uircd./N ceded No Yes The Uptown Newport project clearly required a series of "legislative actions" triggering a Development Agreement, which the Residences Project does not. City Staff and the City Attorney so found in repeatedly rejecting Shopoff's assertions that the City must impose a similar Development Agreement obligation upon the Residences Project. Shopoff s response to these undisputable facts? Total silence, because there is no persuasive response. July 21, 2016 Page 4 In making its fairness argument, Shopoff also glasses over a very important distinction between the public burdens imposed upon the two projects. The Residences Project, because of its location and acreage, must provide a 30°fin affordable housing component, In comparison, the Uptown Newport project only provides 15% affordable housing units, the burden of which is much more easily assumed by a much larger project with 1,244 residential units on a 20 -acre site. By any objective measure, the much smaller Residences Project is shouldering a much greater public burden in terms of its affordable housing obligation, than is the Uptown Newport project, The Planning Commission refused to accept these key distinctions, as reflected in the transcripts from its two hearings on the Residences Project. (A copy of the hearing minutes is being Lodged concurrently with this letter). Despite being repeatedly informed by City Staff and the City Attorney's office that no Development Agreement could be required for the Residences Project, given the absence of any legislative action triggers; nevertheless, Planning Commissioners continued to demand one. For example; Commission Chair Kramer, after staff explained why no Development Agreement was required, stated: "...the General Plan clearly states that a development agreement is required." Commissioner Lawler expressed the same view. See attached minutes of the Planning Commission's June 9, 201.6 hearing, attached as Exhibit C. Interestingly, perhaps recognizing that their demand is not legally tenable, no such basis for denial is stated in the Planning Commission's Resolution No. 2019. However, the Planning Commission hearing; transcripts show that the primary motivation for denial was the demand for a Development Agreement and the Applicant's refusal to succumb to that demand. In fact, when the Applicant asked to continue the hearing to work on a re -design, responding to the Commissioner's concerns about the proposed setback and height deviation, the Commission voted 3 to 2 against any continuance, suggesting again that the real issue for the Commission's majority was not the development standard deviations, but rather the Applicant's refusal to comply with the Commissioners' demand for a Development Agreement, and related fees, See Exhibit C. The Shopoff Letter attempts to bolster the Planning Commission's Development Agreement demand, by defining the phrase "infill development" in a way that supports its argtiunent that its Uptown Newport project and the Residences Project are both "infill," and thus, subject to the same Development Agreement trigger. See Shopoff Letter, page 2. Shopoff s letter provides no citation to any authority for its definition of "infill," that blurs the line between "infill" and "replacement units." Infill units, or "additive units," trigger the Development. Agreement requirement, because of their new impacts upon the community, but "'replacement units," for existing developed areas, do not. Contrary to Shopoff's definition, the City's codes repeatedly refer to "infill development" as development of vacant land or parking lots, without any existinbuildings, supporting City Staff's view that such units are truly "additive" over the existing uses being replaced. The Residences Project site is neither vacant land, nor a parking lot without buildings, which is why all of its proposed residential units are deemed by City Staff to be "replacement limits," for July 21, 2016 Page 5 existing commercial development. See Birds eye view of the existing project site, Exhibit D hereto. Again, in contrast to the 384 "replacement units" in the Residences Project, Shopoffs letter admits that its 1,244 unit Uptown Newport project has both replacement units (954) and additive units (290). See Shopoff Letter, page 2. Accordingly, Shopoff"s arguments regarding "fairness" and "equity" are not well taken. Indeed, the implied suggestion in the Shopoff Letter that it will be due a refund from the City, of $31,537,665.90 in public benefit fees, if a similar obligation is not imposed upon the Residences Praiect, is baseless. Frankly, it is a rather obvious attempt to scare the City Council by raising the specious notion that the City will have to give up $31.5 million dollars in monies owed, but not yet paid, by Shopoff. `1'o the extent the City nevertheless insists upon a Development Agreement, and the payment ofmillions in public benefit fees pursuant to a Development Agreement, the Applicant objects based upon the State's Mitigation Fee Act, Government Cade section 66000 et. seq., and the United States and California Constitutions. 5ee Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994) 114 S.Ct. 2309, which require nexus and proportionality for the imposition of fees and exactions by the City. 7 -lore, no such nexus or proportionality can be shown because the project actually generates fewer vehicle trips than the existing commercial uses, under the City's trip count standards. as confirmed by City Staff in its Staff Report to the Planning Commission, and by the MND for the Project. Generally, the demand for a Development Agreement, and related public benefit fees, would also violate Government Code sections 65008, 65589.5, 659.13 and 65915, entitling the Residences Project to incentives and concessions for its 30% affordable housing component, not the imposition of millions of dollars in additional financial obligations which the City's oven staff, and City Attorney's office, determined to be unlawful. The Proiecf's 0.5 -Acre Para: The Applicant proposed a 0.5 -acre landscaped open space area owned and maintained by the Applicant, and open to non-residents in daylight hours. See 0.5 -acre open space plan, attached as Exhibit E. Strikingly. the Applicant proposes to keep 53% of this small. 5.7 -acre site as both landsca ed and axed open saces and amenities, as compared to the norn-i for this type of project, which is approximately 15% to 20%. The City Staff report to the Planning Commission quoted the relevant General Plan policy as follows: "The General Plan requires a park dedication of at least 8 percent of land or 0.5 - acre whichever is greater ...The policy allows a waiver where it can be demonstrated that the development parcels are too small to feasibly accommodate a park or inappropriately located to serve the needs of local residents." Staff July 21, 2016 Page 6 Report to Planning Commission (515121716), page 11, quoting General Plan LU6.15.13. In applying this General Plan requirement to the Applicant's request for a waiver of the dedication requirement, i.e., how the parr is owned. City Staff stated; `....the [0.5 -acre open space area proposed] is too small to accommodate the desirable amenities that would qualify it as a neighborhood park. Additionally, the subject property is not located in an optimal location to serve the needs of local residents. As a result, staff supports the waiver provided the 0.5 -acre open space is not enclosed and an access easement is established over the entire open space area for the lifetime of the project.... Additionally, the Applicant would pay a fee in -lieu of dedicating 0.5 acres of parkland of approximately $1,250,000." ('Staff Report, p. 12.) In summary, the Applicant proposes that the City receive a 0.5 -acre park and in -lieu fees of $1.25 million, because the park will be governed by a perpetual easement rather than dedicated to the City in fee_ The park will be physically the same; no difference. Why does that ownership distinction matter? It matters because a dedication of the 0.5 -acre park to the City would reduce the small project site in a way that would legally require a reduction of 33 residential units (351 instead of 394), under the applicable density regulations. The Shopoff letter demands a one acre public park on a project site totaling 5.7 acres, with no existing residences anywhere nearby. Shopoff does so because it understands that imposing a one acre park requirement, or even the dedication requirement of 0.5 acres, on such a small project site, along with the other Shopoff demand for $12 million in Development Agreement public benefit fees, would help kill the Residences Project by reducing the number of units by 33 (a $7 million dollar loss), and also driving up costs by $12 million dollars in Development Agreement related fees. Shopoff knows its demand is a double poison pill. City Staff disagreed with Shopoff s demand before the Planning Commission. Staff correctly explained that General Plan policy 6.15-13 requires a 4.5 -acre parkland dedication for this site, but also authorizes a waiver under certain circumstances. The Applicant proposes a waiver, but conditions its request on very attractive terms for the City, which allows the City the benefit of a 0.5 -acre public park, accessible to residents and non-residents alike in perpetuity by an easement, plus an in -lieu payment of $1,125,000. So, the City gets a park and in -lieu fees, which is "a hornerun" for the City. Of course, Shopoff does not care about "a homerun" for the City because its park demand is motivated by its anti-competitive goals to kill the Residences Project, not what is best for the City. The public notice for the appeal hearing states: "In conjunction with the filing of an appeal, changes to the original project are proposed in response to comments raised by the Planning Commission and the public. In accordance with Zoning Code Section 20.64,030.D.2, the City Council has the option of referring; the matter back to the Planning Commission or continuing the item to a future Ci!y Council meeting date for action." Consistent with that notice. July 21, 2016 Page 7 as will be made clear at the appeal hearing, the Applicant is willing to dedicate the 0.5 -acre park to the City if the City Council prefers that's option, rather than the Applicant being responsible for awning and maintaining the park and paying the City a $ 1,125,000 in -Lieu fee. If that is the City's preference, the Applicant requests that the Council take action, as described in the Zoning Code section quoted above, rather than referring this project back to the Planning Commission. The Pro'ect's Reguest For A Hei ht Deviation: The .Applicant proposes an exception to the 55' height limit, including architecturally attractive towers that will include the elevator banks and shield roof top equipment from view from nearby tall buildings. Nearby buildings include a 10 story Radisson Hotel and four story office building. Some surrounding buildings exceed 100 feet in height. The Residences Project proposes four residential buildings with a maximum height of 58 feet, with architectural elements up to a maximum of 83 feet. The site renderings show the enhanced architectural interest from allowing the deviation requested. (See attached rendering, Exhibit F hereto). City Staff addressed this issue in its Staff Report to the Planning Commission, supporting the height deviation. stating: "...Staff believes the findings can be made for approval of increased height...The serni-sub level parking structure necessitates the additional height to tine buildings in providing vertical clearance and air ventilation to the garage structure. It is also necessary to allow all larger vehicles utilized for loading/unloading and deliveries... eliminating an unsightly loading area within public view... Additionally, architectural. elements that exceed the 55 -foot height limit serve dual purposes in providing the project with vertical articulations and space needed to house elevator/stair shafts and mechanical equipment." The Shopoff letter disagrees and demands strict enforcement of the 55' height limit with zero deviation. What difference does it make for Shopoft'? Is the Residence Project visible from the Uptown Newport site? No. Roes it interfere with any views from Uptown Newport? No. Rather, this Shopoff objection letter is entirely motivated by its anti-competitive agenda to eliminate a high quality competitor from the rental apartment market. Ultimately, the Council will decide whether the height deviation supported by City Staff is appropriate. However, as with the half acre park issue, the Applicant will present an alternative design option to the Council at the appeal hearing next week, that eliminates the height deviation request. The Applicant believes the alternative option is not nearly as attractive or functional, as will be demonstrated by compare and contrast renderings, but the Council will have an alternative option if it disagrees. July 21, 2016 Page The Pro'ect's Request For Maruinally Reduced Setbacks to Enhance Internal Amenities: 'I'he project proposes setbacks of 18 to 29 feet from the property lines on four sides and a 59 foot setback from the southerly property line between Dove Street and Martingdale Way, as reflected for each bordering street in the matrix below. The proposed reduction in applicable 30 foot setbacks, a vestige of the non-residential commercial uses in this arca, does not result in an increase in even one residential unit. This is not a request designed to maximize density. The additional space was used to enhance the Project's internal amenities, including the large community pool, community clubhouse, fitness center, business center, entertainment courtyards, two children play areas, and the half -acre park. City Staff agreed that this deviation made sense in delivering a better project, that is also consistent with the City's desire for a more "walkable" and "livable" community. The enhanced amenities are depicted on attached Exhibit G. Before the Planning Commission, the Project planner, Rosalinh Ung, stated Staff's view on the setback deviation request as follows: "... [W]e thought that the variety of setbacks would be adequate in this case in exchange for the half acre open space that's being provided at the southerly edge of the property. The 30 foot setback usually would be more applicable to a major thoroughfare like MacArthur or Jamboree where you need to have that setback for it and if you've seen Uptown project that has that 30 foot setback and that's sufficient. In this case the project is located in more of the interior streets where we thought that tl-te 30 foot setback would probably be a little bit abundant. So the variation of the setback in exchange for more of the interior open space and amenities area plus the southern [open space] portion of that will be sufficient." The Shopoff letter disagrees and demands full 30' setbacks, again in the hope of physically squeezing this small project, to mala it less attractive as a competitor to Uptown Newport. As with the other two deviations requested, the Applicant will present an alternative option to the Council at the appeal hearing, that strictly complies with the 30 foot setback. Builrlin ,Velback Corr: terisnri Setback location Setback per Newport Place Planned Community C) Guidelines Proposed Setback Total Setback from street {including existing 10' City right-of-way) Total Deviation from PC Setback to Proposed Setback Dove Street 30' 26' -- 29' 36'— 39' Reduction of 1' — 4' Scott Drive 30' 24' — 30' 34' — 40' Reduction of 0' — 6' Corinthian Way 30' 18' 28' Reduction of 12' Martingale Way 30' 19' - 20' 29'— 30' Reduction of 10' — 11' South Propetty Dine 10, 59' NIA Increase of 49' The proposed reduction in applicable 30 foot setbacks, a vestige of the non-residential commercial uses in this arca, does not result in an increase in even one residential unit. This is not a request designed to maximize density. The additional space was used to enhance the Project's internal amenities, including the large community pool, community clubhouse, fitness center, business center, entertainment courtyards, two children play areas, and the half -acre park. City Staff agreed that this deviation made sense in delivering a better project, that is also consistent with the City's desire for a more "walkable" and "livable" community. The enhanced amenities are depicted on attached Exhibit G. Before the Planning Commission, the Project planner, Rosalinh Ung, stated Staff's view on the setback deviation request as follows: "... [W]e thought that the variety of setbacks would be adequate in this case in exchange for the half acre open space that's being provided at the southerly edge of the property. The 30 foot setback usually would be more applicable to a major thoroughfare like MacArthur or Jamboree where you need to have that setback for it and if you've seen Uptown project that has that 30 foot setback and that's sufficient. In this case the project is located in more of the interior streets where we thought that tl-te 30 foot setback would probably be a little bit abundant. So the variation of the setback in exchange for more of the interior open space and amenities area plus the southern [open space] portion of that will be sufficient." The Shopoff letter disagrees and demands full 30' setbacks, again in the hope of physically squeezing this small project, to mala it less attractive as a competitor to Uptown Newport. As with the other two deviations requested, the Applicant will present an alternative option to the Council at the appeal hearing, that strictly complies with the 30 foot setback. July 21, 2016 Page 9 requirements, by shrinking the size of some of the internal Project amenities. If the Council prefers that course, it will have the option of taking action upon it as authorized by Zoning Code section 20,64.030.D,2, and as stated in the public notice of appeal. CONCLUSION This is the first test case mixed use residential project to proceed in this area of the City, in close coordination with City Staff, and in compliance with its direction for how the entitlements should be processed, through a Planned Development Permit, allowing for relatively minor adjustments to applicable development standards. After over 2 years of work., and $1.5 million dollars invested, it would send a terrible message to property owners in this area of the City, willing to invest in the City's stated re -development vision, if the City Council allows the Planning Commission's denial to stand. We urge the Council to exercise its authority to take action on this application as proposed to the Planning Commission, without any revision, because it is by far the superior design for the community and for future residents, That fact will be made abundantly clear by the Project consultants. during the appeal hearing next week, However, if the Council prefers to remove the three deviations supported by City Staff (i.e., deviations to setbacks, building height and the dedication requirement for the 0.5 acre park), we urge the Council to continue this appeal hearing to a second hearing before the City Council, to allow City Staff time to prepare a new Resolution to approve the Residences Project as revised, to reflect Council direction to remove some or all of the three deviations. This procedure is expressly authorized by City Zoning Code section 24.64.430...2, and is stated in the public notice for the appeal hearing as an option for the Council. Nevertheless, if the Council prefers to refer the project back to the Planning Commission, despite the problems with that approach outlined at the beginning of this letter, we strongly urge the Council to provide the Commissioners with some clear direction regarding their demand for a Development. Agreement, lest that demand again result in a project denial and a further appeal back to the City Council. Very t my, ,y rs, Richard S. eilenga For the Firm RSZ:bsm Enclosures cc: Aaron C, Harp, Esq., City Attorney (via a-nzail — with enc•ls.) Michael Torres, Esq., Assistant City Attorney (via e-mail — with encls.) Rosalinh Ung, Associate Planner (via e-mail — with enols.) Shane Maguire, Esq. it e �Afr - I FPO, �7M SHOPOFF1 R EA 13Y INVESTMENTS July 13, 2016 Mayor Diane Dixon & Members of the: Newport Beach City Council City of Newport Beach 1.000 Civic Center Drive Newport Beach, CA 92660 RE: The Residences at Newport Place (PA 2014-150) 1701 Corinthian Way, 1,660 Dave Street, 4251, 4253, 4255 Martingale Way, & 4200, 4220, 4250 Scott Drive ■ Mitigated Negative Declaration No. MD2015-009 • Planned Development Permit No. PL2014-001 • Lot Merger No. LM2014-003 Affordable Housing Implementation Plan No. AH2O15-001 Dear Mayor Dixon & Members of the Newport Beach City Council: We reviewed the above referenced application for The Residences at Newport Place [RNP] and previously expressed your concerns in a formal letter and during public comments to the Planning Commission, which voted to deny a motion to continue the hearing and voted to deny the project. Since the Planning Commission's June 23"d Final Denial (Resolution 2019) the applicant has exercised their rights to appeal the denial to City Council, so we wish to express our concerns to the council. These concerns deal with the extent this Airport Area application is requesting waivers from General Plan requirements and Zoning requirements. While we recognize the Newport Place zoning standards provide for residential development on sites smaller than 10 -acres with a 30% affordable component, we believe that a Development Agreement and a 1 acre park are required by the General Pian. Additionally, we believe the applicant needs to live within the height and setback standards as defined by the Newport Place Zoning. Development Areement Re uirernent We believe there is no justification for the lack of a Development Agreement and the fees associated, which are required by the General Plan as follows; Land Use Elem ent-Air ort Area- Mixed Use Districts Laubarea C. MU -112 �esination LU 6.15,12 Development Agreements P, 3-109 p EXHIBIT B s REALTY SHOPOFF INV ESTI MENTS Ilzr'1rra.i�1.7F,''1y,••.:li,f,,r^�•;",1�; :�ari:lw "A Development Agreement shall be required for all projects that include infill residential units. The Development Agreement shall define the improvements and public benefits to be provided by the developer in exchange for the City's commitment for the number, density, and location of housing units." (Imp. 2.1, 11, 4.1,13-1) The common definition of "infill development" is the process of developing vacant or under -used parcels within existing urban areas that are already largely developed. This project is definitively infill residential in nature and should have a Development Agreement and the fees associated. We disagree with staff's rationale that the General flan Development Agreement requirements were only intended for "additive units" and not for those projects like the RNP that provide 384 "replacement units". As the Planning COMMi55iDn is aware, in February of 2013, Uptown Newport was the first Airport Area project to be approved by the City of Newport Beach, and was required to have a Development Agreement and Public Benefit Fee an all of its 1,244 units -- both replacement and additive. These fees, originally set at $32,500 per unit on the document effective elate of April 2013, increase by CPl annually on each first clay ofjanuary and as of January 1, 2016 have increased to $33,798.05 per unit, CP1 has increased from 232.531 in April 2413 to 235.525 at the enol of December 2015, a 3.994 point increase, which equates to a 1.718% increase. Based on staff's recommendation for the RNP project, the Uptown Newport project should only be paying fees for the 290 "additive" units and not the 954 "replacement units" and density bonus units. With CPI -adjusted DA fees of $33,(358.35 per dwelling unit, that reduction in fees equates to approximately $31.,537,6€5.90 (Thirty-one Million, Five hundred Thirty- seven Thousand, Six Hundred Sixty-five Dollars and Ninety Cents) for Uptown Newport. 954 Dwelling Units x $33,058.35 Per Unit = $31,537,665.90 Or said a different way, if the same DA Fees were imposed on the RNP project, the fees would be approximately $12,594,406,40 (Twelve Million, Six Hundred Ninety- four Thousand, ,Four Hundred Six Dollars and Forty Cents). 384 Dwelling Units x $33,058.35 Per Unit = $12,694,406.40 S H 0 P 0 F F REALTY . INVE91'M NTS I":,; .1';rgF Based on the magnitude of the fees in question here, we strongly urge the Planning Commission to seek the City Council's review of this project so that the requirement of a Development Agreement can be sought_ Lack of a Development. Agreement on this project would be unfair and inequitable to all other Airport Area residential projects. Park Requirement: We believe there is no justification to grant a General Plan Land Use Policy (Neighborhood Parks (LU6.15.13) waiver of the park dedication. The General Plan states, "In every case, the neighborhood park shall be at least 8 percent of the total Residential Village Area or one acre in area, whichever is greater, and shall have a minimum dimension of 150 feet." We believe the General Plan clearly requires and anticipated all Airport Area residential communities would provide a public park. Granting a deviation from this requirement would create a precedent for future Airport Area residential projects and establishes an inequity in which the city is applying its standards. The requested waiver of the 1 acre park for public dedication also allows the applicant to generate additional density on the site as the park acreage is not deducted from the total land. With a 1 acre park, the net acreage would be 4.7 acres creating a maximum of 235 units based on the maximum density of 50 upa before the density bonus and 317 units with the 35©lo density bonus, This is a reduction in 50 allowable units and 67 units with the density bonus. Deviation from Newport Place Zoning Standards The Newport PIace zoning sets forth a maximum building height of 55 feet. The height ofa structure can be increased with approval of site development review and subject to required findings. The height requested by the applicant exceeds the 55 foot height limit by 28 Feet. We understand that the height deviations can be approved if the Planning Commission approves a set of findings and a Planned Development Permit. The staff report indicates that the additional height to 83 is only for architectural elements, but the plans indicate there are living spaces within the additional height. We believe the request is far reaching (over a 50% increase in height) and the findings can't be made. SHOPUFF1 REALTY INVESTMENTS fik.".'sr(rffi)J7 (j$:jF.arfx�rr�'Vrn6r� vairrf Deviation from the Newport-Bace Setback Standards The applicant is also requesting deviation from the 30' setback standard on all streets the project abuts; Corinthian Way, Martingale Way, Dove Street, and Scott Drive. The Applicant's representative stated that the request was based on the fact that the Newport Place Zoning Standards never anticipated residential. The staff report suggests they are supportive of the setback deviation provided the applicant builds a 0.5 acre park with public access. We contend if the zoning standards needed to be modified to accommodate residential, the applicant should have requested a Zone. Change as part of its application as is the case with all other Airport Area residential projects. In conclusion, we believe this project is too far reaching and doesn't meet the basic standards and requirements that are mandated for the Airport Area residential developments. This development project should be held to the same standards as others in the Airport Area and as such should have a Development Agreement and the associated fees; should adhere to the park requirement, which would reduce the density; and should comply with the Newport Place height and setbacks or submit for a zone change. The applicants requests for deviations are an attempt to circumvent the appropriate zone change, which would in itself trigger a legislative action requiring a Development Agreement. We are hopeful the City Council will upfold the Planning Commission's denial of this project or request the applicant significantly revise the project to be more in keeping with the standards and requirements being applied to all other Airport Area residential projects. Thank you For considering our thoughts and concerns, Sincerely, t4 f john Santry Executive Vice President- Acquisitions and Development NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES 619!16 AYES: Kramer, Koetting, Lawler, Weigand, Zak ABSTAIN: None, ABSENT-. Brown, Hillgren ITEM NO. 5 THE RESIDENCES AT NEWPORT PLACE (PA2014-150) Site Location; West of MacArthur Boulevard and is bounded by Carinthian Way, Martingale Way, Dove Street & Scott Drive (1701 Carinthian Way, 1660 Dove Street, 4251, 4253, 4255 Martingale Way, 4200, 4220, & 4250 Scott Drive) Principal Planner Campbell presented a PowerPoint summarizing the proposed project, land use designations, General Plan requirements, and surrounding uses. Associate Planner Ung provided an overview of the project details. She explained the General Plan Policy Waiver, Mitigated Negative Declaration, and Planning Commission study session. She discussed comments received on the project. In response to Secretary Koetting, Principal Planner Campbell stated the proposed project was in keeping with the concept plan Figure LU23 of the General Plan. Secretary Koetting requested an explanation of the concept plan. Principal Planner Campbell stated the fight green areas depicted potential parks, orange lines depicted future residential streets, and the dotted green lines were pedestrian ways. He explained that the concept plan shows a proposed linear park and pedestrian way across the project site, Secretary Kcetting stated the concept of housing in the airport area was not new. Principal Planner Campbell discussed the zoning of the entire area, HCb requirements as the reason why the residential overlay was created in the Newport Placed Planned Community. Secretary Koetting asked about the affordable housing requirement. Principal Planner Campbell discussed the requested density bonus. In response to Commissioner Lawler, Assistant City Attorney Torres explained that the project did not require -a development agreement because it was replacement units rather than infill development. "'He stated they had asked the applicant it they would voluntarily enter into a development agreement to which they declined. Commissioner Lawler asked For clarification on the difference between replacement versus infill and why staff did not want a development agreement. Assistant City Attorney Torres stated a development agreement would be beneficial but was not required. to response to Chair Kramer, Assistant City Attorney Torres stated the General Plan and Municipal Code provisions had been reviewed and approved by the Council and a development agreement was not required in the development. Chair Kramer asked if staff had canvassed the Council, Assistant City Attorney Torres stated staff had not canvassed the Council. In response to Commissioner trawler and Secretary Koetting, Principal Planner Campbell explained General Plan Policies 16.15.5 and 6,15.12 related to infill projects. He also discussed the conversion of commercial square footage to residential. In response to Chair Kramer, Principal Planner Campbell explained the distinction between the proposed project and Uptown Newport- project. Commissioner Lawler asked if the applicant had mane efforts to incorporate additional retail, on the ground floor. Principal Planner Campbell stated the applicant had made no changes to the project to increase retail. In response to Commissioner Zak, Principal Planner Campbell explained the allowance of additive units. Commissioner Zak clarified that the replacement units were calculated based on trip generation. Principal Planner Campbell explained the density bonus provision. Commissioner Zak expressed concern that the applicant was told that a development agreement was not necessary but it was now an issue. EXHIBIT C Page 4 of 9 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES 6/9/16 Chair Kramer stated there were continuing issues with the development agreement. In response to Secretary Koetting, Principal Planner Campbell explained the requirement for the dedication of a half -acre for public park purposes. He stated the applicant was attempting to adhere to the General Pian policy by providing a half -acre of open space, allowing limited public access and providing an in-tieu fee for the value of the land. He indicated the space was largely passive. In response to Commissioner Weigand, Principal Planner Campbell explained the proposed walkway and parking. Chair Kramer requested explanation regarding the waiver of dedication for the park and necessary lot line adjustment. Principal Planner Campbell explained the dedication would affect the density