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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1104 8:30 a.m. MINUTES ADJOURNED MEETING PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION • 8:30 A.M. TUESDAY - NOVEMBER 4, 2003 I. CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Campbell called the meeting to order at 8:35 a.m. II. ROLL CALL Members Present: Sonia Campbell, Chairperson Cindy Finerty Jim Lopez (arrived at 9:00 a.m.) Dave Tschopp Members Absent: Sabby Jonathan, Vice Chairperson Staff Present: Phil Drell, Director of Community Development Bob Hargreaves, City Attorney Steve Smith, Planning Manager Mark Greenwood, City Engineer Mark Diercks, Transportation Engineer Phil Joy, Associate Transportation Engineer Tonya Monroe, Administrative Secretary Ill. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. IV. PUBLIC HEARING Anyone who challenges any hearing matter in court may be limited to raising only those issues he, she or someone else raised at the public hearing described herein, or in written correspondence delivered to the Planning Commission at, or prior to, the public hearing. MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 i A. Case No. GPA 01-04, CITY OF PALM DESERT, Applicant (Continued from September 16, October 7 and October 21, 2003) Request for consideration of a Comprehensive General Plan Update. Drell I thought what we would first talk about a little bit is we distributed some revised charts and land use maps in your packet, somewhat reconciling the various alternatives. Also a chart analyzing the existing general plan and there was some discussion of how many housing units existing in the general would result in and see that chart of the existing 1995 general plan existing showing all of the at that time residentially zoned properties in the yellow, also what we were calling residential study zone which was going to be a combination of residential and commercial, depending on the noise impacts relative to the freeway. The chart which shows the result and generates approximate 4,000 units. In comparison you see in the staff recommended alternative and the less intense alternative generates about 4,300 units, so roughly given the estimates of how many units actually get built in a particular zone, they are roughly equivalent and this is what has happened since 1995, is approximately 700 acres of previously residentially designated properties has been taken out of that designation via the assignment of the 200 acres for the Cal State University, the 320 acres of Shadow Ridge Marriott timeshare project, the city's purchase of 170 acres at the northeast corner of Frank Sinatra and Portola for a potential golf course. So what in essence the less intense and staff recommended alternative proposed to do is in essence generate roughly the same amount of residential units in the remaining property to address the housing demand created not only by the 10 million square feet of commercial being developed along the freeway, but the housing demand being created by those formerly residential properties that now are something else which are in essence commercial. The Marriott Shadow Ridge is essentially a hotel, which hopefully will be a 1,000 room hotel which is and will be over the next 5-6 years of build out generating significant housing demands for their employees plus the University, plus not only the third Desert Willow Golf course when built will be accompanied by significant hotel development which Desert Willow will also generate new housing demands, so actually the goal of the less intense and the staff recommended alternative is basically just to stay even with the housing. We had planned originally for this area, back in 1980 for that matter, and the differences between, pointed out by Commissioner Finerty, between the less intense alternative and the staff recommended alternative is the balance .rl 2 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 r.. between low, medium and high. In the staff recommended alternative, which was to certain degree driven by the specific desires of the property owners, there is more acreage of low density residential and to maintain the same number of units there is slightly more high density residential and where that comes out of is medium density residential, less medium density residential. Obviously if the Commission feels that the balance should be different, the staff is recommending and we feel that we need to maintain, you know we are already at a severe deficit relative to demand, but at least maintain where we were in the existing general plan. Then it could be adjusted with slightly less low density and more medium and that would also reduce the high density. Or get something closer to the balance that was achieved in a less intense alternative. So, that's the discussion. Any questions about...again in all those alternatives, roughly the commercially developed, commercially zoned properties is pretty much the same. We did increase from the preferred alternative, industrial as certain properties at the request of property owners were shifted from, for example, west of Portola, north of Dinah Shore which in the preferred alternative was designated as multi-family, that has been changed back to Industrial Office Park. Business Park in the staff recommended alternative and there has also been some internal shifting from the northeast comer of Cook Street and Gerald Ford from Community Commercial to Industrial Office Park, so the industrial office park category in the staff recommended alternative has increased as a result of those shifts. Finerty Mr. Drell, on the less intense use, are we still not planning for a school? Drell Again, I think what we did was in the different alternatives, as you recall, there was some sentiment whether or not to have a school. So at that time, we said okay let's have an alternative that doesn't have a school. Finerty Okay. Do we need a school? Drell It is our feeling that yes, we need a school. Finerty Is it the school district's feeling that the school is needed? 