calculation and if required, it would reduce the project by 33 units. Chair Kramer explained that, if the Commission could not make the finding for the waiver, the applicant would have to redesign the project. Principal Planner Campbell confirmed that to be accurate. Commissioner Zak asked why the public access easement was limited to the sidewalk. Principal Planner Campbell suggested asking the applicant. He indicated the applicant expressed a concern to staff about security for units fronting the park in relation to fencing and gating the park. Chair Kramer asked about the traffic analysis. City Traffic Engineer Brine discussed the daily trips and indicated the threshold was not met for a detailed traffic study. Chair Kramer asked why an analysis was not conducted based on the project sensitivity. City Traffic Engineer Brine stated he did not expect any impacts to be discovered from a detailed study. Britnae Jensen, Development Manager for Newport Place Residential, presented an overview of the proposed project. She explained why a development agreement was not required. She explained the overall architecture of the project, modified based on comments received at the study session.. In response to Secretary Koetting, Ms. Jensen described the retail on the corner of Scott Drive and Dove Street and community space above it. Ms, Jensen discussed the modified setbacks and efforts to promote a more walkable neighborhood. She stated the project met the intent of the layout for the open space area as shown by Figure LU23. She showed a map showing retail uses in the area and petition from the surrounding businesses in support of the project. In response to Commissioner Zak, Ms, Jensen explained the reason for proposing enclosure of the open space due to residential security needs. Commissioner Zak stated he would be more open to the proposal if the open space area was not being used to increase density. Commissioner Weigand expressed concerns about the proposed main entrance and vehicular traffic from the businesses. Ms. Jensen stated they had concern about parking on Martingale Way. She stated 90 percent of the parking on Martingale Way was due to a rental car establishment on Birch Street. She discussed parking for the project. She discussed the proposed pet areas and construction timeframe. She discussed negotiations with the current tenants and explained the School District boundaries, In response to Chair Kramer, Ms. Jensen discussed the schools for the proposed project. City Traffic Engineer Brine stated school traffic had not been studied specifically, however he noted that it would be included in the trip generation assumptions, Page 5 of 9 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMiSSION MINUTES 60116 Commissioner Weigand asked if future residents would be provided notice on the schools. Ms. Jensen stated disclosures regarding schools and the airport would be provided. In response to Secretary Koetting, Ms. Jensen explained the proposed singular quality restaurant use. She presented a diagram showing access and circulation and she explained the stoops and connectivity of the neighborhood. Chair Kramer opened the public hearing. Dennis Baker discussed traffic on Birch. He expressed concern about the lack of a proposed park and reduction of businesses that serve the area. Jae Finnell, President of the Southern California Pilots Association, presented information and the opinion that the project was a bad idea due to noise and the flight pattern that takes planes over the site. Fred Fourcher expressed concern about infill of parking lots, increasing density and traffic issues. He discussed noise from the airport and pollution from planes. John Santry, Shopoff Realty Investment, requested all development be held to the same standards and it be equitable and fair. Jan Hollis, Director of Sales and Marketing for Radisson hotel, indicated opposition to the project due to loss of restaurant and retail options. She stated a residential complex would have a negative impact on the hotel and businesses. Dorothy Kraus, Stili Protecting Our Newport (SPON), requested a specific plan or comprehensive plan for the area. She expressed concern regarding loss of parking, lack of community amenities, and increased traffic. She stated a streetscape plan was necessary. She requested the Commission delay action until the character of the airport and impact of mixed use was understood. John Petry stated the airport created a noise 'issue. He expressed concern regarding the loss of restaurant space and suggested a specific plan for the area. Rick Roshan, owner of office building at 4299 MacArthur Boulevard, discussed the need for parking. Jing Mosher reminded the Commission that its decisions were discretionary. He echoed the SPON sentiment for a specific plan. He discussed the idea of adding residences to the airport area, He questioned the proposed height. SueAnn Challita, representing her parents, owners of Arnie's Deli, discussed the poor condition of the property and lack of upkeep. She discussed dangerous traffic conditions. She stated the property owner had not been in contact with the existing tenants. Lori Trottier stated CEQA did not require responses to public comments on negative declarations but thanked staff for responding to her letter. She commended staff and the developer in its review of the project. She stated she visited the site and noted parking in the area. She discussed the deficiency in active parks in the area. She suggested additional traffic analysis. She questioned air quality and potential health risks from the airport. She expressed concern that there was no requirement for mixed use and it could end up as simply an apartment complex. Javaid Ansari, Managing Partner of Compak Asset Management, expressed concern regarding traffic management and suggested installation of stop signs. He suggested additional retail development be included. He questioned the proposal for a gate around the park and traffic safety Page 6 of 9 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES 619!16 With no further speakers, Chair Kramer closed the public hearing. Secretary Koetting requested information on the airport and height of the building, comprehensive plan, parking reduction, applicant's pro forma for bodies per apartment, and traffic analysis. Ms. ,Jensen stated the required half -acre open space would be provided. She discussed the waiver for payment of in lieu fee for non -dedication of the open space. She explained the proposal to enclose the open space for increased security and maintenance, She stated the shopping center was struggling and it was not realistic to maintain it as a retail center. She acknowledged the concerns of the Radisson Hotel. She stated the project had FAA clearance and stated the impetus was on the development for appropriate sound proofing. She stated the variances would enhance the project. She discussed the comments suggesting the need for additional retail and a desire for a local market. Associate Planner Ung discussed the proposed parking ratio, Secretary Koetting asked why it was less than the standard. Principal Planner Campbell explained the parking standard is established by density bonus ordinance and indicated the project was in compiiance. In response to Secretary Koetting, City Traffic Engineer Brine stated residential had obtained clearance. Secretary Koetting questioned potential traffic imparts. City Traffic Engineer Brine stated the traffic phasing ordinance was being followed. Commissioner Lawler indicated support for cautious redevelopment. He suggested a development aareem nt and need for additional retail. He stated the open space should be open. He indicated opposition to the project. Commission Zak indicated support for residential mixed-use in the area. He questioned Finding B. He stated a development at was warraDled. He suggested adding a condition requiring public access cover the entire open space area and not allowing gates if the project were approved. He suggested requiring mature trees and ensuring adequate parking. Commissioner Weigand stated the residents would be aware of the airport, He suggested staff review housing near airports in surrounding communities and impacts to residents. Chair Kramer stated the parcel needed improvement and he indicated support for redevelopment of the parcel and residential use. He stated the project as currently designed had numerous flaws. He stated he could not make Findings A, 2, 3 and 5. He expressed concern about neighborhood compatibility. He stated he could not make Finding B, Finding F, nor Finding I. He expressed frustration with the inadequacy and practicality of the General Plan_ He stated he could not support the project. Motion made by Chair Kramer and seconded by Commissioner Lawler to deny the project and direct staff to return to the next Planning Commission meeting with a resolution containing the findings for denial. Secretary Koetting suggested the applicant make modifications based on the Commissions and public comments. He indicated support for staffs determination that a devellopment. a rg Bement was not required. He suggested continuing the hearing to allow the applicant to redesign the project. Chair Kramer expressed concern with putting the project on hold Ms. Jensen requested a continuance to allow revisions based on comments Chair Kramer stated the purpose of the study session was to allow revisions to the project based upon Commissioner's input. Ms. Jensen stated they had reanalyzed the concerns and Page 7 of 9 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES C•�fhi[:1 provided jusiipication on why some of the changes were not made- She stated there was opportunity to make additional changes. Alternate Motion made by Secretary Koetting and seconded by Commissioner Zak to continue the hearing. In response to Chair Kramer, Assistant City Attorney Torres explained additional staff time involved in continuing the project. Chair Kramer stated the decision to deny could be appealed to the City Council, during which lime, the project could be redesigned. Chair Kramer recommended the alternate motion be denied. The question was called on the alternate motion to continue the hearing and the motion failed by the following vote: AYES: Koetting, Zak NOES: Kramer, Lawler, Weigand ABSTAIN: None ABSENT: Brown, Hillgren The question was called on the original motion to deny the project and the motion carried by the following vete AYES' Kramer, Lawler, Weigand, Zak NOES: Koetting ABSTAIN: None. ABSENT- Brown, Hillgren RECESS Chair Kramer called a recess at 10:10 p.m. The meeting reconvened at 10'15 p.m., with Vice Chair Tim Brown and Commissioner Bradley Hillgren absent. VIII. NEW BUSINESS ITEM NO, 5 WEST NEWPORT MESA STREETSCAPE MASTER PLAN (PA2015-135) Site Location: West Newport Mesa Deputy director Wisneski presented the staff report. Chair Kramer discussed the proposed timeline for the plan. Brian Hannegan, RRM Design Group, presented a PowerPoint updating the Commission on the progress of the plan. In response to Chair Kramer and Commissioner Weigand, Mr. Hannegan discussed issues with power lines, In response to Secretary Koetting, Deputy Director Wisneski explained assessment districts for the purpose of undergrounding, City Traffic Engineer Brine discussed conditions requiring undergrounding. Mr. Hannegan concluded that the purpose was to create a master plan to help guide improvements along the streets. Chair Kramer indicated support for the plan. In response to Secretary Koetting, Deputy Director Wisneski stated a way finding sign program would be included- Secretary Koetting suggested medians where possible. Jim Masher suggested the possibility of undergrounding based on increased utility payments. He stated the Parks, Beaches and (Recreation Commission should be included in review of the plan. Page 8 of 9 .� l .. - ,.. M1 may,• IAM ®r. �� ' •.. � .. r " � . _I X � i of .. Planning Commission - June 9, 2016 ing o.5 -acre open space (outlined in blue) Easement boundary for public access (outlined in red) Gated at either end at public sidewalk .lune 9, 2oa6 EXHIBIT E 16 J J •,''rrt,�� r'� � yy' f , ' 7 c.��vy�..� Is � r i,. fir' K' ✓ - � � � �► is �,� � {{"� .1� `.. 1'G CORNER OF DOVE Sid & SCOTT DR. T3Q ' Ca4;.$.--NA.& POOL. TERRACE DAVID T. STOWELL RICHARD 5_ T.EILENGA JAMES D. VAUGHN ADAM R.TREIGER SHANE M. MAGUIRE M STOWELL, ZI ILENGA, RUTH, VAUGHN & TREIGER LLP ATTORNEYS AT LAW 4590 E. THOUSAND OAKS BLVD. • SUITE 160 WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA 91352 TEL; 18051 446-1496 • FAX: (805) 446-1490 www.szrlaw.com July 22, 2016 Received After Agenda Printed July 26, 2016 Item No. 14 DAVID C. RUTH RETIRED ERIC H. HALVORSON Oir C0UN5EL i'irar Federal Ly Rress Overnight Delivery 1 c_ Ms. Leilani 1. Brown City Clerk t� City of Newport Beach 100 Civic Center Drive Newport Beach, CA 92560 v -I Re: The Residences at Newport Place (PA 2014-150) 1701 Corinthian Way, I660 Dove Street, 4251, 4253, 4255 Martingale Way, and 4200, 4220, 4250 Scott Drive APPEAL OF PLANNING COMMISSION DENIAL OF PROJECT (RE, SOLUTION NO, 2019) Dear Ms. Brown: We represent the applicant, Newport Place. Residential, LLC, with respect to 'I is appeal of Planning Commission Resolution 2019, denying the applicant's entitlement application for the Residences at Newport Place project. Enclosed undercover of this letter are transcribed copies of the Planning Commission's two hearings with regard to the project, on March 3, 2016, and June 9, 2016. We request that both transcripts be made part of the record, with respect to the applicant's appeal to the City Council. These transcripts clearly reflect the main motivating factor in the Planning Commission's denial of the project was the applicant's repeated rejection of the Commissioners' unlawful demand for a Development Agreement, as a condition of approving the project. City Staff and the City Attorneys' office, agreed with the applicant that a Development Agreement could not be legally required by the City. Ms. Leilani 1. Brown City Clerk City of Newport Beach July 22, 2016 Page 2 Please provide copies to the Mayor and Councilmembers for their reference, in connection with the above -referenced appeal. Very trul� urs, Richard S. cilcnga For the Fin RSZ:bsrn Enclosures cc; Aaron C. Harp, l -sq., City Attorney (via e-mail — w/o encl.) Michael Torres, Esq., Assistant City Attorney (via e-mail — w/o encl.) Rosalinh Ung, Associate Planner (via e-mail — w/o encl.) Shane Maguire, Esq, TRANSCRIPT OF March 3, 2016 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING (Winscribe No. 30611 & Dup. 30612) ONLY Portions (0:39:22 - 2:40:52) Speaker Description Chair Kramer: [beginning at 0:39:22] Okay we're going back to Item. No. 4 the Residences at Newport Place and this is simply a study session. So there's no action to be taken tonight. Does the staff have a re art? Deputy Yes, I'm actually going to kick this off briefly. We are focusing on a specific Community project in the airport area, the Newport Residence. But I first wanted to Development provide some context to you of what is happening in the airport area overall. Director The — there's several pending projects, there's one active project and also I Wisneski: want to share with you what the development potential is according to the General Plan. So the Airport Area is located in Statistical Area L-4. This you can see that land uses mixed of — mixed use high density, those are the salmon color, commercial as well as airport office uses and it shows the airport contour line down the middle of it. As you can see that shows strategically how the residential uses were, were identified so that they're outside that contour. So development opportunities are triggered or created based upon our pending applications which I'll address next. The General Plan limits and the Airport Area has unique limits where we have identified number of units for the airport, again I'll talk about that some more. And then for the charter, Section 423 or the Green Light Initiative which also creates a limit on developments beyond what the General Plan allows. So some of our pending applications, we have Newport Place which you'll hear about tonight and Ros will go over that in great detail and the applicant is here to provide a presentation. It includes 384 units and some square footage for non-residential. Doll Center has a pending application for 260 units, totaling of 3,400 square feet. Uptown project which was approved and is actually under development for a little over 1,200 units and again some . mixed-use component for source of commercial. As was mentioned earlier, Uptown is amending their entitlements to add a hotel on top of the original entitlements for 180 hotel rooms, and again some commercial. And lastly we have a project located at the corner of Birch and McArthur for 325 units. That application is a little bit farther behind the ethers, but again that's requesting some development of residential units. So all those units go into the 2,240 unit pot basically. And those 2,200 units are to be developed within the Salmon area, the MUI.1-2. So looking at how the tally goes, we have -i- Speaker Description 2,200 units starting in Uptown Newport it subtracted 922 units from that 2,200. I'm not going to throw in the density bonus because it kind of confuses things but additional units were created because per state law if you are reaching a certain level of density and affordability, you get additional units on top of that. Newport Place is 384 units. That again subtracts from the 200 20 — the 2,200. Doll Center minus 260, Saunders minus 325, so what we will be left with in the Newport — in the Airport .Area will be 409 units. Again, so we— if all those projects were approved we would still have 409 units remaining in the Airport Area that could be built — what's called replacement units, meaning that they would have to replace what's on the ground_ The airport area allows you to develop residential developments by replacing existing square footage. There's actually a conversion factor and an office use, for instance, 178,000 square feet would have to be replaced or removed from the existing conditions in order to build these 409 units. A kind of unique situation but the idea is that we are creating kind of a limit on the development. So before I jump to that next silly slide, here it is, this is a general plan build -out table. This is the product of the land use data analysis that Gregg Ramirez is working so hard on and looking at existing conditions, what's on the ground now as compared to the General Plan build -out. That this shows table — this matrix — this figure shows is what is allowed for the General Plan and what is left over. So as you can imagine is requires a lot of work of looking at old building permits, old agreements, old trades, so this is what we have today. So if you think about those 409 units you need to compile 178,000 square feet, this kind of shows you where those — that development could occur or there is an ability to transfer also. Chair framer: So explain the distinction between the um, the, the areas that are different colorations. Wisneski: There are those are the land use designations. The mixed-use MUH-2 that's a mixed-use environment. That's where we're seeing a lot of the high density residential with some of the commercial at the base. And then we have the office and commercial uses in the yellow color and then commercial in the red. So this information will be, again, compiled in more of a matrix type of format available on our website once we have it all cleaned up, but we just wanted to kind of show you an example of what it would inean as far as wanting to give you an idea of the development potential for the Airport Area. So if there aren't any more questions I'm going to turn it over to Ros to present the project. Associate Good evening Mr. Chairman and Members of the Planning Commission. Planner Item No. 4 before you tonight is the study session for the Residence at Rosalinh Ung: Newport Place. The study session is for discussion purposes only. No action will betaken by the Planning Commission tonight. 1 will start with a staff presentation mostly dealing with the project application, followed by the applicant. The applicant will be present with the project overview and the -2- Speaker Description architectural, the renderings, the materials that presented to you urn, tonight. Then we follow that with a question/answer session with the Commission and conclude it with the public comments. The applicant proposed a redevelopment of a retail shopping center with a mixed-use residential project consists of up to 384 residential units, of that, 284 are the base units meaning they are replacement units and with the replacement unit the applicant is eligible for requesting up to 100 units for density bonuses and total 5,600 square feet for retail use set aside in the near future, as of this time it is planned for a restaurant use. Chair Framer: Just so people understand how is the density bonus calculated? Ung: The density bonus calculated based on the base unit and the City has the discretion to approve up to 35% of that base unit. Chair Framer: But there's a threshold where a project has to meet which then tri ers ... Ung: Correct for this ... Chair Framer: ... so it's the threshold? Ung: yes for this project, which I will go into a little bit later, but basically this project has the ability to do so because it's in the zoning designation what we call a residential overlay zone specially ideally designed for Newport Place. The Newport Place has a residential overlay zone that gives the applicant the relief of the 10 -acre site requirement in exchange for the affordable housing component to go with that. So this project is being considered with a density bonus in order to grant the relief of a I O -acre site requirement required per the General Plan in the Airport Area, Commissioner How many affordable units are they doing to get the density bonus? Lawler: Ung: We're looking at — we're looking at a total of 86 and that is for low income. Chair Framer: And those are actually going to be built or those are in -lieu fees? Ung: No that will be built. Chair Framer: On site? Ung: Yes. Chair Framer: Probably in your presentation, right? Ung: Correct. [Laughter] Chair Framer: We just can't help ourselves. I mean, you know. Ung: Should I move on? Chair Framer: Yes ... Ung: Okay, thank you. -3- Speaker Description Chair Framer: ... proceed. Ling: As mentioned before the subject property is located in the Airport Area, it's approximately 5.7 acres in size. It is located one block west of MacArthur and bounded by Martingale Way, Corinthian Way, Scott Drive, and Dove Street. The property has a General Plan designation of MUH-2 which is the mixed-use designation that's allowed for residential and commercial, light industrial and other supported uses. With regard to the then with regard to the multiple family residential it's allowed up to 2,200 units per the 2006 General Plan Land Use. Of that, the Newport Place is proposing to replace the existing what's on the ground, meaning the size of the existing shopping center to accommodate their proposed project. As I mentioned earlier, the subject property is located in the Newport :Place Planned Community. The zoning designation is general commercial, Site 6, which allow commercial office and hotel uses. The area shaded in gray which including the subject property, that's what we call residential overlay zone that allows less than 10 - acre minimum site requirement per the General Plan policy for residential development with the, with the stipulation that a minimum of 30% of affordable housing has to be built or satisfied as part of the development. This is the site plan for the proposed development. The project consists of four separate residential towers to be built above a parking garage stricture. The residential towers are four story high, built above a 2 -level parking structure of approximately 715 parking spaces. The towers are approximately 50 feet in height with architectural element up to 83 feet to house elevator shafts, stairways and mechanical equipment. It has private amenities including a centralized pool shown in here in this area with recreation areas, outdoor seating, BBQ, community rooms are located in this wing and the interconnecting courtyards that show in this area, this area, and this area. Half an acre linear park like open space area is proposed along the southerly edge of the property. The applicant requests that an option to be reduced this area to one point — or a third of an acre. In terms of residential unit mix the project has a total of 54 studio units, 173 one -bedroom units, 135 two- bedroom units and 21 units set aside for three -bedrooms. The market rate units are approximately 298 with 86 affordable, that is based on the 30% base units for low-income housing. The request entitlements for this projects include the planned development permit in -lieu of a site development review application. This application the planned development permit will give us the opportunity to look at the building height increase requests which is from 55 to 83 feet. Also the consideration for the building set -back reduction from the required 30 feet to 18 feet in some areas. It also includes a lot merger for a lot consolidation. The Affordable Housing Implementation Plan that is for the affordable housing component. The General Plan policy waiver that has to do with the 10 -acre park land dedication requirement that the applicant is requesting and this application does not require development agreement or being requested by theapplicant. In terms of the environmental review the M Speaker Description initial study was prepared to determine the level of impacts and whether this impact would be reduced to less than significant levels with conditions of approval or mitigation measures. In conducting so, staff found that the short- term in construction impacts are mainly the impacts that's dealing with the project as they related to geology and soil because of the construction of the barking structure, the hazardous materials or the removal of what's existing there and the construction noise. These impacts could be addressed with the preparation of the mitigated negative declaration. As a result, an MND was prepared and circulated for public comments for 30 -days and that will be closed tomorrow March the 4t11. To date, staff received a total of 6 comment letters responses to comments will be prepared and submitted to the Planning Commission consideration along with the mitigation monitoring and the reporting program. The public hearing for this application is tentatively scheduled for March the 17'h. At this hearing the Planning Commission will consider the land use entitlement along with the environmental document consideration. And with that I would like to turn the floor to the applicant. They have a PowerPoint presentation of the project. Applicant Rosalinh, Chair framer, Planning Commissioners, thank you for your time Britnae this evening. I have the pleasure of introducing the Residences at Newport Jensen: Place project for your consideration. I'd like to also introduce our team who is made up of very talented architects and engineers who have spent over two years tirelessly working on preparing what you'll see before you tonight. Our architect's Faramarz Jabbari and James McConnell with ARK Architects, our landscape architect. Matt Jackson with MJS Design Group, our civil engineer Mike Thomas with KHR Associates, and one of the most integral parts of our design team, the property owner Bud Smull. At this time I'd actually like to turn the floor over to Mr. Smull to give you a brief history of the site itself and give you a better idea of his vision for the redevelopment of the site. Smull: Yes, good evening Chairman Kra.mner and other members of the Council. It's an interesting; project for me as well as all of you. I bought the property in 1974. In 1974 the entire area was vacant and it was divided into three parcels. In fact I 'wilt the first parcel about -- and the second parcel about a year and a half apart because there was very little business activity in the area. This is an interesting property and I would like to kind of delve into the history of it a little bit. In case you didn't know it you probably do know it, but it is still interesting. The property was involved in quite a situation in the early 70's_ There was a man who was the head of the Irvine Company Charlie Thomas, he was the Superintendent of the U.S. Navy in World War II under the Eisenhower administration, he was in charge of the Irvine Company. I got a call from Lockheed Corporation and Lockheed Corporation wanted an area down in this — down in the Irvine Company location which was basically a non -developer at that time and they made a dear, a difficult deal, to buy 150 acres from the Irvine Company and pay roughly a dollar a square foot at the time. And the Leine Company was also -5- Speaker Description looking for a alternative to what they were then doing which was nothing as far as development is concerned. In fact they weren't building any of their old buildings they were basically selling everything. And they decided that what they ought to do is try to do something that would spur activity that would produce a sound basis — a sound basis for residential construction in the future. And the way to do that would be to convince major corporations to come to the business locations in the area and try to increase these business locations which would bring the kind of potential property owners to the core of the Irvine Company as they were sitting on thousands of acres as we all know. So what happened was they negotiated the purchase of the property and it was going to be for a Lockheed Corporation high technology corporate center for a new basis of employment for that company. And the negotiation was encourages by the Irvine Company because they wanted to see that kind of a use as on this property, or on any property in the area, which would encourage future housing and they approved the deal — and at the end of it they had a problem because several members of the Irvine Company said well what happens if they don't build their system because we are selling the property to them at below market value. And so there was an effort made by Mr. Thomas to — at the very end when they were supposed to be closing escrow there was an effort to get the Lockheed Corporation to guaranty to the Irvine Company that if they didn't build they would — the Irvine Company could buy the property back — ,give them their money back and try to find another buyer at a more market value of the property. An interesting negotiation happened between Mr. Thomas as the President at that time of the Lockheed Corporation. The Lockheed Corporation told the Irvine Company don't worry we are going to build it, there is nothing that is going to hinder us, but we are opposed to giving you a option to buy it back and you know us well and the reason you know us well is Charles Thomas used to be on the Board of Directors of Lockheed and he did know everybody personally. And so they talked Mr. Thomas into waiving the option, they bought the property and closed it, and they never built. And the Irvine Company tried to buy the property back and they tried to buy it back at the price that they collected for in the first case and the Lockheed Corporation said I'm sorry but we're a public concern, we have shareholders, we have a property that is worth three times more than we paid for it, and you'll have to pay us that for the property otherwise we'll sell it to somebody else. Interesting because Mr. Thomas and the Lockheed Corporation up until that time had been quite friendly, But consequently the Irvine Company lost out, Lockheed sold the property to an insurance company in Texas, the insurance company in Texas came here and hired a local — a group of local developers and they developed the property and they developed it in stages it was divided up into all of the parcels that you saw on that map. And I started by buying — I bought — I bought one third, developed the property, tried to lease it out, it was a difficult — a difficult time to do it, I don't know many of you who knew or you must have on Speaker Description heard of Bob Wynn who was the Director of Planning for the City of Newport Beach, he was a wonderful guy and he was — he was working that problem out with everybody because — because this was going to end up in some kind of a problem if it wasn't done properly. In any event, it slowly was developed, parcels were sold off, the develop became — was done by a developer's naive MK Development, and I was one of the owners and I ended up buil — and 1 was a — I'm a shopping center specialist basically, and I built first one parcel then the second parcel and over a period of about five years built all three parcels and they have been somewhat hindered by the fact that it's not a really good location for a shopping center. It's not -- there's very little residential in there, it's all businesses, it's high rise office buildings, it's industrial buildings, Slemmon's was originally there and his automobile sales company when he moved out of an adjoining city. The area has taken on its own character and that character is one in which a lot of the properties within that location except for the office buildings that had been pretty successful but a lot of the other companies have not lived up to their potential because they had the wrong property, the wrong kinds of improvements. MacArthur Square was one of them. I took the opportunity then when the City was looking at that parcel in order to increase the density of low cost housing and I decided that I was going to get a reprieve and if I put a lot of effort into it I could develop a really quality good development on the property even though I had to wait up until now 45 years to do it. So here we are, I've chosen a great team, we have — I have emphasized that we have a residential units — a residential quality which is — is — well it's going to be hard to beat, the competition is going to have to really try to put in the kinds of detail and the extra — the extra emphasis that we've made to make this a very special residential atmosphere. So with that, unless you have any questions, I'll — we can ,go on with our staff and thank you for hearing that sad tale. I hope it rings bells with you and I haven't overstated it in any particular way. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Jensen: So as you can hear Commissioners we have a great opportunity site that is currently being underutilized. It presents an interesting opportunity for redevelopment in this area. To give you a little bit more history on what's current existing on the site the MacArthur Square Shopping; Center is comprised of 58,277 square feet of commercial office use. It's broken into eight buildings currently, it was built in 1974 and sits on 5.67 acres of land. About 50% of the existing; use was designated to specialty retail and restaurants. Also quality restaurants comprise over 24,000 square feet of the existing 58,000 square feet where a remainder is made up of high turnover sit-down restaurants and medical and dental uses. At this time I would like to go ahead and bring Faramarz Jabbari up to present the presentation on the architectural aspects of the project. -7- Speaker Description Chair Kramer: Yeah, ma'arn can you? Commissioner I have a question please. Koetting- oettin :Jensen: Jensen: Yes. Commissioner Who's developing the property? Koetting: Jensen: Newport Place Residential is the name of the development. I'm sorry my name is Britnae Jensen, this is my collea a Jim Kawamura.. Commissioner So Mr. Smull are you involved? Koetting: Jensen: He is the property owner and he is part of the team that is doing the development for this. Commissioner Thank you. Koetting: Chair Kramer: What's happening to the current tenants that are there, including my favorite Italian restaurant, Il Barone? Jensen: I will actually ask Mr. Smull to speak to that since he is the property owner. Male: Arnie's Deli, a Newport, you know, classic. Smull: I don't bri - I didn't bring any free tickets tonight. Smull: Yeah, that's a good question because we have a lot of tenants - the leases are all expiring. In order to make way for the project I had to buy out some of the leases. Property owners - I mean the tenants have known about the project but not in complete clarity because it's taken us a long time to clarify and get the details down of the final submittalbut the interesting part about what's going to happen here is in the restaurant side of things because there is. included in this a 5,000 square foot opportunity for a restaurant to the quality of the Barone restaurant that's already there. It's unusual in an apartment house project like this. Because you'll be able to - you'll be able to go into the restaurant, able to park your car under a roof, you'll be able to walk into the restaurant, you'll be able to get in the elevator and go up to the top floor of the restaurant, you'll be able to go out on the top floor and have cocktails and food delivered to you from the restaurant, you'll be able to enjoy the evening, you'll be able to watch the airplanes take off and land at the Airport. So the community is going to be well established. Chair Kramer: I don't think that mic's working so if you could jpst use the... Jabbari: No, I'm just - I'm going to use it. Speaker Description Jabbari: Good evening Mr. Chair and Commissioners, I'm Faramarz Jabbari and I'm with ARK Architects. I'm just going to briefly — they have talked about the project I'm just going to share some of the thoughts in organizing it and at the same time some technical aspect of the project I'm going to be sharing with you. The overall — I'm sorry if I'm pointing at something with my laser you're not going to be seeing it and you may have to turn back and look at it, but ... Chair Kramer: That's one thing about the architect for the City Hall didn't think about, you know. Jabbari: I was usually — no but this is actually better because if it would have been a monitor we couldn't even put laser on it — it just — that would have been pretty bad. This is the overall location of the site as you can see there MacArthur, Scott, Dove and Corinthian. The site has this orientation towards the airport — the runway — and at the same time it's a large site to have all be built as one monolithic mass which would be an obstacle really in the City and it's just going to — they are going to be walls that would go forever. So we looked at the opportunities and constraints., the views, the circulation, the pedestrian circulations, and vehicular circulation and as you can see the overall view on this direction and all at the park and a view of the bay. Then I — we decided that we are going to grab the whole mass and create two view — the Vistas to view corridors which would organize and the whole mass of the building into smaller quadrant and at the time allow for the organization of some open space that would serve the property, they would allow for open space private courtyards which would then have different experience and at the same time prevent it from becoming a large monolithic. And then at the end of this view corridor which starts from Martingale to the corner of Dove and Scott. We placed the focal point of the project which was a three-story element which includes the restaurant — the commercial and restaurant in that the first floor and then there — the leasing office, the community room and the fitness center on this second and third floor of this and then a roof deck and viewing deck on top that would have a benefit a view of the airport and other areas that are of interest like your park and the bay. I'm going to go through all of the numbers that are pertinent but that — that — then began share the plan with you, this is the basement. The site has 715 parking spaces organized in two floors, one half submerged, the lower level half submerged, and the upper level fully above grade with the unit — and this is the lower level, this is your upper level and as you can see we have units along the — along the park to the south, Dove, Scott and Corinthian. That will prevent from the parking to be viewed from outside. At the same time it will allow for the units that could have stoops that would allow for connectivity to pedestrian circulation around the site and sort of tie to create the more active interface between the site and the building — and the surrounding. So at the corner we have the open plaza, small plaza with a curved wall which would be sort of inviting — element for I a, Speaker Description people to come. And then the restaurant faces that or the commercial faces that. And then behind it we are going to have 14 or 16 story 16 feet high parking area where all of the delivery and trash pickup happens on-site, under the lit without any interference with any part of the project. So everything is going to happen from this location, the trucks come in, back up into this space from both directions and they either pick up or deliver and go. These are the parking for the commercial and the retail — the retail and for restaurant or through either one of them. And then from here on we are going to have the parking for the residential and half of this upper floor and then the lower level also will be the residential parking. The building has been organized --- the project has been organized into four buildings. Trying to maintain most of the focus inward into courtyards that are marching along the spine — north/south spine of the project and then on both sides we have the central courtyard and the major courtyard which has the swimming pool. There is another community room and facilities right at this edge defining the edge of the courtyard for— because it has to be anyway— enclosed, courtyard for the swimming pool and the other side is sort of a semi -private courtyard where all of these units are going to be enjoying different experiences of the project. We have access to the street at this edge and we have along the Cather end we have access to the corner of Scott and Corinthian. The central courtyard going east/west has an access — pedestrian access at this end and a driveway to the garage and also we have access on this — on both ends of the restaurant — between the restaurant and this rest of the building. Each building has its own lobby and the entrance and presence at this street level. So when they come in there is a lobby with a number and an elevator then they can go up to the unit. Each building has two elevators and we have the elevators that are shared with the restaurant also. The restaurant — the roof deck at this location is for the use of the tenants at this corner of the building — for the use of the tenants but at the same time it can be used for occasions like weddings or parties and there's a viewing stand here under the — under that trellis over -- a vertical element that is going to be used for viewing the airport and at the same time the bay. This is a -- in general this is the section of the building, this is the highest area of the building, the garage where parking can go under the swimming pool at the same time the trucks — the delivery trucks can go and perform what they're supposed to be doing and going out but then on this end we have two levels of parking that one of there is half submerged and functions via split ramps or the speed ramps. These are the renderings of the comer of the -- this is the comer of the Dove and Scott. And this element is sort of a canopy that is going to have acrylic lens on top, it's going to be fine to sit under for — to avoid rain but at the same time it's a focal point. There is a — there is this element which is what I talked about being a place for having ceremonies or anything you want to have and the rest of the roof is fine for gathering and having parties and the food can be brought up rear elevators down by there is to the roof. The overall architecture of the building is Speaker Description Mediterranean Revival with a little bit of art deco at this corner — north corner. Again, this is a view of the corner and Dave and Scott from the street level. This is along that park to the south and the parking lot of course the other buildings. This is the park again, this is the edge of the park and this is the end of Martingale. This is the comer of Corinthian and Martingale and this is the opposite corner at the corner of Scott and Corinthian which is this — these are the stairs — the prominent stairs that go up to the deck and of course access to the elevator and the building. These elements on top they provide for a undulating playful roof line and at the same time it houses all of the equipment and boiler tankers and tanks and all the other material — elements that you have like the condensing unit and elevator equipment. This is a view of the swimming pool with the second community room and all of these view and then we have some trellises and gazebos facing it and then we have of course all of the units being able to view it. Another view of the swimming pool. This is the building — this is the second community room that defines the edge of the swimming pool actually. A view of the main the east — the east/west spine going to the second community room. Some of the roof [1:26:12] this is a roof deck. This is shot of the roof deck. And with this I conclude my presentation and I'm going to let landscape architect to go through the whole thing. And I'm here for answering questions. Do you want this? Jackson: Yes, sure. Good evening my name's Matt Jackson with MJS Landscape Architects and we were lucky enough to work on this project and work on the site with F'aramarz and his team. The team has gone through in quite detail a lot of the key components to the Site Plan. What we'd like to just emphasize is just how much green space there is on this project, how much courtyard space is available to the users. Some of the key features of the project was that hub in the center which contains a swimming pool. One of the key things this swimming pool area it's a 75 foot pool, it's a junior Olympic size pool so beyond just the recreational uses there's swimming opportunities that go along with that. The other great items in the courtyards is just the variety of living spaces. The courtyards we consider to be the backyards, people who live off the smaller courtyards the elements will include outdoor living opportunities, dining, fireplaces, BBQ grills and opportunities to take pets and there will be smaller areas for the one's and two's but there's also the big group areas. So there's quite a bit of variety and the Site Plan allows for that -- the movement of the courtyards and the size of the courtyards, the ability to put in mature trees day one to give the privacy at that ground level I think's quite important. Another key feature to the Site Plan is the, what we're calling the open space at the south side of the Plan. It's meant to be open to the public. It will allow for somebody to take their lunch, have an opportunity to bring their pets, it will also have some ability to have some maybe California gardens. So there will be experiences there that will be to the community allow for connectivity duough the community and it is a -11- Speaker Description public space. And that's just a brief overview of the landscape. But we just wanted to provide some imagery because we really want to discuss the quality — the quality of materials this really is going to live like a hotel, hotel amenities, they talk about food service but just the — the level of detailed materials that fit the finish and then just finding these little pockets that are personal space as you can see through the images. So we're here also for questions. But that concludes a brief overview of the landscape. Jackson: Britnae's ping to come up_ and conclude the presentation. Jensen:. Thank you. Just a little bit more about the site coverage. Matt was talking about the fact that we do have quite a bit of greenery as opposed to the amount of building space that we have. The building footprints encompass 43% of the overall site area, where the remainder of that percentage for the site is designated to hardscape, landscape and open space areas. At this point if you guys have any questions my colleagues and I would be more than happy to respond to anything. Chair Kramer: Commissioner Koegin Commissioner Yes, what staff maybe first — what percent open space is required? I didn't Koettm' g: see it on any of the drawings. Ung: In the airport area the — there's a criteria for open space requirement. That has to do with the land use policy and so basically it says that you have to have a minimum of 8% for open space or at the minimum of half an acre, whichever is greater. So the intent here is that, if I may, what the applicant is proposing at the southerly edge here is the half acre open space area. This is the intent to satisfy that policy as required by the General Flan. But in addition to that the Airport Area also specifies some private amenities but that is only for the property that has a greater acreage. But this one technically does not require private amenities. However, the applicant chose to provide such as been demonstrated recently. Commissioner And can either the applicant or staff point out where they're asking for a Koetting: setback reduction? Jensen: I'd be more than happy to go over that. So with the site we have varying setbacks and on Martingale is where you're going to see the lesser of these setbacks. On Martingale Avenue we do have setbacks of only 18 feet that we are requesting. This is a cul-de-sac, it is a private street, it's not a commuter street so we feel that bringing the building a little bit closer to the sidewalk in this area would be beneficial to help gain the residential component, the more walkability and the more community and neighborhood feel. Along Corinthian we have setbacks of 20 feet, along Scott we have setbacks of 25 feet in some areas and 34 feet in others, on Dove we have setbacks of 25 to 30 feet and along the southerly portion of the project where we are abutting another office use we are currently showing it as a setback of 59 feet with the -12- -13- Speaker Description request to modify that to a minimum of 40 feet. Commissioner Staff what is — are all these streets the same? 20 or 30 foot setback? Koetting: Ung: Yes, there's a required 30 foot setback along the public ri t -of -ways. Commissioner Alright. Koetting: Ung: And ten feet for all the interior setback. Commissioner So what does staff think about that request?" Koetting: Ung: The — we thought that because of what the -- the project's proposed in terms of configuration, we thought that the variety of setbacks would be adequate in this case in exchange for the half acre open space that's being provided at the southerly edge of the property. The 30 foot setback usually would be more applicable to a major thoroughfare like MacArthur or Jamboree where you need to have that setback for it and if you've seen Uptown project that has that 30 foot setback and that's sufficient. In this case the project is located In more of the interior streets where we thought that the 30 foot setback would probably be a little bit abundant. So the variation of the setback in exchange for more of the interior open space and amenities area plus the southern portion of that will be sufficient. Commissioner So in the staff report your planned land use policy waiver they were Koetting: requesting a waiver of the half acre park, is that no longer the case? Ung: It is the case, the General Plan policy, specifically asking the property owner to not only improve, but also dedicate that half acre to the City to be used as a neighborhood park. In this application, the applicant is proposing the half acre open space area but is asking to be used as a private park but the available to the general public during daylight hours. So the dedication is what is the applicant is asking the Planning Commission to consider, it's that. Commissioner Does ... Koetting: Ung: However, on top of that the — instead of having a half acre the applicant is now requesting to pay an in -lieu fee equal to the value of that half acre. Comissioner Thank you. Koetting: Cominissioner So couple, couple questions, so on the — it, it sound like a compromise from Lawler. the 30 foot to the 18 foot setback. The tradeoff for the City was to get the half acre park? Ung. Correct. -13- Speaker Description Commissioner And, and but the applicant is requesting to reduce the half acre to a third of an Lawler: acre. Ung. Right, but . Commissioner And make it non-exclusive. I just want to make sure. Lawler: Ung: Yes. Commissioner Okay. I got that. So can we talk a little bit about the height increase, cause it Lawler: means obviously a great project but there's some issues that we need to discuss in the spirit of the study session. The height increase from 55 to 83 feet. What, why, what's the reason for that? Ung: The, the bulk of the building is approximately 5 8 feet, that is usually — it's about right for a four story building. A four story building usually is anywhere from 53 to 55 feet. The additional height has been request above that is to accommodate some of the architectural elements. Some of the towers that you see on the elevation and that is what the applicant is proposing to house all the mechanical equipment in that and then to provide additional vertical height to the project, to add some character along the street. Commissioner Does staff supportive of the, the height increase and the reduced setbacks? Lawler: Ung: Yes. Commissioner And not the half acre park? You — so staff support of all three things? Lawler: Ung: The half-acre park we would, we would prefer to have the half acre park maintained. Not necessary deeded to the city but maintained with the half acre as prescribed in the General Flan policy. Commissioner Okay, one more question for staff and then I'll stop. No development Lawler: agreement, can you talk about why that is, it's a pretty big project, why no development a eement? Ung: The development agreement is only required in two-fold, per the General Plan policy or per the Municipal Code. The Municipal Codes specifies that any development in the airport area that require legislative action, i.e., Planned Community amendment, that is the zoning amendment or the General Plan amendment. The other is required by the General Flan policies pertaining to the area of the airport but that's only for those projects asking for the additive units, the 550 units and those additive units are pretty much allotted in the what we call an Integrated Conceptual Area and when you see the area that is for mainly for the Uptown and the Kull project that you'll be seeing on a later date. So in this case the applications do not trigger any of -14- Speaker Description those per the General Plan policy nor the Municipal Code. Chair Kramer: Yeah, but a plain reading of the General Plan under implementation section 13.1 which we just passed on to City Council states that mixed used projects, development agreements should occur in the development of residential villages within the Airport Area. So a plain reading of the General Plan states quite clearly that there is a development agreement that's required. This is a, looks to me like a development of a residential village within the Airport Area. Wisneski: Would you like us to speak to that, there are other sections of the General. Plan, this has been reviewed in detail by the Community Development Director and when overlaying the various policies and the Municipal Code it is clear that the, as Ros mentioned, that the development agreements are required for infill development as they are located in the particular area of the residential district in the Airport Area. Unfortunately this graphic doesn't show the area but it's basically the triangle that is east of MacArthur, as Ros is showing right there, that is the area that the General Plan identifies as requiring development agreements for infill additive residential development. Those 550 that are required. So our analysis of the General PIan is that a development agreement is not required, however, that's not to say that the applicant does not have the ability to offer it as part of their application process. We have seen that done in the past, the 150 Newport Center Project also offered to make that part of their application so that certainly is the applicant's option. Chair framer: It seems to me I have just an argument from plain reading of the general plans, sounds to me like there's some dispute between the zoning and the General Plan, which I think may need to be resolved perhaps the Council can speak on that. But this is a large project, I mean it's more than 3010 units. I'm all for redevelopment in the Airport Area, don't get me wrong. This area is crying out for enhancement and for redevelopment so I'm happy to see projects that are coming before us. Our goal tonight is to understand the project, to comment on it, get to the facts of the matter, hear public comments, seek the truth on these things so in that spirit it seems to me like this is a residential island in a sea of office and it probably is the highest and best use for this parcel but the question is, is there enough amenities for the residents, I'm not sure one restaurant is sufficient having enough mixed use for that and of course there's the private amenities, rooftop parks and pools and things like that. So that's one issue that I'd like to have some discussion on with the applicant. The other thing is just the general design of the project. It seems to me it's quite inward looking. It was done on purpose according to the applicant. I'm not sure that's in line with necessarily what we're looking for with an integration with the local neighborhood. There's no street access that I could see to individual units. The access is from the interior. But that's something I'd like some discussion on. Next item is the architectural style -15- Speaker Description seems to be quite out of place for the Airport Area. I'm not sure what it is, it's kind of like a quasi-Tuscan or something. I'm just not sure that's right, it seems too traditional so probably should have some discussion on that. Circling back, on this development agreement issue, I do think that this project should require a development agreement given that there's other projects in the airport area that seem to be of the same size and intensity that do have development agreements or will have development agreements so I think from a matter fairness and equity, this project should as well. Commissioner Mr. Chairman. Koetting: Commissioner Staff, will we be seeing any kind of traffic analysis? Traffic report? Koetting: Tony Brine No there's no traffic study that's required per the TPO when we give credits City Traffic to all of the uses, the existing uses that are on the property taking that into Engineer: account and then with the trips generated by this project, there's actually no additional trips with this project. Comissioner Can you put up the site plan please. Koetting: Ung: I would like to add that we do and conduct a traffic analysis per CEQA guidelines, not per the city traffic phasing ordinance because the net gain in traffic does not trigger that requirement but per CEQA guidelines we do conduct CEQA traffic analysis pertaining to that. Chairman I'm going to use my pointer, it's an eraser and I can see what I'm pointing to. Koetting: The driveway where I think you go into where Arnie's is, is that the main entrance? Because there's no street names on here so I can't name it, 1 don't want .. Jensen: We actually have three points of entry. There is one where you are indicating off of hove. It's across from Westerly Place which is the actual continuation of that street. So that will be one of the entries that's available to both visitors and residential. Also off of Scott there is a second entry that is accessible to visitors and residential. The third entry is off of Martingale Avenue_ That will solely be for residential use only. It will be gated and signed appropriately. Chairman Staff, put the cursor on that last one. She referred to a driveway off of Koetting: Martingale. Jensen: Martingale, yes. Chairman filo the other. Bottom left. Thank you, that one. What street is that? Koetting: Jensen: That's Dove Street. 5G' Speaker Description Chairman Yeah, the one off there. Today when you try to go in there or get out of there Koetting: cause that road curves, it's difficult. Jensen: The driveway as it currently exists doesn't line up with the continuation of Westerly Place so as part of the project we did analyze the entry at this location to realign the driveway so that it would provide more permissible access in and out of the project. Chairman Okay. I think that's, I'd like to see a further analysis of that. Thank you. Koetting: Chair Framer: Commissioner Brown. Commissioner With developments like this there is creates angst in the public relative to Brown: traffic. So I would like to urge, when we hear this, I think we're going to hear on March 17, that we include information in the packet that available to the public how we made determinations relative to trips. So that, I just don't want us to leave that out and have that come up at the hearing and then be challenged on that. Sort of a heads up. Commissioner To maybe to piggyback on that obviously the height, the setbacks, the lack of Lawler: the DA and the park not adhering to the one-half acre I know that will be addressed early in the staff report but I echo Chair Kramer's concern about a lack of a development agreement on this size of a site. Chair Kramer: Any other commissioners? Okay let's open it up to public comment. And then after comment then the applicant can respond. Mosher: Chair Kramer and members of the commission my name is Jim Mosher. During a little more interactive mode than sometimes tonight I did have a couple of procedural questions most more for my benefit and for the benefit of the rest of the public. As Ros stated there is a mitigated negative declaration that is being submitted or circulated with regard to this. We've heard and she's said that the time for the public to respond to that mitigated negative declaration ends tomorrow and I was wondering what the significance of that is because as Commissioner Zak said at the last meeting, my understanding was people can respond to or comment on or challenge that up until a moment at the hearing that you decide to adopt that so I'm wondering if submitting comments by tomorrow and what the deadline is tomorrow, if they have some different effect than comments made in the next two weeks. Like is there going to be a written response to the comments that are submitted by tomorrow or what distinguishes them from others, that was one. Another thing that has not been clear at this meeting and it's not still clear to me, we've heard that you're going to have a hearing about this on March 17 and could potentially approve the things that are listed in the agenda. Is it then going on to the City Council or is the Planning Commission the final approving authority in this matter? As far as I could see if there is no development agreement there is perhaps nothing that needs -17- Speaker Description approval beyond the Planning Commission. I think it's important for the public to understand that. About the park issue, the city following its own procedures as you know is a continuing concern that I have. I know that the zoning code, you can make variances to that. I'm curious where the authority is to just waive what the General Plan declares to be the City's policy. I don't know if says somewhere in the General Plan that the Planning Commission can waive what it says there or not, I would be curious to know what that is and also as to the heights of this, I'm in addition to wondering why it's going from. 55 to 83 feet, this question I perhaps should have brought up when the Uptown Newport development was being considered. In our zoning code, as you know this area is allowed to go to 300 feet, the Airport Area, however if you read carefully that is for nonresidential development and I don't, we've been approving high rise residential projects, you have more coining before you, I'm not sure our zoning code really allows that in Newport Beach. Thank you. One other comment, we heard the developer told us that as � shopping center this didn't work very well because there's a lack of people in the area and it certainly occurred to me we're seeing a lot of people coming here and if you look at the exhibits and the negative declaration there's not only Newport projects, there's one in Irvine near here, could be a lot of people, where are they goring to find shopping centers if this one disappears, where are they going to find parks, where are they going to find grocery stores, etc. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Rosalinh, would you like to respond to each of his points please. Ros: Yes sir. With regard to the CEQA, the CEQA guidelines specifically require us to provide public comments within the 30 day period. So we have the MND prepared and circulate and the public comments is closed tomorrow, March 4. Written comments are normally provided when you have a CEQA docu hent. The CEQA guidelines does not require you to provide written comments and a response to comments to the agency that comment on that. However, it's the normal practice for the City of Newport Beach to receive comments, provide written comments and provide those written comments to the Planning Commission or the City Council, whoever is the ultimate approval authority to consider as part of the project consideration. With regard to the General Plan policy waiver, the policy states that the city has the authority to waive that. In this case the approval entity is the Planning Commission because it doesn't trigger any zoning or General Plan amendment requests so the Planning Commission has the authority to waive that as part of the project consideration approval. The height issue as I mentioned, the Planned Development Permit gives us the authority to increase the height as long as it does not trigger or have any issue with the Airport Land Use Commission. The applicant has filed the necessary clearance for that and we do receive such clearance. The additional height is only for those residential towers for the elements to accommodate the mechanical equipment but the bulk of the building is at 55-58 feet in height. Speaker Description Chair Kramer: Thank you. Other public comments? McDonald: Hi my naive is Jennifer McDonald and this is the first time I've spoken here, I'm a little bit nervous. I wanted to say I was here a few months ago and there was another project that was being presented in Newport Center_ And there were similar requests that were made. There was an increase in the height limit, reduced setbacks, there was a waiver for the planned community of development, I think it's the same thing as a residential overlay I think and I remember you saying, Chair Kramer, I remember you saying you're really asking for a lot and this needs an environmental impact report. Chair Kramer: You quote me well. Thank you. McDonald: I remember you saying that and I would say the same thing about this. I think that one of the impacts that this is going to have is aesthetics. It's very different from anything in that neighborhood as you said. It doesn't Iook like Newport Beach to me, it looks very different from everything else in terms of height and density and bulk and I think that that's going to set an important precedent, it could set an important precedent. Other people will say well you have to look at that building. So I personally would feel more comfortable if there was an environmental impact report that was done. Thank you. Kraus: Hi Chair Kramer, this is Dorothy Kraus and I'm going to speak as a board member of SPON, Still Protecting Our Newport, and I can say that we continue to be concerned about these planned developments that are coming before you. It's my understanding that such a development should provide for amenities as some that have been described here but Mr. Mosher mentioned shopping and grocery stores and those things that should be part of this planned community that keep people from having to get into their car and driving and I think that's something that you all should consider and I support Ms. McDonald's comment about a traffic analysis and with the respect to they're not going to have the things they need to stay there and these exceptions to the height and the setbacks, public park, SPQN's concerned about this and we're seeing it again and again and traffic is one of our biggest concerns. Thank you very much. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Just from a curiosity perspective, where is the closest grocery store located? Is it Mother's Market at Park Place? RRos: That's probably be the closes one or nearby in the City of Irvine or Costa Mesa across the bay. Chair Kramer: Okay. Rosban: Hi, my name is Dick Roshan. I'm one of the property owners right across the street there at 4299 MacArthur Boulevard, it's an office building, a two-story building, just kind of to the right here the lower right corner. 1, this shopping center, I love the fact that they're going to do something with the property -19- Speaker Description and change it because it's been kind of limping along for the last few decades and really something needs to be done over there. But it has to be the right project, I'm really concerned about traffic over there when you have almost 400 units and you're going to have at least 800 people living there and about 800 cars. I heard the architect saying something about maybe there's going to be 715 parking spaces, where are the rest of the residents going to park? Where are their guests going to park? Because most of the streets all around there do not allow any parking, there's no street parking allowed anywhere around there. The one exception is on Martingale there and that is always packed. You have some of the car rental companies, they're bussing their employees back and forth there to park on that street because they're not providing parking for them at that place of business. So there's no parking around there. So I really would like to see a traffic study done over there, what all those additional cars and uses will bring to this area. 1 looked briefly at that, one of their trip counts there and it was saying 157 trips out in the morning and during peak hours and I don't seek how that's possible with almost 400 units. Those people are presumably going to go to work so they can pay their rent and there's going to be a much higher volume of people leaving and coming and going during peak hours and that's right in the middle of the office buildings are letting out and you have all the traffic in that area. The other thing I'm concerned about too is the height of the building. If they're going five to seven stories or 80 plus feet, that's and it's looking like just a giant monolithic block over there. I don't know if that's right for that area. And then of course the setbacks too. Right now it has a much more kind of open feeling and they have all those beautiful pine trees along there. Anyway I'd love to see it redeveloped but I just want to make sure it's the right thing and not going to, that we don't have unnecessary consequences over there as far as traffic and congestion particularly from that flyby from MacArthur Boulevard onto Corinthian there. I invite you to come out there during lunch time and see how that area just backs up and that's without a lot of extra traffic. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Please state your name. Petri: Good evening commissioners, my name is John Petri. I have a couple of questions of staff if I could. I am tenant up there on Quail Street and I'd like to know what the criteria had been for the request for public comment, whether it just went to property owners? Ros: I am sorry. Petri: How was the request for public comments distributed? Ros: We sent the public notice out to all the property owners within the 300 feet from the subject site. We post the site. Petri: Okay, but then again it went to property owners. In an area like that it's sort of like when it hap ens in apartment projects and so forth that it doesn't -20- Speaker Description really give a lot of the people that are going to be affected by a project an opportunity to 1) to know about or 2) to comment on it because if there's 20 or 50 property owners up there, there's a thousand tenants like myself, So I have an issue with that. That may be technically correct but I don't think it is proper. Secondarily, my first job out of law school was for the Fall Company which was then leasing space from MK on Dove Street and all those buildings, the woody -walkups were all two -stories and so forth because nobody wanted, I think they could go higher, but nobody want to put in an elevator for a third story so all those are two-story. There's exceptions, the Bircher Building, but I agree with the previous speaker with respect to that center needing to be redone. It's been rundown for so long_ But if you look at it at lunch time, maybe Barone's can triple its space and go to 5,600 square feet but Amle's Deli is going to be gone I guess and that's a loss. But also if you go there at lunch time, or breakfast, go through the doughnut place, the majority, I won't say the majority, but a good number of the people that go to those places are pedestrian. They walk from the office space around. Those people are now going to have to drive someplace else to have lunch. Now, the Old Golden Triangle with the three restaurants will benefit from all this but again I would ask for the traffic study again being redundant but nevertheless a traffic study, a parking analysis because you're going to have people visiting this parking in other people's on other people's property and that's going to create issues for you. Benihana is going to be upset when everybody parks in their lot and again a 5,600 square feet restaurant is good on paper, that one on Dover and PCH is still vacant so I'm a developer of sorts and I know, you put one thing, the other last point because the bell is going to go off is that you're being asked to make certain exceptions to the rules here and as I gather this is the first of several projects that are planned for the area so that if you give height changes it's going to affect future decisions. Real quick, the other question was you refer to these as replacement units, and I didn't quite understand that because there are no units there to relace. Is that a technical term? 284 were replacement units? Chair Kramer: Yes, thank you and Ros will answer your question. Ros: The term of replacement units is basically we have a formula that we convert the trip base on what existing on the ground, for example in this case it's retail -commercial square footage and that when we put in the formula it converts to X number of residential units. That's what we call as a replacement unit_ You take from one land use and convert it with a formula to a different land use. So we call it a replacement unit. You're replacing what's existing on ground to a different land use in this case is a residential. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Any other public comments? Okay, seeing none, oh you're coming forward? Okay. Is there anyone else that would like to speak after her? Okay. Petri: Mine is very quick. Thank you Chairman Kramer. Lori Petri. I just had a -21- Speaker Description question, how big are these units and I know that they're rental units and I'm assuming that if they are one or two -bedrooms, perhaps because of the cost of living in Newport Beach, it's going to be somewhat prohibitive for many people to rent these without having a roommate so to speak, two cars at least, so there we have it. Okay. Thank you and again are we dealing with, how many square feet are we looking at on some of these, if you could address that. Chair Kramer: That's something that the applicant can address. Thank you very much. Any other public comments? Okay seeing none, we'll close public comments and bring it back to the Commission. Would the applicant like to respond to the discussion we've had over the last hour or so? Jensen: The first thing I'd like to discuss is the height concern that has been raised. Again I want to paint out if I actually could go to our presentation that shows the rendering of the buildings from street side. While we are asking for portions of the building to be allowed up to 83 feet, the portions that we are discussing would be the areas like this tower element here, the whole purpose of this is not only to add some character to the skyline so that you don't have one continuous solid roof at the same height but also to allow for mechanical equipment which can be an eyesore if it's not properly screened from the street to be conspicuously stored in those tower elements. We have taken very great concern in the location of these tower elements to minimize the number of them and to also strategically locate them so that they do not create this imposing view to anyone that would be residing in the area, passing by the area or in the surrounding uses. I know one of the other concerns was how are residents going to be visiting diming establishments, shopping centers. In a situation like this, where you are looking at redevelopment within an area that sloes not currently have a lot of residential, you do not tend to find large shopping centers with grocery stores but we do have quite a bit of dining accessible to the residents and to the office uses surrounding. The Classic Q is immediately adjacent the site, across the cul-de-sac from Martingale. There's an Indian dining restaurant also available in that area. We have Benihana directly across Scott Drive as well as the Staples shopping Center across Carinthian which currently houses quite a few turnover -sit down eating establishments. It is going to create our tenants and our residents driving to encounter shopping centers with grocery stores. As you guests have noticed the closest would be the Mother's Market located off of Jamboree and Michelson. Another would be further down Michaelson, one they turn left on Harvard, there's a Ralph's shopping center on the other side of the 405. We generally don't think this is too much of a burden for the residents but we're hopeful that with the redevelopment of this area it could provide the potential for other areas to potentially redevelop into shopping centers if more residential is included as proposed by the other developments. We recognize the concern regarding the parking. Generally in mixed use and multi -family residential projects the parking ratio is 1.6 to 1.7 parking spaces -22- Speaker Description per unit. We also are including an affordable component with our project. We do have 86 apartments that are going to be affordable to low-income housing. That creates a potential for less vehicles than you would traditionally see in the market rate apartments. The square footages vary for the different floor plans, but the average square footage for our units is about 1,200 square feet. Commissioner Can you give us a low to high on that? Koetting: Jensen: I'm sorry. Commissioner Give us a low, small unit to a bigger unit. Square footage. Koetting: Jensen: Actually if you can, slide 6. Chair Krasner: Studios are what, 800? Jensen: The studios are 607 square feet, the three bedrooms are 1,500 square feet, so there's quite a range of different floor plans that have been envisioned for the project. We are offering loft units within most of the different floor plans. The one -bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom components all have some locations that allow for loft spaces. And I also recognize the concern that was brought up regarding the connectivity to the street. Commissioner Kramer I believe you were the one that mentioned it doesn't seem that there is any real interconnection with the street and the surrounding area. if I can actually direct you back to the site plan, it is a bit difficult to see in this view but what we have envisioned is with this being the ground floor of the project we have liner units that are established here that help to do two things. It prevents anyone driving past the site or in the surrounding uses from seeing a giant concrete parking structure_ It also allows us to provide stoops that provide direct connection from these liner units that are on the ground level down to the sidewalk and the surrounding area. Part of the reason that we as a project have decided to request the reduced setbacks is that generally in the City of Newport Beach the residential setbacks are 15 feet. In this area when the Planned Community text was written for the overlay, it was overlooked to reduce the setbacks so they remained at the existing commercial setback of 30 feet. The way that the current site is designed, the buildings are set back 30 feet but there are parking spaces beyond that so in this area we wanted to make sure by introducing residential that we provided an ability for the residents to not feel like they're half a football field away from the street and to snake it not seem like we're isolating the project from the surrounding area. So, again we do have a sidewalk that currently exists that surrounds date site and we do have connections from these ground floor units out to the sidewalk to allow for direct connection in those areas. Regarding the traffic concern, The traffic patterns that are going to be created as a result of this development are actually going to be alternating traffic patterns to what is currently coming -23- Speaker Description into the area. In this area, most of the uses are office uses and you're going to see incoming traffic demand in the mornings, outgoing traffic demand in the evenings. By providing residential it actually provides an area for any young professionals or anyone who currently is working in the area to live closer to where they work, to hopefully eliminate the need to even get onto the city streets and drive, but it also provides where the peak demand for this development is going to be people leaving the site in the morning and coming back in the evening which alternates with what is currently demand in that area. And I believe that I've covered everything. Chair Kramer: Well, I mean how about the whole notion of the architectural styles, it seems to be out of place with the neighborhood, I just don't see how this fits in. Jensen: I will speak to that a bit and then will likely defer to the architect. In envisioning what was right for the City of Newport Beach we wanted to ensure that we weren't doing something that a lot of cities you are seeing ultra -modern designs and those tend to not stand the test of time. We wanted to do something that was more of a resort style feel, It had a little bit of a Mediterranean style to it. We want to ensure that it's classic and it's not too modern for the city and also reflects the City of Newport Beach in that resort theme. So Faramarz if you'd like to add , . . Jabbari: I can only add a little bit to what you mentioned. In designing a building in that context where most of the buildings are either from 70s or 80s and sometimes a little earlier era and each of them have an element that very clearly defines how this was built in the 50s or 64s, my effort was to create something that is of a more timeless nature so that it's as if it has been there forever. Now, the architectural i don't classify as Tuscan. It is different. But it is more of a Mediterranean revival. And one thing I wanted to make sure that I mention now because Chairman Kramer asked for that, the building when you realize that what is surrounding the building is a car wash and Benihana's and another storage here, for a long time, for sometime, these views are going to be challenge views to areas of either parking or cars being washed or something like that. We tried to maximize the view of the outside but through a filter to a control means of view so that it's not going to be just latent in looking at some activities that are may be a part of daily life but some of them are not quite what you want to look at. What I meant by inward looking was that eventually when we have the building march around the side, we are going to have a major space in the middle as opposed to having that we try to create a compartmentalized open space so that it doesn't look clumsy and it is organized and it could be utilized in different way with different themes. The architecture or the style I cannot say anything to it because that was my concept and my fault and I can show quite a few of them similar to that even in the older buildings in Newport Beach. What we tried to maintain though was to create buildings that are smaller and like a block of the city they are broken up so that it doesn't look like a blob, a big blob of -24- Speaker Description building. That's just about it. If there is anything else I can expand on just let me know please. Chair Framer: I think we just have a difference in terms of taste. Jabbari: And that is the difference. Chair Kramer: I just don't think this type of style's appropriate for the airport area. Seems rather mundane and seems like something we've seen many times before. Commissioner Zak. Zak: Chair Framer, could you give the applicant some direction on what you'd like to see? Chair Kramer: Well, I'd like, do you have any insights on that? Chair Framer: It's not our role to, there's no design review element to this but we're here to ensure that there's quality of materials and quality of design and it's appropriate for the neighborhood so I'm not here to redesign your program, but just looking at the neighborhood and what you're presenting for this location seems to me to not match the neighborhood and it does create a situation where it's going to clearly create this island within a sea of nonrelated, totally different context of styles. That's just my opinion. Jabbari: Yes, I can see that you don't agree with this style but then whatever is around it is very modern buildings, as I said from different eras, Chair Kramer: I mean you could have chosen to take a more contemporary route in terms of . Jabbari: Yes, but then it would have been dated and everybody says that was done at the age of, I like 2015 or 2010, which is fine I could have done that and it could yqy easily lend itself to that also. Chair Framer: I think all I can say at this point is I encourage the applicant to look at it. again. Okay, any other comments? Commissioner Not for the architect but for the applicant, just quickly. You heard some Lawler: concerns on height and setbacks and the deviant from the park, the density, why almost 70 units an acre. What was the genesis, was that to accommodate the affordable or what was driving that specific density? Jensen: The density is actually 50 units per acre per the Newport Place plan. The additional units came in as a result of the bonus that we're being allotted by providing the 30% affordable. So the base units were actually abiding by the 50 dwelling units per acre requirement per the General Plan. Lawler: Okay, it's 50 plus the affordable that's what ... Jensen: Correct, 50 plus the bonus density units that are granted as a result of providing the affordable. -25- Speaker Description Lawler: Got it. Lawler_ I share commissioner Kramer's, it does, although I appreciate the project, I do understand the concerns about the Tuscan, Mediterranean aesthetic. It's somewhat monolithic, inward lookingness of the sight. I think that area needs to be redeveloped and certainly supported that but I have the similar concerns, the number of requests, they seem to be extensive, in terms of deviating from the code or the General Plan or whatnot. Is the applicant open to a development agreement given the size of the project? I mean I'm a developer I would expect to do a development agreement for this size of a project. Jensen: I think at this point that's something we would need to have a discussion on with the property owner internally before I'd be comfortable speaking for him since he is the property owner that is part of this development so that is something that we would need to discuss internally before we would be able to provide a reasonable response as to whether that's an option or not. One of the things I will say about the building height in addition is that the livable space is limited to that 58 feet. So we're not providing livable space or units above that 58 feet. Again the only portions of the building that are exceeding that height are those very selective tower elements that are the intended purpose was to screen mechanical and elevator equipment and while we definitely hear your concerns regarding the architecture of the project, our biggest concern was with the site location like it is the surrounding uses currently are larger scale, mid to high rise office uses and if we were looking to really be completely compatible with what's there now, it would create a very modern, very stoic potentially looking building, so we were trying to create something that while not isolating the project entirely from those surrounding uses, also made it appear to not be this giant concrete block with glass windows or anything along those lines. I think anytime that you have a residential development being incorporated into a new area such as this, the Koll project, the Uptown Newport project, it is going to be a struggle to try to meld ail of the architectural styles with such varying uses. So. . . Lawler: One more question, Along some of the things we're talking about. Can you maybe let the public know and the commission and staff what community outreach did you do, how many meetings did you have, what adjacent owners did you meet with? Jensen: We have met with all of the adjacent property owners. Immediately surrounding the site we met with all of the adjacent property ownership. There is a lot of excitement and anticipation for the redevelopment of this area. The restaurant uses that 1 have met with, the Classic Q, Benihana, the veterinarian hospital that's up the street, are very supportive of the project and are excited to see something like this come into the area. They feel it would be mutually beneficial where it provides residential for their employees if they want to live closer to where they work and at the same time introduces -26- Speaker Description residential to help those businesses during the times that they're not getting very much business because of the area that they're currently in. These businesses struggle at night and on the weekends as a result of the area mostly being office uses. So we have dune the community outreach to reach out to all of the adjacent property owners, discussed the project, show them what's being proposed, anticipate any concerns they have, discussed that with thein, and I feel that when we the next meeting on the 17'l' we are hopeful that we are going to have those supportive businesses here vouching for the project. Zak: Were you able to answer the development agreement question, which is that you would study it and come back. Jensen: Right, we need to have an internal discussion before I can speak for the property owner. It is going to be a discussion that needs to occur with legal counsel on his end with consultants and the rest of the development team. It's not to say that we're adverse to it, we need to really research it and discuss it more internally before we can give a definitive answer. Zak: Is that something a two-week timeframe could be, I think there's a lot of questions that are being raised up here that maybe two weeks to hear this is a little too soon. Is that something in you timeframe here that you can come up with a decision on or should we .. . Jensen: Yes, I feel that we can have a decision for the Commission within that two- week timeframe as far as our stance and our offering of that potentially may be. Zak. Because I'm seeing a lot of issues up here that I'm not quite certain this Commission is ready to see in two weeks. Framer: I mean are you going to have a development agreement and drafted and all ready to go for approval in two weeks? Jensen: No. Kxamer: You may want to think about that. Zak: I'll wait for other commissioners might add a few more items. Kramer. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. So what additional guidance do you need from the Commission since this is a study session and we have the approval hearing in two weeks? Ros: We received a lot of comments from the Commission, most of those continents or concerns will be addressed in the staff report. The issue here is if the applicant wish to change the architectural, the building footprint, the building setbacks, that needs to be analyzed and that would need additional time to do so. The staff report for the 17"h is basically needs to be dune by tomorrow because of the timing and the review and such. So it's going to be a very hard crush for us to meet the 17'x' meeting. -27- Speaker Description Kramer: This gets back to what I've been saying is that the study sessions can't be so close to the approval hearing. They need to be at least a month separating to allow for issues that come up. I mean you just can't assume that we're going to approve this with a rubber stamp. It's not the case. But by not allowing the appropriate time to fix or amend or whatever, it creates a huge burden on staff and the applicant. Cause like you said Roslyn, if you have to get the staff report done by tomorrow, I mean I don't see how that's going to work, but I leave that to you guys because you guys are the experts on that. But I want to make sure that you have enough comment and direction from the commission here so that we can move forward here in a manner that's reasonable. Commissioner Mr. Chairman maybe it's not staff that has to make this call, we do. If we're Koetting: not comfortable that they can get it done, they we postpone this. Two weeks more I don't think is going to end this two year long, forty-five year long project Mr. Small said. And if there's too many open ended questions, we might as well direct staff to say move it on, I'm looking at the agenda and we do have April 7 is fairly light. That's all. Ros: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a follow up question with regard to the need for additional traffic analysis and parking analysis. What would be your direction on that as of right now the necessary requirements for traffic studies been covered under- the CEQA guidelines and staff felt that it is adequate, however hearing what you expressed in the general public tonight, I'm just seeking to see what else, what other additional area that needs to be looked at or analyzed so .. . Chair Kramer: We have a list of things obviously. I mean I've been taking notes tonight. Ros: Yes, just because a traffic study does take a lot of time and something that we need to be prepared for that. And in fact what area specifically. Kramer: I mean I hate to slaw down an application but we have to he prudent about what we're approving here. I mean this application as is, it's finalized by a Planning Commission it does not go to City Council as it stands at this point. Ros: Correct. Kramer: So we have to make sure we do our fiduciary duties here appropriately so that's all I'm reminding everyone here of that point. Now in terms of what additional studies you want, I think there's been some discussion of that among the commission and I'm not going to give you exact direction on that, that's something that I think you'll need to review and see what's required. Unless Commissioner Koetting you want to give enact direction like that. Koetting: I think it's up to us to direct the staff and say we think this needs more time. If I'm the only one, then so be it, but there's a lot of loose ends and I would hate to see it come in two weeks and continue, continue. Maybe it takes a ma Speaker Description little more refinement. Lawler: Chair, I think one of the study sessions that we haven't seen the staff report so some of our concerns like height and setbacks in the park and parking and traffic, we haven't seen everything so we're kind of operating in a little bit of a vacuum so in some ways I understand we need to make, it's hard to make recommendations without seeing a staff report. So we, my vote would be to put it back on staff, make the report, bring it to us and we'll see. You hear the concerns. If the staff report addresses those concerns great, but if they don't then we'll vote on it and we'll see what happens. But to lack of a development agreement we'll have to talk about that I think. I don't know how the rest of the Commission, I think Chair Kramer and I have expressed some concern about that, I don't know right now whether a development agreement is required or not. Clearly it's not required, but clearly there's precedent that projects have development agreements of this size and we've seen that before so it seems that we almost really intelligently make a decision on some of the issues we have a concern in the public there needs to be a staff report in order to do it or the applicant can make a decision to tweak it and then do the staff report. So it's not - I don't think it's up to us at this point because we haven't . Kramer Right, and _ . . Lawler: seen it. Kramer: .1, I agree with what you just stated. Lawler: Okay. Wisneski: If I may interject as well, some of the issues being raised tonight Commissioner Lawler is correct. There are an issues that we can address in the analysis of the staff report however some of the other issues its really up to the applicant {whether or not they want to modify the design, whether they want to change the setbacks where they want to develop a development agreement and those are the items that could take more time, so we need some more time — some — an opportunity to discuss these issues with the applicant and we will schedule the a propriate date. Kramer: Okay, I think that's reasonable. Kramer: Yeah, Commissioner Weigand. Weigand: I want to ask the applicant a couple of questions, too, it's hard to jump back in, but what clientele are you attracting for this development? Are they, you know your folks that are coming on a plane maybe they're just buying a place for a couple days a week to stay at, maybe companies are buying them for their. -29- Speaker Description Jensen: We are envisioning that the residents here could encompass quite a few different areas. We wouldn't have young professionals that are in their careers that want to live in Newport Beach but can't necessarily afford a house at the time_ We do see the potential for corporate housing, but realistically we think that this is going to be a development that caters to young professionals, young couples that again are looking to live in a nice