3 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 Drell There is no question, in fact we have received, if you look back at the staff recommended alternative, we have received specific correspondence from Palm Springs District designating these 2 school sites, they are engaged in their environmental analysis. Finerty Because they can come in and take the land for their school. Correct? Drell They have the ability to acquire the properties. Finerty So then, if we know that they are looking at these sites, wouldn't it be helpful if all of the options here provided 58 acres for the school? Drell Again,the time,when that particular alternative was created, there was some thought amongst some important citizens of the city that we have no schools, so we created an option without schools. That is why in the staff recommended alternative we have the school sties. That is why in the preferred alternative we have the school sites. So, we have alternatives which analyze school sites. Not all of them do and not all of them need to. i But again, the recommended alternative does include the 2 school sites. Finerty So, on the less intense use, if we were to pull out the acres for the school sites, where would they come from? Drell We were showing in less intense, I think we were showing parks for the .... Finerty For the open space parks, the 211 .... Drell For the equivalent amount of acreage, I believe we were showing where the Middle School is we had a large park. Where the high school is, I don't think we showed anything. We showed actually more, we showed high density. Finerty Help me to understand why the amount of acres in each alternative is different? Drell In doing the mapping and under outlining each section, it is a computer issue. We tried to get them as close as we could, or I tried to get my GIS guy to get it as close as we could, but given that general plans in essence are general, the general plan is not like the zoning map, it doesn't have, the zones don't have a fixed legal description. That given the general nature of these designations betting within 100 acres is probably close enough. 4 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 Finerty Okay. Campbell Any other questions of staff? Tschopp Just to, so if I understand you right, the less intense with showing no schools is not really an option? Drell I think we always anticipated that what would come out of the hearings would be a combination of the alternatives. It might be an option as far as certain members of the City Council is concerned, so that is why we provided it. At the time we did them, there were strong feelings and there still might be strong feelings, maybe they modified to certain degrees, I don't know. But at that time, there was some direction coming from above to eliminate school sites entirely and it was the GPAC that in the preferred alternative, specifically directed that the school sites be shown. Tschopp But if the school district has the right to pre-empt, move forward, on the land no matter what this commission does or the council, shouldn't it just be included or somehow adjusted for it? Drell Yes, there is and that is why in the staff recommended alternative and the preferred alternative it was included. Tschopp And, just to refresh my memory, the staff recommended alternative is the GPAC recommended alternative? Drell No, remember, the preferred alternative is the GPAC recommended alternative. That is the one where we, and I would not, I guess the answer is why is staff departing from the GPAC recommended alternative which attempted to achieve more housing and has as the primary, has much more emphasis on the medium density housing to achieve that. It has, I guess it is, you know, the art of politics is compromised and the staff recommended alternative is in essence a concession to the desires of the property owners to more easily address today's market and doing the things that they are used to doing which is low density residential, so it has basically reintroduced as a large segment of both the what they call the Cook Street/University neighborhood and the Monterey/Gerald Ford neighborhood, it has reintroduced a large component of low density residential which accounts for the approximately 2,000 fewer units. But again, at least maintains our r. 5 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 projected housing production that really has been in the general plan since 1980 for this area. Tschopp So the staff recommended is the planning staff recommendation? Drell Correct. Tschopp Then the more intense, is that a recommendation from anyone? Drell No. Basically, when you do an EIR you produce a regional alternative just like in essence you have a no project alternative which in this case is our existing general plan. So, you create these hypotheticals just as a means of comparison. Tschopp And the same would go with a less intense. Is that correct? Drell Correct. There was on the GPAC some sentiment for the less intense. I don't think there was any sentiment necessarily for the more intense, but there was sentiment on the GPAC for the less intense and again, you try to create your range so that when you do your EIR study, you can see what changes result with these various alternatives. Finerty On the industrial business park, between the staff recommended alternative and the less intense use, there is a considerable difference of square footage. Drell On the less intense, we divided up that area north of Dinah Shore into light industrial and industrial business park. To a certain degree when you read the descriptions and maybe this is not a criticism, but I think a general plan should be general. In looking at industrial business park it is probably a more appropriate general plan designation. You can get more specific in zoning but if you just look, it is the same area if you have the industrial business park and light industrial together, it equals the industrial business park in the staff recommended alternative. Finerty And do we have somewhere a breakdown of all of the commercial uses, like the difference between Community Commercial and neighborhood commercial? 6 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 Drell Yes, that was distributed last meeting. Finerty It is in my stack, okay. Drell It was in the general plan originally, but we amended it so it was at the last meeting, describing each one of those. I guess the distinctions in the commercial is a matter of the market that it is serving. The neighborhood is to serve the immediate neighborhood. The community commercial would serve the larger area and then regional commercial of course serves the Coachella Valley. Campbell Mr. Drell, can you explain the light industrial zone? What would be going in there? Drell I guess the distinction and this is probably one of the reasons why we went the way we did in the preferred alternative, I mean in the staff recommended alternative, is light industrial is more specifically your auto body shops, sheet metal fabricators, cabinet shops, and irrigation supply. Industrial business park is really more what we've ended up, for example, in the Cook Street area. Campbell But we have a variation of both there. Drell And that is what I mean and that is why we thought that trying to segregate those uses, one from another when there is a very fuzzy line between them. Between, and you know, obviously, in the Cook Street industrial parks,which technically is service industrial which is light industrial, the market has chosen to mix them up and we have not resisted that and so the industrial business park is a more generalized which allows, I guess the other big issue is that when someone builds a building, they really don't know what the uses are going to be. We had in the Cook Street area people building generic buildings and they end up... sometimes they get leased out to designer showrooms, and sometimes they get leased out to sheet metal fabricators or warehouses. Architecturally we have been making them all look like business park buildings. And as a result of our architectural and its design requirements, they became very attractive to the more business park industrial park sort of users, so in �., essence the decision was to keep the zone more generic, what the market 7 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 determined what the mix is going to be. Again as I can say, one could argue that we have too many categories in the general plan to begin with given the general nature of what this document is supposed to be like. Campbell Then we know for a fact that another Desert Willow will be there? Drell We don't know that as a fact, that was why it was purchased. We did assume that...the redevelopment agency purchased 145 acres east of Portola and west of Portola as well. You know, all the property between Shepherd Lane and Shadow Ridge. We did assume that was going under, even though it was bought by the RDA, that it would revert back to residential. The presumption is, I guess if you are still optimistic about Desert Willow and I think we still are, that when the hotel sites get developed, we will need the third golf course and so it is a matter of when, not if, hopefully. Campbell Because that would help us make an evaluation of what we want there, the high density, medium density or low density, right next to the golf course. Drell Yeah, that is why, I am sure that is the developer's perception of why he put the low density there, to maximize that value. And, again I think the assumption is that is the appropriate location for what will be the last golf course built in Palm Desert. Whether it is 2 years, 5 years or 10 years, unless there is a radical rethinking of what Desert Willow is about, I think that will happen. Campbell Any more questions of staff? Tschopp Going back to the school real quick and not to get specific, but more in general terms knowing what the impact that schools have on a community, both positive, negative, traffic wise, and so forth. It seems to me that where the school is being located at is going to be where there they are proposing to put it, was going to benefit other cities such as Rancho Mirage, and so forth. Are you aware that the school district has perhaps looked also at property in the Rancho Mirage area or is it a foregone conclusion that they are going into this area? Drell Whether they have looked elsewhere, I don't know. They have specifically identified and notified us officially that they have started the process of 8 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 planning a school at this location. What you have to realize is that they're, this, I guess that there are 2 issues with the school. There are 2 types of schools. One is that their zone of service includes both Rancho Mirage and Thousand Palms which is north of us. In terms