area but not necessary have the funds to purchase. Retirees, people who want to have somewhere to come that's close to the airport to take off, go to vacation, come back. It could be families that have downsized, it could be empty nesters that have downsized. We really feel there is a broad spectrum of potential residents for this type of development. Weigand: I'm just, I'm just concerned with the, with the location and where everyone's gonna go when they need to go do something and I think shopping was one of the you'd said that if we build this then a shopping center will maybe pop up and a grocery store will be closer because we've created these residential. Are there — do we know city staff, do we know if there's areas in the area that are potential for turning into grocery stores, gas stations, you know more um retail areas? Kramer: There's a 7-11 that's around the corner. Weigand: Yeah and, and you know Classic Q you know I go there to shoot poral or watch basketball. l don't go there to dine and Benihana doesn't seem realistic for an average low income housing you know restaurant and we're all talking about Mother's, that's the closest shopping, grocery store. I can't afford Mother's, so well that's not saying much, I don't make very much work for the government, but um you know were asking folks to go a lot of place in this tight area and I think there's — we saw the report prior to this that there's going to be some other areas up for development for housing in this area, so you know we, we need to improve that I think if we're going to add all these residential. Was there ever any discussion to have these units be more of the mixed use style home where you do business on one floor and you live above? Obviously this a, a completely different style than that but were any of these options entertained? I know that on eastside Costa Mesa they're putting up a lot of loft style where you, you know real estate agents and work from home types are doing business so they don't — they're not really traveling throughout the day they're working and, and, and living in the exact same place, was that ever an option? And then as far as the facility itself you have that one area for re -- or for the restaurant. It was ever discussion to maybe to that, you know more grocery or instead of having one, maybe having multiple either restaurants or a grocery or you know more retail within. Is that, was that ever any discussions within. Jensen: Um those were discussions that we had with city staff. Ultimately we as the applicant would like to see snoresquare footage available for retail for the -30- Speaker Description project. We think it would be very beneficial to introduce other uses aside from solely a restaurant. What is currently limiting us from being able to do that is the trip generation rate and the conversion factor where the green light initiative is holding back where we have to stay and have a net zero impact from existing to proposed, so in trying to develop more of that square footage we were limited by that green light initiative. Kramer: I'm not sure if that's true, is it? Ros: What the alternative is .. . Kramer: Those evil green light, that's causing us not to have more mixed use. Wisneski: The development on the site is based upon the replacement of the development that's there existing, existing now so any type of increase beyond that requires additional square footage which it contribute towards green light and actually in the airport area I think there's 12,000 square feet left um so there is limitations to that. Kramer: That's part of the problem with ballot box plaru-ring, but. Zak: So can I just Krasner: Yeah. Zak: ... add a question to that? So they couldn't reduce residential units to offset that? Deduce the residential unit count .. . Wisneski: Yes they could ... Zak: .. and increase theyeah okay . . Wisneski: Yes that's right. Kramer: So why wouldn't you do that? Jensen: We were ultimately looking at what provided the best option for this area and realistically looking at young professionals, young couples who are leaving to go to work and coming home each day would actually stop and do the grocery shopping and potentially pick up food in their travels, not necessarily get home, park their car, realize they need to go somewhere and make a separate trip. So generally in apartment living it's a type of situation where the resident's going to make multiple trips on their way to or from a location occasionally you will get the resident that says 1 need to go to the grocery store nowhere else and leaves to ultimately do that, but for the most part in apartment living you do tend to see people that make those stops on their way to or from other destinations. Kramer: I think what we're trying to get at um if I could just bring this to a close here is that um you do have the ability to add additional) mixed use. 4f course you have to sacrifice some of the residential. I think that's probably a good idea uh to have additional mixed use in there. Itprovides additional amenities to -31- Speaker Description the residences that are located there and to the local neighborhood and it reduces the whole perception that this is a huge residential island in a sea of office. I hate repeating that, but um that's the reality, so that's another thing I would encourage the applicant and staff to talk about. Is there any other — yeah. Brown: One quick comment on that, on the architecture. Short of, short of not having a design guidelines for this are, I think it presents a challenge for us as Com nissloners to try to influence architecture because it becomes very subjective. So, I just want to caution us relative to that, um I have some concerns about that ping forward, but um beyond that I'm ready to close. Zak: I'd just like to add on to that, I completely agree with that statement by Commissioner Brown, I think we need to demand quality and the subjectivity as to design, it's kind of in the eye of the beholder and it's a dangerous path for us to walk down. Kramer: Any other comments? Okay, I think we'll conclude that item. [End of that topic I discussion — 2:40:58] LEND OF TRANSCRIPT] -32- TRANSCRIPT OF June 9, 2016 NEWPORT BEACH PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING (Inscribe No. 30613 & Dup. 30614) ONLY SECTIONS: 1:02:58 - 3:33:35 Speaker Description Chair Kramer; Thank you. Next time is Item No. 5. The Residences at Newport Place, staff'— staff go ahead. Campbell: Chairman Framer and members of the Planning Commission. I'm going to start off this presentation. I'm going to turn it over to Rosalinh Ung. The Residences at Newport Place is a redevelopment project up in our Airport Area. It's taking out what's known as the MacArthur Square commercial retail center. It's actually a 5.7 -acre project site. I apologize for the typographical error there. It's in the Airport Area. It would be removing an 80 — approximately 60,000 square foot shopping center. Construction of a mixed-use project, 384 residential units -- 100 of those units would be density bonus units. 'Within the project, it. would remain a 5,677 square foot retail space and 86 units would be affordable. Here is the project area and so — you can see at the top of the screen is Campus and the airport. MacArthur is that central street right down the middle. It's at the corner of Dove, Scott and Corinthian and Martingale — it's highlighted in red. This is a depiction of the General Plan designations in the area. The salmon color that you see there is the MLT -H2 or mixed use horizontal two designation.. What this area allows pursuant to the General Plan is up to 2,200 residential units. The area is characterized by commercials, some light industrial uses, hotel uses and some retail uses. The area is of course bounded by Jamboree, Campus and the 73 Freeway. Within the General Plan, it affords the replacement of existing commercial uses in the area on the traffic neutral basis. In some limited circumstances, additional units on parking lots are also allowed but not in this particular area so the provision -- the General Plan allows for residential only when you take existing commercial uses. Again on a traffic neutral basis. The General Plan does require a 10 -acre minimum of villages. It also talks about public parks, enhanced pedestrian access and walkable streets. This is a figure within the General Plan. This is a conceptual figure. It's a Figure LU23 and within this figure I've pre -oriented the image there — I kind of maintain the same north/south orientation as the other exhibits but you can see the green areas here are these parks that are conceptual in nature and also shows this series of residential streets and pedestrian ways. The project site is located right here as shown. Again, it's almost 6 acres in size. The conceptual sketch does have a park area and -1- Speaker Description a pedestrian way. This particular graphic is the map from The Newport Place Planned Community and the project site is highlighted in that area. It is currently designated general commercial. In the area, we have a hotel directly to the north, the Radisson, shopping center, a car wash and restaurant to the northwest, offices generally to the south and we have residence — I'm sorry restaurants and a bank toward the east. Now that — the area that's shaded on this diagram is the residential overlay that was added approximately two years ago. What this overlay does is that it allows for a less than 10 -acre minimum, site requirement provided that the project includes 30% of the units for affordable housing. There is no commercial requirement that's there. The overlay was created due to housing element policies — to get our housing element certified by the State of California. I want to go ahead and turn it over to Rosalinh right now, just to go through the basic project details and from that — Rosalinh go ahead. Ung. The Newport Place project consists of 4 separate buildings to be built above a parking garage. As you can see on the site plan here, we have a total of — 4 residential towers are to be 4 -story in height. To be built above a 2 -level parking structure of approximately 715 parking spaces. The towers are approximately 58 feet in height with architectural elements up to 83 feet to house the elevator shafts, stairways and mechanical equipment. It has private amenities, mostly centrally located within this area as you can see a large swimming pool with recreation activities and separate interconnecting courtyards that kind of wrapped around the overall and then connecting all the buildings together. The project also includes a half acre, linear open space area, which is located at the southerly portion of the project here at this location and the Applicant requests an option to reduce this area to a third of an acre. In terms of a unit mix, the proposed unit mix consists of 54 studio units, 173 one -bedroom units, 136 two-bedroom units and 21 three-bedroom units. Of those, 2801— 98 market rate units are proposed with 86 affordable units which make of 30% of the base units. The application is consistent with the following land -use requirements request. The Planned Development Permit is being processed here in lieu of the Site Development Review application. This process would allow the deviations in term of development standards. This would require — allow the building height increase from the required 55 -feet to 58. However, the Applicant is now proposing minor adjustment to bring that building height down to 55 feet and 6 inches and so does the architectural elements, reduced fxom 83 to 79 feet in height. The adjustments also include the building setback reduction from the required 30 feet to 18 feet which is the shortest distance from Corinthian Way, 20 feet from Martingale Way, 22 feet from Dove -2- Speaker Description Street and 25 feet from Scott Drive. The application also includes the General Plan policy waiver. The General Plan policy waiver is being proposed here or a /2 -acre of parkland dedication allow for the adjustment. The waiver also requests a site — the waiver request it because the site does not meet the neighborhood park definition. The Applicants propose an in -lieu fee instead of the dedication. It's an in - lieu payment equal to the land value of 1 acre of parkland. In turn, the project provides approximately 112 an acre of open space as illustrated on the site plan and it also has public access through an easement available for the general public during daylight hours. The application also include a lot merger to consolidate the existing 3 continuous parcels and the consolidation is to accommodate the project. Affordable housing implementations plan is also being proposed. This is a requirement of the density bonus provision. It also describes the project obligation to provide affordable housing which equates to 85 units for low and very low income household. The rent will be restricted for a minimum of 30 years and units will be dispersed throughout the project. In terms of environmental review, an initial study mitigated negative declaration has been prepared pursuant to the CEQA guidelines. It was circulated for public comments for a total of 41 days from January 22 through March 4 of this year. Staff received a total of 8 comment letters and in turn written responses to comments, and an ERRATA, has been prepared along with the mitigation monitoring reporting program prepared. These are included in the May 5 Planning Commission package for the Commission to consider. The project also was presented to the Planning Commission and the general public, March P of this year as a study session. During the meeting, the Planning Commission provided comments for the Applicants to consider. They are as follow; The requirement for a development agreement, the accuracy of the open space and private amenities provision, the necessity of the building setback reduction and building height increase, adequacy of the architectural style and project integration and lastly the traffic trip generation and the parking analysis and how's that going to impact the surrounding adjacent uses. Since then, the Applicant has revised the site plan and mainly revised the landscaping plan. As you can see, the outline in blue in this area is basically the area of the open space, the linear open space. The easement boundary for the public access has shown here is outlined in red as you can see mainly follow the pathway and some of the open -3- Speaker Description space area that's also been prepared and this area will be gated at either end of that public sidewalk. In addition to the correspondence included in the May 51h package and the supplemental memo that staff distributed to the Planning Commission and the general public to consider, we have received over 30 emails and 3 written correspondences. They are mostly in support of existing deli restaurant use and not in favor of the affordable housing. We also received written comments an the draft MND and staff has since then provided written responses to that. The written comments also raised issues with regard to the lack: of development agreement and concerns about the park dedication and waiver and the proposed building height and setbacks. We also received comments with regard to the need for an adoption of a specific plan or a comprehensive plan for the Airport Area before taking any action for the project tonight. At the conclusion, staff recommends that the project will be approved by the Planning Commission, conduct a public hearing, approve the project with findings included in the draft resolution or deny the project if findings could not be made tonight. In this — in the consideration for the deny, project staff requesting that the Planning Commission identify the findings or the reason for denial and continue the item to the next hearing for a staff written resolution. That concludes my staff presentation. I also would like to mention that we have the environmental consultant and the traffic consultant. They are here to answer to your questions and also since then I also received additional correspondences — the five emails not in favor of the project, one commenting overall the project and one petition with signature of the business owners and representatives in favor of the project. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thanks. Any Conunission questions for the staff? Mr. Koetting. Koetting: Staff, could you put back the graphic on the Master Plan for that part of the community? One of the early graphics. Not that one. There you go. Can you tell us when this was established and adopted by the City Council? Campbell: Certainly Commissioners. This figure is actually in the General Plan. It was created in 2005-24106 and it was adopted by the City Council in 2006. 1 wanted to kind of stress this in my initial part of the presentation because the project site as depicted here -- the actual site plan and the overall density of the project is in keeping with this concept plan. Koetting: The areas in beige for the audience — if you haven't studied the General Plan — are designed for future residential in this area? -4- Speaker Description Campbell: That's correct. Koetting: The hope of it. And the green areas? Campbell: Yeah, the light green areas were conceptual areas where parks might be provided — public parks. The orange linear items are streets — would be new public streets that provide access to these new neighborhoods. And then the dotted kind of green line that you might see there connecting certain parks and areas that are what would be called a pedestrian way — where we can increase pedestrian connectivity through the area. One of the features of this project is that that linear park area that half an acre park area and the pedestrian way do line up with the site plan proposed. Koetting: But those greenbelt areas were just graphically represented. Campbell: Exactly. Graphically represented and so it's a concept sketch. So if an Applicant came in and wanted to reposition it or put it a different way or implement the General Plan policies in a unique or different way we obviously could consider that. So this isn't really a regulatory document but it's really a concept of what we thought might occur and the Applicant has in essence brought that concept to reality with this site plan. Koetting: So the concept of housing coming in the airport area is not new. Campbell: Definitely not new. Koetting: Okay. Moving down to another question. You had in 2004 said there was an additional overlay on this particular site. One of the graphics. Campbell: Yeah, this is the graphic from the Newport Place Planned Community text then which is really the zoning of this entire area that you see. The shaded areas are the residential overlay and they match up with the General flan designation of MU -H2 and so what we did with this overlay is to be honest it was required by HCD as a policy to get our housing element certified. What they wanted was to have a path forward to allow for residential properties to carne forward and we needed to have the zoning in place and so we added the residential overlay to allow residential in this area to get the housing certified and that was put in to place I believe about two years ago. Koetting: Okay, then following up on that the affordable housing requirement. Campbell: Yes. -5- Speaker Description Koetting: The state is asking, demanding, nudging the City to provide that in various residential developments, correct? Campbell: I think as a general principle, yes. This is really the only area in town where we have an inclusionary requirements you know absent the provision or the inclusion of affordable housing up to 317% here. You couldn't do residential at all in this particular area without doing an amendrnent to the Planned Community text in some way to allow it to be exclusively for market rate housing. Koetting: And for doing that there's a formula to create bonus density? In other words, additional units? Campbell: Yes. And the Applicant is seeking density bonus in this case. The Applicant is asking for what the state would allow as a full 35% of the bonus density. So the way that the density calculation works is that they get up to 50 dwelling units per acre and they are asking for that maximum density and then on top of that they can ask for an additional 35% rounded up and that's where you get the 100 additional units per density bonus. So the Applicant is taking -- requesting full advantage of what state law and our Municipal Code provide for density. Koetting: Thank you. Chair Kramer: Commissioner Lawler. Lawler: I remember doing this study session at least myself and maybe another Commissioner or two were discussing the merits of a development agreement and whether that was required or not. When I look through the documents infill development does require a development agreement and I read the Shopoff letter and some others maybe you could help us understand why the staff doesn't given this scope and magnitude of this project and the number of units and the apparent pretty clear public benefit of a development [agreement], why the staff isn't recommending one because when you read this quickly, particularly if you're not well versed in zoning code it seems to me this in infill development and why is it not? That's my question. Torres: That a great question Commissioner Lawler and that definitely was a point of emphasis at the last planning commission meeting when this item was heard. Staff has looked at the item and looked at the General Plan requirements and the Municipal Code requirements and determined that this particular development does not actually require a development agreement in their assessment. The reason why is that it's not necessarily infill it's replacement units and maybe dim or Brenda no Speaker Description can speak to that aspect better than I can. But it has come down to one of the land use maps and the way this area is zoned and shaded that the units being constructed here are not actually infill that would require the development agreement. There's something else though another entity. And so in this particular instance we did reach out at the urging of the Planning Commission and ask the Applicant if they would voluntarily enter into a development agreement and the Applicant declined. Lawler: And so two follow-up questions because I'm not sure I understand and make sure the public does. What is the difference between infill and replacement units? Because clearly what's being built isn't replacing what exists. And, too, why would the staff not want a development agreement? I know it's not required but given the precedent we're not a policy-making body I get it, but given the precedent that it could set maybe a little more — maybe it's not required maybe it is. Why wouldn't we want one and maybe get into the infill versus replacement. Torres: Sure. Lawler: Because I'm not sure I understand it. Tones: And that's a great question. Let me answer the second question and I'll defer to the planners for the first question as to staff wanting a development agreement. I don't think it's a question of whether we want a development agreement or not I think we agree with you though that a development agreement would be beneficial to the City as well as the developer in this instance. And if staff had their druthers we would probably [want] a development agreement. However, looking at the General Plan, looking at the Municipal Code in this particular instance it's just not required. So the best we could do is ask the developer if they would like to enter voluntarily into a development agreement with the City which is what staff has done and the developer has declined. Chair Krasner: Yeah, but Mr. Torres, it's not the role of the staff to make that decision. Torres: It's not, absolutely not. Chair Kramer: That's the role of the City Council. Torres: And that's what they've done. Chair Kramer: So was there any City Council you know rendered any decision on this development agreement issue? Tones: So the General Plan and the Municipal Code development agreement -7- Speaker Description provisions have been reviewed and approved by the City Council and in this particular instance at least according to staffs interpretation of those provisions a development agreement is not required. So you're absolutely right Chairman Kramer that is the role of the City Council they've looked at this — not this particular project — but what a development agreement in general is required through the General Plan and through Municipal Code and the development agreement is not required in staff's assessment for this particular development. Chair Kramer: Has the staff made any attempt to canvas Council and whether they agree with staff s interpretation of the code? Torres: Not that I'm aware of, Chairman. Chair Kramer: So it really is an open question, then? Torres: It's a staff interpretation of the Municipal Code and the General Plan that a development agreement's not required at this time with this development project. Chair Kramer: Right, so you just answered what I asked. Lawler: Before we go to the next question because I think it's important because this is the code. The difference between infill and replacement, what specifically does that mean? Because when I read it I don't understand it. So I think that would be helpful at least for me and then if you would ... Koetting: And as a follow-up to Mr. Lawler, explain why and how commercial converts to residential on the replacement formula? Campbell: Certainly I'll tackle the infill issue first. In a general sense the word infill of this project could be viewed as an infill project and how that term is typically used in the planning profession. But when you look at the General Plan policies we have policies here one land use element 6.15.12 which does state that a development agreement is required for infill projects. But when you look at the other policies of the General Plans, specifically land use LU 6.15.5, it talks about what an infill project is. It uses terns that relate to infill projects on parking lots and it specifies an area in the General Plan called the Integrated Conceptual Development Plan Area which is really on the east side of MacArthur Boulevard, between MacArthur and Jamboree. So in essence that area is required to have a development agreement but the other areas are not. And so again we're looking at two different policies as well as the implementation program of the General Plan and when you look at Speaker Description these policies in concert we came to the realization that the General Plan didn't require it and then when you look at the Municipal Code, which is a separate provision, it also doesn't require it because the project doesn't require any kind of legislative approvals. If it did, then there would be a development agreement requirement. And so when we looked at all these in concert we carne to the conclusion that it's not required. Again, without getting into the individual language of each section, that's my general response for that one. To the other question which is how are the units converted Tony you have to help me out here with date here but it was probably 2007 or 2008 when the City traffic engineer created ratios where square footage could be converted to residential units. How much square footage to residential units? And that was reviewed and approved by the City and the traffic engineer and the purpose of that ratio was to establish how much traffic are we going to be predicting frown office, industrial and commercial uses. And then looking at well what would that translate to for housing so that we try to keep this trip neutral and that's what the General Plan actually requires. So that when you take down a certain amount of resident or commercial you can add back residential and then the traffic would be basically the same. So those ratios were established again probably in 2007-2008 and we've applied those ratios in this case and that helps us to. arrive at the maximum density that they're asking for based on the amount of commercial space they are removing, So in that respect we don't have an increase in traffic that's coming to and from the site as evidenced in the MND and the traffic can go through the trip generation if he wants to. We're actually going to have a reduction in trips so with the application of those ratios that were previously established through this project we've insured a consistency with the General Plan policies that talk about this to be trip neutral. Chair Kramer: So, I mean, the other major project that we've reviewed in the Airport Area in the recent past was Uptown Newport, so that's the one that's fresh in my mind. So on that application was also as I — was an infill project so what's the distinction between that project and this project with respect to the issues that Commissioner Lawler has brought forth? Campbell: I think the principle difference there is the location. That project was in what's called the Integrated Conceptual Development Plan which is actually shown on this diagram here. The area — there's a dotted line that goes around Koll Center Newport and that is the Integrated Conceptual Development Plan area and so when you look at General Plan policy 6.15.5 that's where they talk about infill on surface parking lots and the development agreement is referenced as infill and in the other policy 6.15.12. 1 think when you look at the -- the principle in Speaker Description difference is the geography and the requirement is clearly tied to the Integrated Conceptual Development Plan as a mandatory requirement_ So when you step outside of that area it may be viewed as an open- ended question to some and in our opinion we don't believe a development agreement is required based upon our reading of the policies. Chair Kramer: Commissioner Lawler? Lawler: Not related to the development agreement just a question before it because I know a lot of the public is going to speak. I also remember in the study session there was a lot of discussion about the retail or the lack thereof There was a lot of discussion certainly in the comment letters about a lot of passion for some of the existing retail. Did the Applicant make any effort since our study session to incorporate any more retail in the ground floor — because I certainly remember some of us discussing that — so did that come up at all just prior to the Applicant presenting? Campbell: The issue was discussed but the Applicant has made no changes to the project at this point in time. They may have a difference response today depending upon the Commission's input. From day one we've always thought additional retail in this project would be a good thing. The Applicant is looking to maximize the density and so they're looking to provide enough residential/commercial in their project site to call it a mixed use project. Provide a destination in that corner for the public and the residents. But the Applicant has made no changes so far to increase residential or I'm sorry retail. Chair Kramer: Okay. Zak: Back to the development agreement issue, I just want to make sure I understand what — so in the staff report, and maybe I'm just no following it properly, but the staff report it tants about the 550 units that are classified as additive units and those would be designated as infill units and projects with those would require development agreement. And then you're referencing the area within the boundary of Conceptual Plan — or where there's a conceptual plan required. You're saying that's really where the focus of infill is because of where you said you're redeveloping as parking lots and stuff and that was what the intent of the policy is. Ain I mixing something here when I'm talking about the additive units triggering the development agreement rather than just the location? Or are there two elements here? -10- Speaker Description Campbell: Yeah, I think there are two elements here. The additive units are only allowed in the Integrated Conceptual Development Plan as infill on surface parking lots, which means that they don't have to replace existing office development that's in that area. So that's a little bit different. Anywhere outside of that area or any other units beyond. the 5517 you actually have to take existing commercial or office or industrial uses down in order to do what we call replacement units. Zak: So this is getting pretty technical here, but what I want to make sure I understand that when you calculating the replacement units it's based on trip generation, right, the ratio of commercial being replaced with the housing? Campbell: That's correct. Zak: And so you are coming up with that they are allowed to have 284 replacement units that's commensurate with the existing commercial, correct? Campbell: That's correct. Zak: Did you the 55,277 square feet or what the limited — the development limit was for the site because there was an anomaly here they exceeded development limit to come up with the 284 units? Campbell: We used the existing development of 58 thousand -- I don't know the number offhand. Zak: 277 Campbell: 277. The difference between what they're providing and what they're taping down so we used that. Zak: Okay. Got it. Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure l understood that and I'm assuming there's a rationale why you'd use that because that's what exists even though the limit is 56,880. But my next question is the hundred units that they're getting the density bonus on 86 of which are in theory affordable units so those aren't considered additive units so all the trips that are being generated by those additional hundred units those aren't calculated as — those aren't considered additive units because they are providing affordable housing and getting that density bonus provision? Campbell: Yes. Per state law basically, a developer can ask for what's called the density bonus which are above and beyond ... -11- Speaker Description Zak: Absolutely.... Campbell: ... the General Plan ... Zak: ... yeah ... Campbell: ... will allow and so ... Zak: but those trips aren't — those trips don't um generate or trigger additive units at least for the net difference between 100 and the 86 affordable that they're ge — u --- units that they're providing on site? Campbell; Well, the units themselves are going to generate traffic, yes. So, it ... Zak: I know, but your formula for replacement units versus additive units is all based on how many units they're providing versus how much commercial's there. Now, they're adding 100 more units so that — that's where I'm really getting tripped upon on all this and why that's not considered additive units and therefore would require a development agreement. So, I'm struggling with that, but maybe that's just the way that you guys see the policy fitting -- the real problem here for me is this. Is that the Applicant started this process two years ago and they were given direction that they didn't need a development agreement and now here we are two years later and they spent a bunch of money and we're talking about this now and has a major impact on the project. So — I'll have more comments later. Kramer: Mr. Weigand, no? Yeah, I agree. I mean there's — there's a continuing problematic issues that you know, with this — with this application and particularly I think with this development agreement issue, you know. Commissioner Koetting? Koettxng: Yes. In — In — on a different stein, open space — can you take us through slowly the whole concept because this half -acre park almost doesn't do anything, it's there. It's like a — you know — urban mid -town Manhattan Park instead of someplace you can kick a ball and stuff. Is it really necessary? Could they pay more fees, use that land more effectively to soften setbacks, etc. as opposed to that strip of land and they didn't dedicate it, they want to make an easement. 'Valk us through that please — because they're paying a million — 1.25 as a fee or that half acre or an additional half acre. Campbell: The general plan requires based on a half an acre to be dedicated for public park purposes. -12- Speaker Description Koetting: Only half? Campbell: Only half an acre. Koetting: Okay. Campbell: In this case --- and we have the concept sketch of the General Plan and so the Applicant looked to provide that space here in the diagram above which is basically one-half of an acre. They also saw the pedestrian access as being a goal of the General Plan and so I think the Applicant is trying; to tonne close to adhering to that policy while still asking for a waiver and the General Plan policy does actually contemplate that specifically. And I think the rationale is is that this half an acre of space doesn't really meet the definition of a neighborhood park that's within our awn planning documents and so I think what they're trying to do is to balance that by well — we'll provide the open space, we'll provide the access but we're close — we're trying their best to adhere to the General Plan policy and then they're offering the value of that half an acre that they're not dedicating although they're providing the open space as further mitigation for the requested waiver. Koetting: Because on page 13, handwritten 13, the middle of page -- Staff refers to this as half acre open space is too small to accommodate desirable amenities that would qualify as neighborhood park so it's basically a walkway with — you know — additional improvements_ Campbell: Yeah the space is largely passive -- you know being an area that maybe for dogs to utilize and people to rest and recreate but it is nominally passive and you're right a half an acre — I suppose if it wasn't so linear P- there may be a place to put a tot lot in and maybe there's space to even do that as well —hut again it is — it doesn't really meet the definition of a neighborhood park that we inight like to see and it might be larger than that. Koetting: Thank you. Weigand: Mr Chair. to build onto that — the pedestrian walkway that goes across Martingale that you had on Figure LU23. Does that require Martingale to block off parking spaces reserved for that open space/park? Campbell: I don't believe ... Weigand: Because that's really pretty littered with parking from other neighboring. -13- Speaker Description Campbell: Yeah Martingale is pretty well impacted with street parking but the walkway would end at the public sidewalk there and we don't think we need to change it. Weigand: I think it's a red zone. Campbell: __. but we could look at that if it was necessary but we don't anticipate it now. Weigand: I'm just curious — the makeup of that in the future versus what it is today. Kramer: ©h can you explain it to me a little bit more. I think I understand but it — if there's not a waiver of dedication for the park the Applicant would have to be required to submit a lot line adjustment, right? Um — and the project would be redesigned and therefore it would reduce the number of units — is that right or not? Campbell: Maybe not a lot line adjustment but the density is calculated based upon the net acreage of the site and so if the half an acre is dedicated and therefore then is not included in the density calculation that would have the — it would reduce the density of the overall project_ Kramer: And what would that be? Campbell: I think the numbers are on the staff report and um -- I think it's the net reduction of 33 units. So by dedicating the park and reducing the net acreage, you have the effect of reducing the overall density by 33 units. Kramer: In likewise — I mean if the Commission couldn't make the findings for waiver of the setbacks and height. I mean — it's the same thing — that the Applicant would have to redesign the project, correct? Campbell: That's correct. Framer: Comissioner Zak? Zak: Just to add one of the— questions about the park. So why —I get it — I mean I get why they are retaining ownership of the park so that they could increase the density and — I understand it and they're paying 'in - lieu fee on top of that but why are they limiting the public access easement primarily to just the sidewalk and not the entire area. Campbell: I think that might a good question to put to the Applicant. I think they're concerned about security and maintenance i would assume but -14- Speaker Description they can address that question. Zak: Okay. Do you see the — question for staff — I mean do you see the difference in units that front that park versus units that front other sides of the project — I mean in terms of security? You got sidewalks all around a major street — I mean I don't — from a security standpoint — l'm not quite sure. I totally follow that logic — doesstaff? You know there are some — there are units that would — kind of front the park. We think that's an amenity — um they can be secured with fences and gates just as they would be otherwise — other sites but I think maybe the Applicant can address that. I know that was a concern that it's expressed to us and it may not be to those units but the overall security of the space. Zak: Okay. Chair Kramer: And getting back to one of the other remaining items is the traffic analysis so perhaps you could remind us again there wasn't -- what the Planning Commission thought would be reasonable in this case given the size of the project to do additional park, traffic analysis. Why was that not done? Brine: Well we touched on this I think in the study session. Essentially, when the credits are given for the existing onsite land uses and then you look at the proposed project, there's actually for the TPC], there's a reduction in average daily trips of approximately 1,000 daily trips and then even for the CEQA analysis there's an increase in 200 approximately daily trips but in each case they don't hit the threshold for doing a detailed traffic study and that in essence was the conclusion. Chair Kramer: But given the sensitivity of these projects, why wouldn't you decide on the error of caution and do the analysis anyway? Brine: Well, essentially again, the TPC] doesn't require the study and so we're not — we don't have to do a traffic study in this case and some instances with this project the peak hour trips were less in some instances. The AM peak hour tips were greater but there's nothing in this area that would indicate that we would see with a detailed traffic study — an impact at the intersection for example — many of the intersections in the Airport Area are not close to the failure so I wouldn't see even if we did a detailed study I wouldn't expect an impacted result. Kramer: Any other questions from staff? Okay. Let's open the public hearing. Does the Applicant have a presentation? -15- Speaker I Description I Jensen: Chairman Krasner, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Britnae Jensen, Pm the Development Manager for Newport Place Residential and it's my pleasure to be here before you tonight to once again present the Residences at Newport Place project. Here with me, I have present our architect, our civil engineer, our Iandscape architect and as well the property owner. I'll 'briefly reiterate some of the main points of the project that Rosalinh has already presented. The project site is 5.7 acres — currently occupied by the MacArthur Square Shopping Center site, The mixed-use proposed development with 4 levels of apartments over a level and a half for the subterranean parking, approximately 715 parking spaces and 5,677 square feet of ground floor retail space, 384 apartment units, including 86 affordable units will be complying — will be incorporated into the project, the total unit mix breaks down as 54 studio units, 173 1 -bedroom, 135 2 -bedroom, and 21 3 -bedroom units. The overall building footprint-to-landscapeopen space percentage I think is very remarkable in this project. We're providing 55% landscaping or open space to only 45% building footprintas you can see in the site plan. This generally isn't the case. You can also see that the building has been broken up into 4 distinct buildings that provide open pathways, running north to south and east, west. We also provide plenty of open space — not only on the podium but within the ground floor as well. On the ground floor, there's access to the retail component at the corner of Dove and Scott. There's also access to the ground floor residential units and garage and the access to the open space that's being proposed. Below the ground floor is the second level of subterranean parking — which includes residential -only parking and storage spaces for the residential use. At this point, I'd like to switch gears and discuss some of the conunents and concerns that were raised in the previously held study session. One of the big comments or topics of conversation was the development agreement. I think it's important to point out the distinction in this project, especially when discussed in relation to previously -approved projects. With respect to Newport Place pursuant to General Plan Section Land Use 6.15.12, we are not utilizing additive units per the definition of the General Plan_ Pursuant to Municipal Code section 154524(a)(2), we're not requesting or needing a General Plan amendment, a Zoning Code amendment or a legislative action. Other items that could trigger a development agreement discussion would include the recordation of a subdivision map or the request of vested entitlement rights which we are not pursuing or requesting due to the short construction timeframe and completion of the project that's anticipated. Per -- I'm sorry — one of the other comments made during the study session was in reference to the overall project architecture — with this project we are not subject to any architectural design guidelines or architectural design review process Iffol Speaker Description but we did feel it was important to address any architectural concerns that were raised. Quickly going over the overall architecture of the project which has been modified fiorn the study session., starting at the corner of Dove Street, moving along to the frontage on Scott, continuing to the corner of Scott and Corinthian, along to the corner of Corinthian and Martingale, the frontage along Martingale Way which includes a residential -only garage entrance and finally the end of the project at the Martingale Way cul-de-sac and the entry to the open space. We think that the most important thing to point out regarding the architecture is the fact that we are going to be incorporating high quality calors and materials. 1 would ask one of my team members at this point to pass around the colors and the materials board so that you as the Commissioners can take a look at the types of the colors and materials being incorporated within the project. The quality materials that we're including include stone veneer, not only on the first floor of the project at streetscape, but also continuing up the building in certain areas,lie inclusion of fabric awnings, metal railings, window treatments and store fronts, planters, pavers and the choice of planting material. The duality has been achieved not only in the materials themselves but in how the material will be executed that represent the attention and articulation to high quality. Some of the inclusions within the podium area of the projects, including areas of enhanced paving, enhanced landscaping, this is up on the podium the entry to the pool, the central pool courtyard from Martingale Way. Here you can see the pool terrace, including the double volume ceiling height clubhouse and cabanas — we also are including 2 spas. Again here, this is the close-up version of the double volume ceiling clubhouse. We're also including something very unique to this project that we're very excited about which is an open air rooftop terrace on the top floor at the corner of Scott and Dove. This will allow residents an area to lounge, an area to barbecue and an area to enjoy watching the planes land and take off from John Wayne. Here, you can see another view of that open air courtyard — it overlooks the central pool terrace and we think it's a very unique feature to the project. Here, we have some landscape imagery that shows you the types of planting material and amenities that will be included within the project's enhanced items, such as pottery, plenty of lounge seating and cabanas within the pool area. We actually have included some night-time views to give you some distinction in the — what you're seeing. Here, we're articulating the corner of Scott and Corinthian. 1 think it's important to point out the level of detail, even on the highest levels of the building with respect to the architecture treatments. This enlarged elevation shows you a typical use where the materials that you're seeing on the board in front of you would be utilized. The fabric canopies, the vinyl glass doors, the metal railings and the stone veneer all add. quality -17- Speaker Description material and interest to the project. We've also canvased the area to look for similar projects to 2D renderings tend not to make it very obvious what this would ultimately look like. The Carlyle while very drastically different in architecture represents the closes residential development within Newport Beach. We've also included Villa Sienna which is located at the corner of Jamboree and Michelson which some of you may be familiar with has a very similar style of architecture and includes many of the enhanced quality materials that our project proposes. There you can see the arched entry ways -- very similar to what our project is including, the metal railings, the enhanced stone veneer and the stucco treatment. I think one other important point to bring up and will — I'll go into more detail about this later -- is the fact that from this perspective it appears as though the roof of this building is a single height. When you actually change the view, you can also see on the Village at Irvine Spectrum from down that street level, the roof appears to be... Kramer: Hold on — please hold on a second — you know I can't lose a quorum here sorry. Jensen: No — it's okay. Kramer: Erik, you need to come back. Okay, go ahead sorry. Jensen: That's okay. The Village at Irvine Spectrum provides another comparison of a point I will bring up later with regard to building height. This also includes enhanced quality materials that are going to be extremely similar to what we're demonstrating within our project. Here, along the retail component of the Village at Irvine Spectrum, you can see the stone veneer, the canvas awnings and the wrought iron railings on the windows above. The pool courtyard of our project very similarly matches another development, the Village at Irvine Spectrum. Here, you can see the enhanced treatments — very similar to what we will also provide. One of the other items of topic from the Planiung Commission study session was the overall building heights and setbacks. This illustration shows the overall building heights for the area. Our minimum building height is 55 feet 6 inches. We have intermediate heights of 63 feet 5 inches which are the top floor residential units where the architect has chosen to enhance the residences by — I'm sorry — increasing the ceiling height. We have a maximum height of 69 foot 11 inches in the areas bound in blue. Those are the areas where loft units have been incorporated to provide another area of visual interest within the project. Along the entire project, the maximum height reaches 79 feet. The areas bound in red are the tower E Speaker Description elements that are the areas that reach that maximum height. The purpose of these tower elements are to provide fire access to the flat roof,to help to disguise some of the mechanical equipment necessary for elevators and air conditioning units but as you can see for the total building area the percentage of the maximum height is less than 3.5%. We've created sections to demonstrate where those different heights occur within the project. At the corner of Scott and Doge, where the retail component is situated, the maximum ceiling on that is 46 feet. Continuing along to an area along Martingale, we have 55 feet l l inches as demonstrated which shows the 2 garage areas and the 4 residential stories above that. This section demonstrates the areas in which the ceiling height on the 4th floor retail — residential units was increased to 12 feet and the cavity space between that ceiling height and the peak of the roof is 7 feet 7 inches and lastly as far as residential, we have the areas where the loft units were integrated there is a 9 -foot clearance on the loft units with a 6 -foot, 11 -inch cavity. This here shows the section at the tower element. It introduces what we think is very important to point out — those higher areas provide fire access to the fire department, to the flat roof section of the project. Here, we're demonstrating the areas of different heights. At the corner, where the retail -- I'm sorry — where the retail component is introduced, we have a height of 46 feet. The next highest would be 55, continuing on to 63, 69 and the tower elements in the distance are at the maximum height of 79 feet. Koetting: Excuse me. Koetting: Hold on a second. Koetting: I'd like to ask a question. Jensen: Sure. Koetting: Right here — explain what is going on — I see the orangish building, 1, 2, 3 levels_ Jensen: Uh huh Koetting: Tell us — is that retail... Jensen: Sorry. Koetting: Do you have a cross section? Jensen: The cross section of — I'm sorry — the orange. Speaker Description Koetting: Well tell us what's happening. I assume the restaurant or retail ... Jensen: Uh huh. Koetting: ... will be on the ground. Jensen: Correct. Koetting: What's — there looks like 2 levels and a loft above it — is that correct? What's going on in those levels? .lensen: So on the ground floor at the comer of Scott and Dove, we do have the retail introduced. I'm actually going to flip back a couple of sections to demonstrate that area for you. We have some community space that's introduced above that includes a club house. We also have a fitness area on the P floor and that 0 floor will incorporate that rooftop terrace. Koetting: Thank you. Jensen: Moving on to the setbacks that have been modified for the project. We wanted to ensure that the project provided a walkable neighborhood feel. The City has an existing 10 -foot right-of-way that would be in addition to the 30 -foot setback from the property line. That would mean if we had adhere to the 30 -foot setback, we would have 40 feet from curb to the building. In order to make sure that we're not creating an isolated remote residential island and we're introducing more of a walkable neighborhood and encouraging this is to be more an inclusionary part of the residence — oh I'm sorry of the surrounding uses — we have requested the modified setbacks. Along Dove, the setbacks vary from 26 feet to 29 feet from the property line which would be 36 feet to 39 feet from the curb. Here, we have the visualization of what that would look like. As you can see, it still allows for a generous amount of landscaping but promotes the walkability to the existing sidewalks surrounding the project. Continuing to Scott, the setbacks vary from 24 feet to 30 feet. From the property line, 34 feet to 40 feet from the street. Here's the visualization of this area. Again, providing some privacy for the residential units on the ground floor but still incorporating the project within the surrounding vicinity as a whole. Corinthian Way, the shortest distance between the setbacks is setback 18 feet to — I'm sorry 18 feet the entire run of the street which is 28 feet from the curb. We have included stoops along this area to promote the walkability in connection to the surrounding street. And finally Martingale with a setback of 20 feet, 30 feet from the street, here's the visualization. 'Those setback along this area does allow us to -20- Speaker Description incorporate as many of the existing mature trees that are onsite as possible. Our intent is to keep as many of those possible during the construction and after the project completion. The open space area has also been a topic of conversation with regard to the project. We feel that we are meeting the intents of the layout for this open space area. We recognize and agree with staff that it doesn't fit the true definition of a neighborhood park. We have provided, both passive and active, recreational opportunities within this open space. We've introduced a great lawn area that could be utilized for either or, passive or active, and are also considering incorporating more active uses, such as a Bocce ball court or tether ball area, but with the layout and the spacing, it is somewhat limited. Here, we have another view of this open space from the cul-de-sac at Martingale and the adjacent parking lot. We are proposing and requesting that the open space be fenced with decorative tubularsteel fencing and gated beyond daylight hours for the security of the residents. In this visualization, we are not showing landscape buffering along the tubular steel fencing but it is our intent to introduce that buffer so that anyone utilize this open space is not staring into the adjacent parking lot and looking at all of the parked cars. We have a couple of other visuals of this open space area including the stoops within this area. We will ensure that privacy and security of those units will occur. The fencing and gating of the open space beyond daylight hours will help the project to ensure that that does not become an issue. Here, we have a nighttime view of the open space and a second. Retail space within the areas a definite concern that was raised in the previous Planning Commission public hearing --- oh I'm sorry — study session and has been raised by the responses the staff has received. One of the things that we feel is important to point out is that we are not required to provide retail space but we do feel it is important to provide that. The existing site is comprised of 8 separate buildings. The redevelopment of the project would eliminate the existing inventory of retail space. As you can see, over 59% of the retail is comprised of restaurant and food service -- with the other uses including medical and dental, nail and hair salons, liquor stores, fitness and dance studios, dry cleaning establishments, specialty retail and general office. One of the things that was analyzed after the study session with you was the availability of similar uses of this type within the area. When this analysis was performed, it was determined that the area actually includes a surplus of retail. What you can see from this diagram is on existing dining establishment, it ranges from fast food to quality dining. It includes over 45 restaurant uses within a half -mile radius of the project. This does not include any of the existing uses that would be removed as part of the redevelopment. I'll let you give me the signal when you're ready for me to click on. Additionally, we surveyed the area for other existing -21- Speaker Description retail and services — things that you would generally see incorporated within the retail component of a mixed use project of this type. Anything from medical and dental uses to veterinary services, dry cleaning, pharmacies, hair and nail salons, car washes, fitness studios, convenience stores. As you can see the area is populated with a num — a numerous amount of those uses and in some cases a multitude of the same use. For example, we have 3 car washes, we have 3 dry cleaning establishments. We have 5 nail and hair salons, all within that half -mile radius. We also have gone out and done some corninunity outreach to the existing businesses within that half -mile radius. We felt that it was important to ensure that they felt comfortable with the inclusion of the residential and felt that additional retail would not be beneficial. One of the reasons that we, as an Applicant and as a development, have chosen not to introduce more retail is it concerns us in that we don't want to create a situation for blight, were we introduce retail that lies vacant or introduces a use that cannot sustain itself. We feel that the surrounding businesses will benefit from anyone who would have utilized the existing retail — say the dry cleaning or the hair salon — now utilizing the other business in the area that provide the same services so I do have urn, if you'd like them, the copies of the petition that was signed by the surrounding businesses but at this time I welcome any comments or questions from you Commissioners. Kramer: Thank you. Any questions from Commission for the Applicant. Commissioner Zak? Zak: First on the park issue — you know when we add the study session and then where — I actually subsequently met with the Applicant and went through their plans and provided some recommendations and at that point in time I didn't — I didn't have a full appreciation that the you're retaining ownership of the park or the open space area I should say — in order to increase your density. With that said and kind of— and then I. also didn't have an appreciation for that — that there is just a public access easement over the -- just the sidewalk portion of the area and I know you're paying an in -lieu fee on top of that so but you know you've got some really wide — inherently wide areas around the property cause there's already a large right-of-way that you're landscaping and then the additional setback. I know there's setback variances but you've got units fronting all those streets and then you've got units fronting the open space so I'm just ... I'm trying to understand why you want to enclose this open space area and why you wouldn't expand the public accesses easement over the — the entire open space area. -22- Speaker Description Jensen: Um — the reason that we're looking to enclose the public open space — I'll actually flip back to one of the views — it would be open to the general public during daylight hours. Um — one of our main concerns with respect to enclosing that is the security of the residents beyond daylight hours. The surrounding uses are all comprised of office uses and retail that generate business from 9 to 5 say. Zak: What is the difference between those units that front the open space and the units that front other perimeters of the project — on the ground floor? Jensen: With respect to security, they will have the same level of security. We're going to ensure that that's taken care of. One of the other reasons that we had for enclosing this open space beyond daylight hours is the fact that we would prefer to maintain and secure that area after dark ourselves. We don't want to put the impotence on the City's police department if something were to occur in that space. There's really not any reason for that space to be utilized after dark, public parks and spaces within the City are generally closed after daylight hours, as a general rule anyways so there's really not with the exception of residents, any reason for the space to be open for use beyond, in our opinion, beyond daylight hours. Including that tubular steel fencing and gating, also helps to discourage crass lot travel between the adjacent office use with their surface parking lot and our development. As it currently stands, there is no fencing the existing sites and generally people traveling — that were traveling that retail area were traveling through the parking lot so we believe that it would be the preference of the adjacent office building to have that physical barrier. Zak: Look I — if you weren't using the — this open space area to increase your density, I think I'd be way more receptive to having the fence around it and closing it at night. Well this is just my opinion but we can -- I'm sure Commissioners have other questions. Krasner: Commissioner Weigand? Weigand: I want to keep on this slide cause it's important — that's Martingale — you show that as a 2 -lane in each direction there but it ... I'm just pulling up Google Earth here — it's just a single lane and it's littered with cars up and down and then I counted 5 access points from the surrounding businesses to going out — this street seems like a mess. Once you — if you're going to have — that's the main resident entrance right there on that street, correct? Jensen: The uh — -23- Speaker Description Weigand: That's for residents only okay. Jensen: If the resident only address — oh I'm sorry -- entrance. We do have 2 other entrances off of Dove and Scott that will be residential and a visitor. Weigand: What would be the percentage of the residents that will be entering off of this street? Jensen: I believe — it actually would be the smallest percentage of the 3. The most highly traveled streets surrounding the project are Dove and Scott. We are anticipating traffic both from the 73 and the 405 and believe that most residents would travel, via Birch or Campus to Dove and would utilize the Scott or Dove entries. Weigand: Maybe coming in but coming out to leave — I think it's going to be a heavy traffic area and all there is a stop sign at the end then merges you onto that street. I — I have great concern with the amount of cars coming in and out from the businesses. I drove this a couple of times just to kind of get my bearings at different times of the day there and I — if they're going to have pedestrian access corning from the park there — it seems very likely that someone's — one going to hit — and I was driving around there and I almost got hit by several cars and I'm you know I'm a pretty good driver, I hope but it just seems like a mess in that area there and I have some concerns. Your diagrams look great but they're certainly not that wide and there are certainly no cars on the street parking and every time I've been there that street is just completely littered so ... Jensen: We actually share your concern about the existing parking situation on Martingale. Urn — if we had our choice — there wouldn't be parking necessarily. Weigand: Yeah but that's a business area and these are probably cars that are part of the businesses that are surrounding the community, Jensen. We actually did a parking survey and we had our staff out in the area, starting at 6 a.m. to analyze who was parking along Martingale and where their end destination was, 90% of the parking that's occurring on Martingale currently is due to a rental car establishment off of Birch. Weigand: These don't look like rental cars to me here.. Jensen: It's the employees of the rental car establishment parking there and walking to their business. -24- Speaker Description Weigand: So every one of the rental car companies in John Wayne Airport? Jensen: No, it is a single rental car's business that their employees are parking there and then walking to the business. Weigand: That's a lot of cars. Jensen: We would — it is. It's 34 cars that are parked there on average and we share that concern and we actually would aim to work with staff to come up with a resolution that would work for everyone involved, . including the surrounding businesses — whether that be parking spaces that are limited by time or metered parking. Something to help alleviate the existing congestion that's out in that area. Weigand: Your residents will also be parking there too or their guests. Jensen: We have designated guest spaces. Weigand: You do. Jensen: And assigned residential ... Weigand: But that doesn't mean that they're not going to be parked there. Jensen: Correct, which we feel in working with staff you know either a time- limited parking situation or a metered parking situation would help to dissuade that and alleviate the existing congestion that's occurring. Weigand: That just costs staff more money and put more employees to enforce it. Weigand: Okay so at the north end, 1 noticed some of the landscaping — I think I answered my question but there's plenty of places if you're at the north end if you --- you will be allowing dogs at this — for residents to have? Jensen: Yes we would. Weigand: Will there be adequate spaces for them to walk their dogs, you'd encourage them internally or externally, and would you encourage them at this open space area? Jensen: We would encourage internally and externally. We've also incorporated lawn spaces up on the podium, as well as various courtyards and we would encourage people to utilize the open space for pets. We would have the proper amenities in place to ensure that cleanup occurs accordingly. But we have maintained the setbacks with the thought in mind that their pets are welcome in this development and -25- Speaker Description we do want to promote walking — the resident pets surrounding the area. Weigand: But will you promote it more in the open space area — the part that the public would — or would you kind of exclude that cause you know that's one thing I wouldn't really want to do is go to an open space or if I was a surrounding tenant and then that's the only main place the people are taking their dogs. Jensen: There are no plans to incorporate a dog park within the open space. Weigand: And then — another statement you made that you had a short time frame on this — like what you know if we approve it how fast would you be you know starting to get the ... Jensen: Our staff is ready to be permit ready within 5 months and from the start of construction we expect the duration of construction to be less than 2 years. Weigand: So starting within 2 years? Jensen: Both completion — within 2 years of when the permits are pulled. Weigand: Because you have one Applicant — or one person who leases in there that has a lease of over a year — is that correct? Jensen: Correct. Male: So how are you working to mitigate that with the business? Jensen: The property owner has been working with the tenants to mitigate the leases. That is still an ongoing discussion and something that will occur once the approval or once entitlement has completed. It's something that they're having ongoing discussion with the tenant regarding. Weigand: Now who — who are your staff has been doing that? Jensen: That's the property owner himself. Weigand: Oh really — that's interesting cause I asked a couple of the businesses there and they haven't had any communication with him yet so ... Jensen: Maybe — he has his staff here and I'm not sure if he would like to respond to that. Weigand: Yeah cause I met with one of your consultants — former Councilman Rasinsky and I brought up that issue and he said he was going to try to -26- Speaker Description look into that and 1 hadn't heard back from thein and when I talked to some of the owners just recently — just this Tuesday — they have yet to talk to the owner.. Jensen: Um some... Weigand: They put in repeated phone calls — they've been trying to work on this since this since this came with our study session and other so you know Jensen: Some of the existing leases are month-to-month. Male: But one is at least over a year. Jensen: Correct. Weigand: And then one other area that I had and I think this was addressed in the other project but the residents -- their children will be going to Santa Ana Unified School District, Jensen: As the District boundaries lie — yes. Weigand: So if you had any conversation with City staff or with the school districts or with the ether property that is going online to try to come up with the solution to that to try to see if we can get these children to come to Newport Mesa Schools. Jensen: We have had conversation with the school district and we are going to be processing through the application to try to have the property annexed from Santa Ana Unified School District and included within the Newport Mesa School District. As to — where we are on that — it hasn't gotten much further than ... Weigand: Very difficult. Jensen: ... just the discussion at this point. Weigand: Sure. No, I understand. Kramer: It's a rather difficult process. Weigand: Yeah, it's very much so. Framer: So where is the local school — both on a elementary and high school? Jensen: For Santa Ana Unified School. District, both elementary and high school are located north of the 55 Freeway from our location. -27- Speaker Description Kramer: Well what's the — yeah I - but what's the name of the school? And what's — and how far is that in terms of distance? Jensen. Let me see if I have that. The elementary school is Taft School — off of Keller Street. The intermediate school is Douglas MacArthur Fundamental and that's off of West Alton Avenue and the high school would either be Segerstrom High School, off of MacArthur, or Saddleback High School off of Flower. Kramer: So Tony did you include all these additional trips? They're going to be generated due to these schools being so far away, busses, things like that. Brine: No we didn't get into the level of detail on school traffic. Kramer: Doesn't that have an impact on things? Brine: Well, fundamentally, when you're doing a — the traffic analysis and you're looking at trip generation for residential it — that would take into account all types of traffic associated with the residential or if it's trips to shopping and school and work. It's all factored into the trip generation. Weigand: Can I just — I'm almost done. Kramer: Sure, go ahead. Weigand: And to build on that — will you be giving proper notice to the residents when they sign their lease that they know that they're getting into the Santa Ana Unified School District, not Newport Mesa Schools? Jensen: Not if it is the condition of approval — yes we will make sure ... Weigand: But you would accept if I made a condition that said you must disclose that upfront? Jensen: Yes. Now the project is — required to provide additional disclosures with respect to the airport so that would be included with that packet that's provided to residents. Chair Kramer: Mr. Koetting? Koetting: Britnae, let's go back to the 5,677 square foot — you call it retail space. I think it was described as a restaurant. Jensen: Over 50%. i Speaker Description Koetting: What are you planning? That's a — rather large restaurant in that kind of a location so I'm curious. Are you looking at maybe a smaller restaurant and some service retail down there? Jensen: Uh-huh. Koetting: What's the plan? Jensen: The design of the space currently is l singular quality restaurant use and the reason that it's laid out that way was per staff's recommendation that quality restaurant use has the highest traffic and parking requirement so we wanted to ensure that regardless of what use went into the retail space — whether it was broken down into smaller uses and multiple uses or remained as one large use that we were including enough parking so the design of it currently shows as a quality restaurant. One use to allow us to provide the maximum amount of parking that would be required per the Code. With respect to how ultimately that retail space will layout, it has not been determined that this point. It's a discussion that will happen with the property owner once the entitlement has occurred and it largely would be represented by what tenants would be interested in occupying the spaces. Again, it's a bit premature for him to obligate himself to a certain use or a certain business at this point and in the juncture but there's no reason that that space could not be broken down into multiple uses if that that what demand dictates. Koetting: And then a follow-up, I didn't see the graphic and I think you have one showing the retail restaurant parking, how they come in and go out and guest parking. Could you show us that graphic. .Jensen: Sure. Actually, Rosalyn if you wouldn't mind pulling up the supplemental PDF that is the access and circulation that more clearly demonstrates the access in and out of the project for both residents and visitors, as well as retail. As you can see here, the blue indicates the pedestrian circulation from the surrounding sidewalk. The orange indicates the vehicular circulation. The entries off of Dove Street and Scott Drive will be publicly accessible for visitors of the residents', visitors of the retail establishment and residential. The Martingale vehicular access will be restricted and gated for resident's use only. On the left-hand side towards the resident — I'm sorry the restaurant component — you can see that we've included restaurant parking. We have included 71 parking spaces for that restaurant or retail use, separate from the guest parking and residential. -29- Speaker Description Koetting: So haw do you separate it? Obviously the restaurant and guest parking come and go. There's no gate or code or anything? Jensen: Dight. Illustrated here, if you're able to zoom in just a tiny bit Rosalyn. We have a purple line running down the center of this graphic that shows the gating and access that separates the tenant parking frorn the guest and restaurant parking. So there will be fencing and gating along that purple indication line that will allow residents to pass through but not allow guests or restaurant patrons to enter that portion of the parking structure. Koetting: Okay, then shrink this a little for me. Make it smaller so we can see the perimeter of the building. Right, yeah. So coming back to Mr. Zak on the bottom it says "residential" are these at grade level? Jensen: Those are ... Koetting: Pardon me and on Scott and a little bit on Martindale. Jensen: The residential component that's introduced on both the open space area on Scott and on Corinthian are all elevated from the surrounding street by five feet. This allows to provide privacy to those units and introduce the stoops that provide the connectivity from the podium ... or I'm sorry from those residents to the surrounding sidewalks. Koetting: That's all I have for the moment. . Chair Kramer: Surprising. We're not grilling you or anything are we? I don't want you to feel that way. Jensen: It's not 41h of July yet. I'll come back for that. Chair Kramer: You're doing a very good job Britnae. Jensen: Thank you. Chair Kramer: Anyone else? Okay. I think at this point then you can step down and we'll open it up to the general public comments. So I'll invite speakers to come forward. You have a three minute limit and please fill out the speaker card. Dennis Baker: Chairman Kramer and Commissioners my name is Dennis Baker. I have an office a couple blocks from here down on [wail and Birch. So I just have a couple of comments that I wanted to make. So one of the things kind of... there was a reference to the traffic in the area and she -30- Speaker Description made a reference to a. I believe that Birch would not ... they didn't anticipate Birch would be use a lot_ Birch is used quite heavily in the early ... at the work hours both ways. In fact it can be very difficult even getting out my of parking lot on to Birch because everyone's going down to get on the 73 and the traffic hacks up there. More of an observation. The biggest concern I have is on the park. So this is one project and this is one piece of space and there's one park that's not going to be made but as was shown earlier there's an overlay, which means that the current businesses are going to be going away. In fact a lot of the businesses that were referenced in the diagram to say there's all these businesses here and the little dots and so on ... a lot of those businesses are going to go away as a result of additional residential that's coming into the area. 5o if we start out right away now with well you don't have to put a park in and then the next one comes in well you don't have to ... we're going to let you off, too. Pretty soon you're going to have a lot of residences and you're going to look back and you've given away the parr space. So I do have a very strong concern about the idea of allowing a development to come in. The General Plan says there should be some public park space associated with that and we're going to not have that. So I'm really concerned about the precedent. Thank you Joe Finnell: My name is Joe Finnell and I'm president of the Southern California Pilots Association. We have over 1,300 members and a lot of them actually fly in and out of John Wayne Airport. What I'd like to do is present to you some evidence that this is probably a very bad idea to have this many residents this close to the airport. And I've got some good data to show you or to explain to you why I feel that way. Number one, the noise itself is of course inherent and this facility is actually going to be very close to the left hand runway ... runway ZO Left out of John Wayne Airport. All of the takeoffs — virtually all of the takeoffs out of that airport will fly directly over this residential area and that'll be anywhere from about 300 to 600 feet above sea level. So you're really talking about low flying aircraft over the residential area. One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that a propeller driven airplane has a very loud and raspy sound as it comes because of the propeller tips are actually reaching sonic speed upon take -off power. So the amplified noise of that particular sound really carries a long ways and it's something that you'd have a lot of complaints from the residents. Right away they'd want to close the airport, obviously, which is not going to happen. The thing that a lot of people don't realize is that any aircraft, anybody, any kind of aircraft that flies over an area emits particles. You're going to have exhaust particles which consist of soot and oil and this falls down on the residents below. It's inherent _31 Speaker Description with aircraft and it's something we've had ever since the Wright Brothers. So it's something that you need to take into consideration. ,You're going to have some very very unhappy tenants if you have a bunch of people moving in with airplanes flying over. I monitored this with software that John Wayne Airport provides. It's right on the internet and you can do it yourself. You can monitor the air traffic and I looked at that yesterday at about 1:15 in the afternoon — I looked at it for about 20 minutes and over that period I had about eight to 1.0 airplanes that I could see taking off from the left runway. Every one of them virtually flew directly over the area that you are proposing to build this high density residential area. I think— and I can present the data— in fact Fred just gave you a map of one the data of the aircraft that I monitored. So if you have any questions about that I'd be happy to talk to you about it. Koetting: Is that the blue plane on there? Finnell: I beg your pardon. Koetting: A blue plane. Finnell: Yeah, it's a part of the software. Actually it has three different colors of aircraft there flying over. One that for departures and then one for arrivals. The blues are the arrivals. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Finnell: Yeah, and a good number of the aircraft that use the left runway are student pilots so there's a lot of traffic that is consistent throughout the day ... any day that you have VFR flying conditions you'll see them out practicing. Chair Kramer: Okay, thank you very much. Finnell: Yeah, okay. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Next? Fred Forshey: I'm Fred Forshey, a resident of Corona del Mar. I've lived here in Newport Beach for 40 years. I have a business over at MacArthur and Von Karman and I'm also a property owner of 4340 Von Karman, which is part of the Koll Center Newport. The development that's in- fill of our parking lots in the Koll Center area has me concerned and just simply increasing; the density is also a big issue to me. As a property owner and as a business owner in the area we do have a lot of traffic -32- Speaker Description that is starting to build up and as more and more of the residential from the Irvine area moves in just moving up and down Jamboree especially at around five o'clock you have multiple turns of the lights to get through. Even from Von Farman where my office is here just to get on to MacArthur is multiple turns of the light to get on to MacArthur Boulevard. So as we start seeking this traffic increase you know I understand that the studies are saying we don't need to look into this because you know residential is less, I don't buy it. There is this thing that you know live where you work and it kind of cancels the traffic out. Myself I have no employees that live anywhere in the area. I don't know any other business owner in the area that has employees that live in some of this development so my biggest concern here is the overall traffic impact of what it's going to do in the area and also just the density —they're just moving more density. We like our business park and you know the Planning Commission is planning on doing all this but they haven't really talked to the business owners in the area, they haven't talked to the building owners in the area. I've never been approached by anybody saying; this is what we're going to do we're going to take your parking lot and turn it into condos or apartments. As far as the aircraft are concerned you know just in general putting that much residential next to an airport is just a bad idea. It's just not a great place from you know you show in the diagrams people sitting on their balconies talking to each other. You can't do that, planes fly over and disrupts their conversation. Especially the left hand traffic pattern that flies straight over this area of this development here those planes are coming over at just 100 to 200 feet right over top of that development. So their sky deck they'll be able to literally reach up and touch those planes. Anyway I just am just against the idea of increasing the development or the density in the area, the traffic in the area, and putting residents in an area that should be zoned commercial. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thank you. John Santry: Hello, my name is John Santry. I live at 400 Carlotta, Newport Beach. I'm representing Shopotf Realty Investments. We sent you a letter to the Chairman and Commissioners outlining some of our objectives here. Really we're all in favor of the redevelopment of the Airport Area in Newport Beach. This is the place to put new residential. Obviously it was passed in the General Plan update in 2006. Our only grievance is we'd like to see all the developers in the area held to the same standards and it be equitable and fair. Chair Kramer: Thank you. -33- Speaker Description Jan Hollis: Good evening and thank you for your consideration. My name is Jan Hollis and I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for the Radisson Hotel in Newport Beach. I'm here representing Pacific Hotel Management doing business as Radisson Hotel Newport Beach. Basically we ... this is the first we have heard. We have not been approached. We are with the addition of the Fairmont — we are the largest producer of City tax, and as a business a little over a million and a half per year. The owner has owned the property since 2003 and the rationale — and we have several — but the rationale for our opposing this position is that the restaurants — some who have been at this center for many years — serve the business complexes as well as the hotel guests which occupy a little over a thousand hotel rooms in the immediate area. The MacArthur Square food and beverage options along with other businesses located in the Square represent viable selling features to groups, business travelers and airline crews who request and require walkable food and beverage options in their RFPs. This Square must remain a retail center that features restaurants and other business options necessary to serve the local business complexes and our hotel. To remove these current options and replace them with yet another residential complex would literally offer no walkable options to local business associates or hotel guests that require these services. We believe a residential complex would have a negative effect on both the hotels and the local businesses. In terms of traffic congestion, we offer shuttle to our hotel guests as an amenity. We also shuttle the airline crews that we do business with and we are bound by FAA regulations to get them to the airport on time. We also just recently landed a very large contract crew that represents $8 million dollars a year revenue for the hotel. They looked at the City of Costa Mesa and Anaheim and chose Newport Beach and our area because it is a commercial and it's quiet. So there is a noise factor in terms of an international crew. They are day sleepers. So those people sleep during the day and with this residential complex located literally right next to the hotel we feel it would have an impact as far as that noise is concerned. So thank you for your time. We wanted again to share our concerns with you as a business. Our owner again has owned this hotel since 2003 in the City of Newport Beach. We also are members of Visit Newport Beach. I am on the marketing committee for Visit Newport Beach so we are a very goad Newport Beach citizen and we bring a lot of revenue in for the City. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Dorothy Kraus: Good evening Chair Kramer and Commissions. My name is Dorothy Kraus and tonight I'm speaking on behalf of SPOI''+l (Still Protecting Our _34_ Speaker Description Newport). You may have seen SPON's letter in your agenda packet but I'd like to highlight a few of our concerns from the letter. We request that before taking action on the Residences at Newport Place or any other project for the airport area that the Planning Commission and City Council initiate a specific area plan or a comprehensive plan for this area and here are our reasons. First of all, there is a lack of comprehensive planning for what was anticipated in the 2005 General Plan for the Airport Area. The number of residential units was established in that plan, but the placement and design was left entirely for future determination. As it is the projects are being prepared on a piecemeal basis starting with Uptown Newport and now the residences at Newport Place. The project are very large and because of underground parking change the characteristic of the neighborhood significantly. On ground parking is being eliminated along with some retail opportunities that are needed by area businesses which we just heard a moment ago from this lady. Another concern is that the area has no cohesive planning for nearby amenities for restaurants such as a grocery store. Any complete neighborhood concept presumes a mixed use development and should include neighborhood parks, green space, pedestrian ways that are not parking lots, 30 foot setbacks from the curb, retail amenities, and community amenities to sustain, to truly sustain a work/live environ hent. Business owners are concerned about loss of parking, more traffic and other amenities being lost. The area needs a street scape plan such as that being; developed for the West Newport Mesa area, which is next coming up on your agenda tonight, so that there are appropriate setbacks, walkability, greenery, and a good feeling of neighborhood ambience. Without an overall plan each project will be taken up individually, sorne subject to a public vete under greeniight, some subject to lawsuits and even referenda. A cohesive plan would allow for properly planned use of public benefit funds that could benefit the area and encourage the right infrastructure like schools and facilities appropriate for that area. The Airport Area is an important part of our community and should be taken seriously as other planning areas. SPON's request is that you not take action, any action, on the proposed Residences at Newport Place tonight. The character of the airport should be carefully defined and the impact of intergrading residential within commercial zones should be understood prior to approving new projects. Thank you very much. Chair Kramer. Thank you. John Petry: Good evening, my name is John Petry. I am a resident of Newport Beach and I have an office at 1000Quail Street and a lot of what I'm saying, and I'll say it quickly, reiterates and supports what was 1910 Speaker I Description I previously said. First of all I'd like to compliment Britnae on the fact that I've never — for rooftop dining for the residents — rooftop dining I've never heard of that as the pleasure of watching planes take off and land at John Wayne Airport. I mean it's always been a noise issue before but that's a very positive spin. You're giving up 34,000 feet of restaurant space, eight I thing — the last time I counted — I think it was eight or nine restaurants that's going to be a hardship on the people who office around there. I know of other — I saw a brochure for the car wash and Benihana property for sale. I think John Saunders may have an application pending or something regarding Saunders' Plaza. So I support SPAN and the others that ask for a more cohesive specific plan for that area. The traffic issue is not just subject to this one as someone said both the parks and traffic you can't just take one project and look at it and say it falls underneath the requirements because you're going to have two, three, four or half a dozen more transitioning in that area and somy argument or suggestion would be a request would be that you do take the time and we put a specific plan together for that Airport Area. Thank you Chair Kramer: I Okay. Rick Roshan: Good evening, my name's Rick Roshan. I'm part owner of a property at 4299 MacArthur Boulevard. It's a two story office building and it's right across the street from this proposed project. The borderline street would be Martingale Way. These — you know I'm apartment professional mostly what I do is be owner/operator of apartment units. Poly family and I we have about 1,300 units in southern California and the bulk of it is all in Change County. So I understand fully how to operate an apartment community. And I see these 384 units, you know, it's almost 400 units and you're going to have at least 804 to 1,000 people living there. Their housing, you know, they have to look at. I'm sure they're going to comply with all fair housing laws and they have a 2 + 1 rule that so two per bedroom plus 1 in the living room. That's their standard for occupancy. So that could be three adults or one kid two adults or any combination of that. So you have a potential of maybe seven people in a three-bedroom apartment that they're proposing or five in a two-bedroom or three in a one bedroom. You know if they're all adults, you know, and they live here in southern California they probably have a vehicle so they can get to work. The Newport Beach has a parking requirement of 2.5 for any — that's a parking ratio of parking per units for anything over 4 units. And so with 384 units that's 960 parking spots, you know plus this restaurant use that would be another 71 parking spots. You know out of — you know they're proposing only 715 parking spots and out of that 644 !tel Speaker Description parking would be dedicated for the residents. That's only a 1.67 parking ratio. That's not enough to operate this building as is proposed. Even if you add in the full 715 parking spots for this project that will only be 1.86 parking ratio. That's still not enough. So you really need — you really need a place for these people to park because all the surrounding streets there's no parking on it except for Martingale Way. So and that's already totally impacted. I'm not opposed to redevelopment of the site, I just want to make sure it's done smartly and so this is a big concern for me. If there's enough parking for these people where are they going to park? They're going to look right across the street to the surrounding property owners and they're going to see all these parking lots and at night there's not going to be anyone and they think oh we're not going to harm anything we'll just park over there. And, you know, that's not fair to encumber all the property owners with this increased kind of nuisance and burden. I have so many other things I wanted to share with you but I guess I'm out of time. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Rick Roshan: If you have any questions. Chair Kramer: Thanks. .Tim Masher: Chair Kramer and members of the Commission, my name is dim Mosher. Like some of the other speakers I tried to send you a letter but mercifully I sent mine so late today that I don't think under your new rules you even got it so I'm going to try to explain to you the three main points that I wanted to make. First was to remind you as Commissioners that the decisions you have before you tonight are discretionary. Discretionary decisions involve you making findings but I believe if you look carefully at the Code in most if not all the cases even if you make the findings it says after malting them you may approve the project. I don't think in any of the cases it says you shall or obligated to approve the project and you may have reasons beyond those findings to think it's not appropriate and I would echo this fond sentiment that perhaps a City vision for the Airport Area has not been sufficiently worked out and it's premature to be doing any of these projects at this time. The second point I wanted to make is tied into something Commissioner Koetting asked at the beginning of your dialogue with the City staff which was about where the idea of adding residences to the Airport Area came from. And Commissioner Koetting and the response is correct it's not at all a new idea but what I wanted to emphasize it's the reason and the need to add residences to the Airport -37- Speaker Description Area is quite different today than it was in 2006 when the 2,200 units were added to the General Plan. They were added because at that time, as I understand it, the State had a large requirement that we expected we were going to have to fulfil of housing that had to be added in a certain amount of time. Since then I think most of that requirement has been already achieved and currently throughout next current housing element and I hope the City staff can clarify this, I think we have essentially no housing that needs to be added to the City of Newport Beach until 2021 or something of that sort. So if there is no current requirement from a planning perspective it may not be a wise thing to be approving these because starting in 2021 we might have anew requirement and I think it would be good for you and the public to understand whether we get any credit towards those state quotas for housing that we approve today or it would be wiser to wait until we actually have a mandate and have to add something and could use these sites. The third point I wanted to make was about the height. And I personally cannot reconcile anything about the height of this project with our Municipal Code section 20.30.06+0 which to your surprise says multi -fancily housing has a height limit of 28 feet which was developed with a Planned Community development can be raised by four feet. I really don't understand how this can happen. And then finally I'm running out of time but Ms.. Jensen pointed out looking for a similar example of equally gaudy development in Newport Beach the best example she could come up with was the Carlyle Apartments. I thought that was an odd choice because in my understanding is they're in Irvine and I'm not sure we want to Irvine to Newport Beach. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thank you. SueAnn Chalita: Hello. Chair Framer: Hi. SueAnn Chalita: My name is SueAnn Chalita. My parents have owned our Arnie's Manhattan Deli for 25 years. So I'm representing them along with other tenants left in there. I've got to say what they presented is great, it's beautiful, looks you know great material, nice finishing, looks awesome in pictures. But I'm here to kind of give you the reality. The owner of this shopping center cannot operate the project the way that a project like this would need to be operated. I don't need to tell you you can go into the shopping center, look at it yourself. You will see the building's been rotten, the landscaping's terrible, there's termites, there's no security, we've got homeless people sleeping in their cars overnight, I've got Liber drivers hanging out. You know you reach out to them W11 Speaker Description and tell them what's going on and no one calls you back. Like I said I've been there for almost 25 years. Nothing's ever been fixed, nothing's been upgraded. I think we got our carpet changed once in 25 years. You know and then you talk about — they talk about having security you know for whatever reason and when I called to have security or put cameras in because a customer of mine's car was broken into they told me they're not spending money on that, they don't need that, you know it wasn't important to them. So I just find it hard to believe they would even consider security because I asked for it, I've been there 25 years, I didn't get it. Another think Erik had mentioned he felt like he was going to get hit by a car or something like that. Three years back there was a little boy that was crossing the street from Dove onto the other side and he did get hit by a car he was on a razor. So I don't think why that area is safe for kids at all. And you had also mentioned, or they had said that the property owners had been in contact with the tenants, I think the last time I heard or talked to 1►v'Ir. Smull was over five years ago. I haven't heard from him_ We recently have been leaving; voicemails and no one's called us back. So the only reason I knew about this whole project is because great customers, most of you guys are customers have told me about it and I reached out myself and I've called Rosalinh a couple of times to try to get as much information as I can and thanks to you guys 1 mean I kind of got a feel for what's going on, but as far as theirs they never told me anything so I've been in the dark for a very long time. Other than that, thank you for your time. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Lori Trottier: Good evening my name is Lori Trottier. I — my family has run a business in Corona del Mar since 1973 on Coast Highway. I did write a Ietter, it was in your packet on the environmental analysis for the project. I just wanted to let you know that CEQA does not require public comments on mitigated negative declarations. It's the Achilles' Heel of this type of environmental analysis because it really only asked for comments from lead a — from like trustee agencies and responsible agencies not the public. I would like to thank staff for responding to my letter and also comment on your review of the project and the developer's review of the project. I think that you guys did a great job of disclosing quite a few of the impacts that I can see resulting from this project. I did go to the project site twice. The first time I went there was early in the morning. I noted that there were — the streets were fully parked on both sides bumper to bumper with cars. I wasn't sure where they carne from but I noted that none of the businesses on this project site were operating except for the donut shop so they weren't -39- Speaker Description coming from this site. I agree with most of the comments on the parks. The General Plan EIR does state that there's a deficiency in active park land in this area and I just wanted to point out that there is going to be a gap between when this project is built out and when the General Plan for this area is built out. So those parks that are noted on the General Plann may not be available for residents. And I think that's a very important point that, you know, timing of these public facilities needs to be addressed. As far as traffic is concerned, I feel that more should have been done for the traffic analysis. I feel that the, you know, a traditional CEQA traffic analysis would address turning movements during peak hours at project intersections. Not only existing intersections but new intersections that will occur as a result of the project and I think that needs to be looked at. One question that I have is about air quality and the establishment of baseline conditions. And also whether or not there is a health risk associated with the dumping of particulate matter and fuels onto, you know, residential areas. There are going to be some people living here 24 hours a day and it's a change in the use of the existing commercial, you know, where people are only there during maybe 8 hours. Chair framer: Thank you. Lori Trottier: Can I just say one thing — one other thing? Chair Kramer: Please wrap it up, yeah. Lori Trottier: This project is being sold as a mixed use project but I just wanted to note that the reality is that there's no requirement from excuse that it could end up just being another apartment complex here. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Lori Trottier: Thank you. Javaid Ansari: Thank you Commission for allowing me to speak today. I'm a Managing Partner of Compaq Asset Management. Chair Kramer: You need to state your name. Javaid Ansari: Javaid Ansari. So I'm a Managing Partner of Compaq Asset Management. We're located at 1801 Dove Street facing Dove and Scott so we'll be severely impacted at least by the construction. I just want to talk about kind of some specific concerns being in that area and seeing the traffic, particularly currently. So traffic would be my first concern primarily because if we are looking at developing residential there the Speaker Description way the cars approach the turn on Dove Street it is — they tend to approach with a lot of speed. So actually my concern is not the actual development itself but actually ensuring that there is stop signs either placed on Westerly or on Scott and Corinthian because there has been serious car accidents both on Scott Drive and Dove Street, including one of my employees at Compaq Asset Management. So I'd like the City to consider that. More retail space would be nice understanding that if you currently look at the space and the development of the space the reason there is not any retail in there in the current moment is because of the current condition of the property. We believe that if the property is improved, that there will be more opportunities for retail to move in there. The fact that there is basically only zoning for one retail property is a little concerning but I think that might be addressed in the additional planning. The final kind of comment is, why gates on the park. I mean if it's a park I don't know why you have to necessarily put gates on it, particularly to Commissioner's Zak's point the fact that they are using the park space to increase the bonus density on the property is kind of getting around that particular use and so if they — I don't think they necessarily need gates I understand why it's just interesting that they're using that as an opportunity to increase the density. So as a local business owner I think we're all about the redevelopment of the space. The main concern is ultimately the density that is being put into the space and the traffic both in terms of children and safety for the City as it moves forward. Thank you. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Anyone else. Okay, I'll close the public comments — close the public hearing l should say. Bring it back to the Commission. Additional comments, discussion, questions of staff'? Secretary Koetting: Staff questions. Several items were pointed out by the public. How — I'm going to throw out three or four then you guys can answer them instead of one at a time. The Airport let's discuss that in a minute, tell us about how this qualified and the height of the buildings, etc. SP©N and the Comprehensive Plan I thought we just saw the Comprehensive Plan, it was done in 2006 so you may want to secondly address that for me. The parking, we didn't have a lot of discussion about why they have a parking reduction, if they do, maybe they don't. So I'd like you to share that with us. And the Applicant may want to address this one, what they're proposing — what they think they're pro forma is per bodies per apartment unit. I know that's a tricky one. Traffic analysis that was brought up several times. Chau' Kramer. So, just a point of clarification. You know prior to closing the public hearing, you know, it's customary for the Applicant to rebut but you -41- Speaker Description didn't come up. So I'm going to give you an opportunity here. Michael what — should I re — what do I do here? Reopen the public — no just stay Torres: It's just a rebuttal. Chair Framer: Okay, alright. Go ahead. Jensen: Thank you I had asked Rosalyn to sneak in here. I was waiting for the right opportunity. There are public comments that I did want to address. With respect to the park space I think it's important to reemphasize that we are providing the half acre space. The waiver is not to not provide that space, the open space will be there, it will be a half acre maintained throughout the duration of the project — or the life of the project. The waiver simply would be to allow the payment of the in -lieu fee in return for the non -dedication of that space. So we would be fulfilling the General Flan in what's envisioned within that as far as providing that open space and public park space. With respect to enclosing that space we think it's important given the surrounding uses and the hours of business there really again isn't any reason to have that open space beyond daylight hours open to the public. We feel that it would provide an opportunity for a potential issue as far as security. We think that it's a better maintenance procedure for the project to be able to have that area enclosed after daylight hours. The reality of the shopping center is that it is a struggling retail shopping center. Many of the businesses that did occupy space there were not able to make a living there. The shopping center owner has not made any money on that shopping center since he purchased it back in 1974. So maintaining that as retail without any residential supporting uses in the area is not realistic at this point. The demand that feeds into that existing retail exists Monday to Friday during business hours on the weekends and during the evenings there's no one there to support the retail unless people are traveling to the area and creating a destination there. With respect to the Radisson I'm very respectful of the concerns that they raised. We do want to highlight that there are still restaurants within walking distance including one of my favorite new restaurants Bosskat Kitchen which is right across the street from the Radisson. But we do respect the concerns that were raised. We do have FAA clearance up to 86 feet for the project with no demarcation or lighting that's necessary. That was granted over a year ago. We actually just renewed that clearance so we have that for the start of construction anticipating that that occurs soon. We are outside of the 65 decibel CNEL noise contour. It will be the impotence put on the development to ensure that soundproofing for the development is adequate. We don't want upset -42- Speaker Description residents and we don't want people complaining about the airport noise and that is one of the items that speaks to the enhanced quality of the materials that will be utilized is to ensure that that soundproofing does not create extra nuisance noise from that airport. As staff mentioned, we're submitting; a Planned Development Permit application due to the ability to grant variances that have the potential to enhance the project. We feel that enhancing; the project has been done through the modification of the setbacks, through the modification of the building height, and through the modification of the dedication of the park. It's not to say that there isn't also a benefit to the project with respect to the density for that open space. But we're not trying to circumvent or avoid any amendments or anything along those lines. We really are requesting the variances to the benefit of the project. We feel that without thein and with a flat roof at one height it really wouldn't give the appeal and the architecture that the City is looking to incorporate in new residential developments. Any new residential development within an existing commercial space or industrial space is bound to have the potential for growing pains. What we would like to point out is that this is just one development and what is envisioned to potentially be a greater development of a larger area. So we're hopeful that the demand if that redevelopment occurs within those ether properties would help to dictate what the supply needs to be with respect to additional retail. One of the comments was with respect to the proximity of a grocery store and I know that that was something that came up during the study session and we do have a Ralph's Supermarket that's two and one-half miles away, we have a Mother's Market that's two miles away, and the Irvine Ranch Market that's a mile and a half away with the expectation that in apartment living generally unless you're in an urban downtown area you're not going to have a grocery store right next door. So residents would be utilizing pass -by trips on the way from one destination to the site to visit those locations for what they need. That's everything unless there are more specific questions. Chair Kramer: Okay, thank you. Okay, so Commissioner Koetting ... Koetting: Yes_ Chair Kramer: You had a list of questions for staff. Koetting: For staff. A couple of them she answered. Chair Kramer: Okay, so which ones were not answered. Koetting: We'll start with parking. Would you run through the parking analysis? -43- Speaker Description Was there - there was a reduction in parking per unit I recall but I don't remember the formula - or correct me. Wisneski: It started on handwritten page 16 has a matrix that talks about ... Koetting: Say again what page? Wisneski: Handwritten page 16. Koetting: Uh-huh. Got it. Wisneski: I'll let Ros provide additional details. Ung: Well basically on page 16 we have a Table 2 that's basically identify the proposed parking ratio versus with the standard as has been mentioned as 2.5 units per acre. In this instance the Applicant is proposing a reduced parking standards that's allowed by the density bonus provision. So technically they're in compliance with that provision. But comparing to the City's basic standard of four units or more they're lower than that. Koetting: Okay, why is it less than the standard? Is there something in this provision in this District that allows that? Campbell: State bonus density law actually provides and requires that we reduce parking for affordable housing projects so our parking standard and our density bonus code is reflective of State law. Koetting: So they're in compliance? Campbell: They're in compliance, yes. Koetting: Thank you. Do you remember the other ones now? Airport apparently everything's cleared for this whole area to have residential in it? The whole master plan, including this site? Campbell: Yes It has. Koetting: Okay. Campbell: When the General Plan was created the .Airport Land Use Commission reviewed the residential component in the Airport Area and did provide its clearance. They also reviewed the residential overlay for this and provided its clearance as well. And as the Applicant indicated the FAA has reviewed the project and does not find any threat to air navigation based on the clearance that they provided. -44- Speaker Description Koetting: Alright, and finally I think I wrote down more times than not traffic impacts to the area weren't addressed and no traffic study will be required at the back end, did I read that? Brine: No, that's correct. ,And again as staff we're following the traffic phasing ordinance in terms of the requirements and when a traffic study should be prepared. And I don't have the discretion to say this project should have a traffic study, this project doesn't unless it meets that threshold in the traffic phasing ordinance which requires that study. And unless we want to step back or d -ie Council wants to step back and say let's relook at the traffic phasing ordinance, let's perhaps change the thresholds. This project is below the thresholds in terms of the net number of trips from what is currently on the site. And so I understand that the community has real concerns with traffic and projects that are under discussion and coming through and that's good, but we follow the TPO requirements and we follow the, you know, necessary standards to do those traffic studies and this doesn't meet that threshold to get into a detailed level traffic study. We did the trip generation analysis, we see what the thresholds are and the question that Chair Kramer had about, you know, looking at a detailed traffic study and why there wasn't one done just based on the net peak hour trips and previous projects that have been studied in the area like Uptown Newport I just would not expect to see impacts to area -wide intersections with the net difference. So I hope that answers the question. Koetting: Thank you. Chair Kramer: Commissioner Lawler. Lawler: Maybe just a couple conunents in thinking out loud. I mean I think we're all fully supportive of redevelopment here but you know it obviously needs to be done smartly. And in a project of this size, scope, magnitude they're certain things that I think regardless of the code or common sense things you need to do, i.e., a traffic study or consideration for a development agreement when you begin a process. like this and so, you know, one I'm not over the development agreement thing. I can't — I can't say that it's not infill. I don't understand to the replacement versus additive. To me a development agreement is warranted given the size, scope and magnitude. Two the lack of retail I just — clearly there's a need of retail, it's there, it's not — it's not there's some arguments that it's not successful but I just think a project of this size and scope warrants more retail that's more outwardly focused. The traffic study we've talked about. And then the open space, I think staff supported the deviation of the setback. namely -45- Speaker Description because of the open space. And they also — staff supported more density because of the open space but it's really not open space if you're clearly signaling this cornered off to the public. No one's going to use that. So to me it's just speaking with the Commission it's the death of a 1,000 cuts and I'm not supportive of the project. Chair Kramer: Okay. Commissioner Zak. Zak: So I'm having a tough time, I think this is — this is a difficult one. I'm supportive of a residential use in this area. I think that a really really cool mixed-use project in this area would be awesome. And I think if there's an appropriate balance of retail and residential it could just be a real home run not only for the owner but for the community. But the problem I'm having is that — and I'll just start off with that and I'll just tell my colleagues up here that when I just think that through just on a big pictured standpoint and I look as finding "B" as in "boy" that the project would produce a development of higher quality and greater excellence of design then not might otherwise result from using the standard development regulations_ We've got a bunch of different variances here and so I'm not so sure that they make a project that's better than, you know, if they just started over and start from scratch. I'm supersensitive to the developer that's been working on this project for over a year plus. I'm okay with the height variances, I'm okay with the setback variances, I believe that we stated off the conversation — or some of my comments earlier I believe these are additive units and so it does warrant a development agreement and that's contrary to what I had said in the study session, contrary to what I said when I met with the Applicant but after receiving the staff report and doing my analysis it does seem like it warrants a development agreement. And, again, I say it's a shame that that wasn't told to the developer early on. So I think that's something that the Council — it's a policy decision that the Council's going to have to consider. The dimension — we are already said what I think about the open space I think. It may be wise if we move this project forward and approve it that we add a condition that the public access cover the whole open space area that there aren't gates. I think that they're — because of the setback variances I think there should be a condition requiring minimum tree sizes because this is a large massing that's just coming into this area. And, you know, I know that the — I know that the Code allows for it but. I think the parking is going to be an issue. But again it's a tough thing because the Code allows for it. So then I go back to — I go back to Finding B and that's where I'm hung up on. Again just kind of open discussion for my colleagues. e Speaker Description Chair Kramer: Yeah I appreciate that Conunissioner Zak. I'll let Commissioner Weigand talk and then I'll just sura it up. Weigand: I just had a— there was a lot of discussion on the airport and planes flying overhead. I'm pretty sure that the folks that are going to be renting these properties are not going to be tricked into thinking there aren't any airplanes. I mean the planes are going off constantly there. So there's no way that you can mistake — they're not going to be leasing these properties after hours when the planes subside. So, but I do think since there's going to be several properties that we're going to be seeing over the course of the next — I don't know six months, a year, you alluded to for future schedules that we'd be seeing more project up here in the Airport Area and that one of the comments mentioned there was the Saunder's property which I haven't seen yet. But it might be important for staff to evaluate where residential exist in other airports maybe at Long Beach, maybe in San Diego, maybe other regional airports to see what housing elements that are there and those surrounding; communities. Are they rentals, are they to purchase so that we have an idea when we come back to these other properties or if this project comes back again we have the ability to kind of get an understanding what other — what other cities have, what other airport communities have. While they're not Newport Beach they still give us an important understanding of what — what the impacts are to those residents, how they're sold to those residents, and just the general understanding on how everything works in the — in the community. Chair Kramer: Thank you. Okay, to sum up, the night's getting long?; here. I think we've spent a lot of time on this project. Both at the study session and then during the period of time between then and tonight. We spent a substantial amount of time this evening going through this project in detail and obviously we — we all understand and have the same conclusion that this parcel as it currently stands is — is not, you know, up to its — yeah, the highest and best use. It does need to be unproved. Yeah, for a whole host of reasons. And I and the other Commissioners support redevelopment of this parcel and also support residential use there. However, the project as it's currently designed has numerous flaws to it that have been outlined — I don't need to go into additional detail on that, With respect to making the findings I cannot make several findings. Those are Findings A, 2, 3 and 5. So that is that the project is substantially consistent with the purpose, intent, goals, policies and actions of the General Plan and Municipal Code. Be substantially consistent with the purpose and intent of the zoning district and be compatible with other development within the zoning district and general neighborhood of the proposed project. I have serious -47- Speaker Description concerns about neighborhood compatibility and things like that I've already discussed in the past. And then I also have trouble and cannot make Finding B, which Commissioner Zak outlined. And I cannot also make Finding F, which is the design, location, operating characteristics and size of the project would be compatible with the existing and future uses in the vicinity in terms of the aesthetic values, character skills, view and protection. And then finally Finding I which is the increased height will not result in an undesirable abrupt scale changes, relationships being created between the proposed structures and existing adjacent developments or public spaces. I think, you know, I'm somewhat frustrated because I feel that the — there's a disservice here and the dis-service is really the General Plan. I believe the General Plan is inadequate for this area, I feel it's impractical on a whole host of levels, and I feel very very strongly that the Applicant has not been well served by the General Plan and neither are the citizens of our City. And we're not a policy making body here. We are here simply to interpret the General Plan and the Code and use common sense. So given the parameters -- the jurisdiction that we have and given the issues that have been outlined I cannot support this project either. So I make a motion to deny this project based on the rational that I have provided. Is there a second? Lawler: Second. Chair Kramer: Any additional comments? Koetting: Yes, I — I think we all would like to see this redeveloped, residential will work. I think the Applicant didn't change anything that we recommended to look at from the March meeting, Didn't change anything according to the staff report. I think there's time for them to do that. I think they've heard the audience, they've heard our comunents, I'm still not satisfied with the setbacks, they are improving the heights on the buildings, the architecture looks a little softer and better, I think -- and I don't support a development agreement, I have to support staff and their research and the City Attorney's office and how I read the way the policies of the City are. Therefore I would throw out an option to let them take this back and see if they can massage it, reduce it, take everything in the blender that the heard tonight and try to create a better plan. If it's better for them to get a denial, it seems like it's going that way, then they're only option would be to appeal it to Council -- that plan. I think a better plan could be designed, That's my two cents before we vote. Zak: So is that a recommendation for a continuance? Like how does that? M. Speaker Description Chair Kramer: Well even with the denial there is going to be a continuance to the next meeting so that staff can prepare the appropriate conditions of denial. So — so that is built in, but — but -- but basically it's baked at that point. So, Commissioner Koetting I understand your position but I have to say that there's policy issues here even with a, you know, putting this project on hold for who knows how long, I mean this could take a year. I just don't think that's the right thing to do because we don't — we're not the policy making body here for the reasons that I already discussed. So I would — there's a -- there's a motion, there's a second. Jensen: Commissioner Kramer? Chair Kramer: Yes. Jensen: We actually would like to request a continuance before the vote is taken. I understand what you are saying as far as policymaking decisions that are out of your hands, but we would like to tape this back with the new information, the additional comments from the public, and relook at some of the issues and some of the areas that the findings are not adequate and bring this back to you at a later time. Chair Kramer: With all due respect that was the point of the public — of the study session. And no substantial changes were made during that period of time. Jensen: To be completely honest we don't feel that we had the ability to provide the clarification — the justification for the design that we had chosen. And really did not have an opportunity to do much in terms of discussion with you individually until after that study session had occurred. And while we took your concerns into consideration we did what we felt was most appropriate was to reanalyze some of those concerns and to bring you additional information that hadn't been presented in that study session that we feel helps to justify why some of the changes weren't made. There were modifications to some of the areas, it didn't necessarily include all of the areas of concern but we still feel there's an opportunity to make some additional changes prior to a vote being held. Chair Kramer: I appreciate that. There's a motion and a second. I'm going to call for a vote. Please vote. Do I hear an alternate motion? No he did not. Koetting: I did not but I think under our rules we have to act on this or can an alternate be thrown out? Lopez: You can throw in an alternate. C'LM Speaker Description Koetting: Then I would recommend a continuance on this until the developer — Applicant takes under consideration all the corrunents heard tonight which could mean a smaller project, it could mean more retail, it could be more traffic analysis, better access and more open space possibly, among other things. Chair Kramer: Commissioner Zak. Zak: Before seconding that motion? Chair Kramer: Sure, Zak: So let's say that that motion that Commissioner Koetting just put forward, got voted on and then it was approved tonight and the Applicant said, "No I don't want to continue it," even though they just said publicly they want to continue it, and they just want to take it straight to the City Council. Do they have that option, or do they automatically have to come back here? Wisneski: They'd have to come after the Planning Commission. Zak: I'll second the motion. Chair Kramer: Before i call for a vote I'd like Mr. Torres to provide some insight with respect to the alternate motion and the impact on staff and the Applicant for a continuance of this for an indefinite amount of time. Torres: I guess Chairman Kramer if I understand the alternate motion and again the way we would vote on this is alternate, if alternate fails to pass then it would return to your original motion which would be the denial. The impact on staff I think would just be working with the — I don't know how long the continuance would be but during that continuance period we would be working with the Applicant again to try to implement some of the comments or questions to see if the project can be revised to address some of the issues here today. So there would be additional staff time involved in that process. Chair Krasner: And if the alternate motion failed and the original motion passed with the denial, the Applicant is of course free to appeal that to the City Council. Torres: You're absolutely correct Mr. Chair. Chair Kramer: And during that period of time whenever it may be, it could be months, right, depending on how it works with staff, in effect the same thing -50- Speaker Description could occur where the Applicant's working with staff to try to create a better project, is that correct? Torres: That's correct and that regularly occurs for an item that's ,appealed or otherwise called for review. The Applicant can change the project, the City Council can refer the project back to the Planning Commission, all options are still on the table. Chair Kramer: Well fellow Commissioners I strongly recommend that the alternate motion be denied and that we vote on the original motion. But there's a second so do a call for the alternate motion at this point. Call to vote. Torres. .lust to clarify before you vote the alternate motion is to continue this item — I'm sorry was it to a date certain? Koetting: No, indefinitely. Torres: An undetennined date. Koetting: Undetermined. Clerk: Motion fails 312 with Commissioners Weigand, Kramer and Lawler voting no. Chair Kramer: Okay, so now we'll go back to my original motion, there's a second by Commissioner Lawler call to vote. Lopez: .lust to clarify before you vote, this motion is to deny the project and direct staff to return with the resolution recording the findings of denial. Clerk: Motion carries 411 with Commissioner Koetting voting no. Chair Kramer: Well to the Applicant I think you, you know, please take into account everything that was stated here this evening. Obviously, you know, there's deficiencies that need to be worked out. And you're free to appeal to City Council. Okay next item. Koetting: Or reapply. Chair Kramer: Or reapply. [END OF TRANSCRIPT] -51-