of, if you look at for instance, the Middle School, the K-8 which is the one that is planned to be located in the Monterey/Gerald Ford quadrant neighborhood. In terms of long term probably center of gravity, that is not too far off. Their desire with the high school, which is obviously more skewed to the east then the center of gravity, partly has to do with their desire to be as close to the University as possible. They plan on calling this University High School and my understanding is that it will be kind of a magnet school for the district with special programs which have association with the University, which could conceivably draw kids from all over the Palm Springs District because of those special programs. So, that is their thinking. But we have been officially notified for both of these sites, that they are, it is their intent and they are beginning the development and review process to whatever they go through which is what they ultimately go through with the State to get these sites approved and move them along towards development. +` My presumption is that the High School probably is a good ways off but the elementary middle school I believe is funded in that bond issue they passed. My recollection was that the acquisition of the high school site was funded in the bond issue, but not the construction of it. Also,just the planning of the construction of high schools take a lot longer. Finerty Okay, so the high school is at Portola and Gerald Ford and the elementary middle school is north of Gerald Ford? Drell Correct, in that neighborhood, so obviously, the K-8 is more situated as a traditionally neighborhood serving school. The high school as you recall, initially we were trying to site the high school inside that Cook/Gerald Ford neighborhood and it was originally sited right after the commercial, right west of Cook Street. What we heard from, and we heard it second hand from the district, was initially they thought they could create a cooperative relationship with the University for the sharing of athletic facilities, potentially a football stadium or football field, not a stadium, and they need only therefore a smaller site on the ground there since they were sharing athletic fields. Apparently that didn't seem to pan out, so once they needed their own athletic facilities, having a large, a potentially, and again they had to look into tam the future 20 years from now, football facility in the middle of a otherwise 9 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 quiet residential neighborhood didn't seem like a good plan long term, which is why they needed more real estate and they wanted it in a less impacting location, which is why it got changed to Portola and Gerald Ford. And again, it is showing a street running through part of the high school site and that is just our GIS guys overlaying one thing over another and not reconciling them. Campbell Have any questions with this study? Lopez Have you talked about the mixed use? Drell Not yet and you want to know, you have a question about what it means? Lopez Well, I guess I would like to understand the rationale on staffs recommendation versus GPAC's recommendations as far as location and uses of mixed use. Drell We didn't have a mixed use category in the preferred alternative at all. It first showed up, and although you don't have that here, or you should have it if you kept it, as a suggestion of the, from the suggested master plan suggested by the property owners and developer of the University Park master plan, Cook Street/Gerald Ford area. In the preferred alternative you saw a high density area at the northwest comer of what would be Technology and Gerald Ford and that turned into a mixed use and actually the discussion from the developer is that he would like to have that mixed use moved towards the high school, which, but again mixed use is a very permissive flexible designation and really it says, the original motivation was to get as much housing and multi family housing adjacent to the University and adjacent to the industrial business park. In essence, one of the things we are going to be talking about in circulation is, you know the more cars you can, a land use arrangement which allows origins and destinations to be proximate to each other and eliminate the need for people to enter the arterial system, you know every car we keep off the arterial system is a benefit. If you looked at the EIR, you look at how many of the 20/20 even if we should turn everything to 6 lanes, how many segments still went to F and the reason is if you look at the way a lot of the City is designed, almost every trip from a residential area to where someone wants to go forces someone to go onto the arterial system and that is why 10 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 over a time they have been failing throughout southern California. The goal in the preferred alternative and one of the goals in the urban design element and articulate elsewhere is to create as many opportunities as possible for people to get from their origin to their destination without directly, without having to enter the arterial system. That is the theory of mixed use. To say that these areas, that this area or somewhere in that block between a high school and Gerald Ford on the north side, if we can create and this is a product which existed commonly in American cities and European cities for hundreds of years and disappeared after 1950 is coming back in metropolitan areas throughout southern California now and San Diego and elsewhere. If you can develop multi family housing in proximity to either retail or professional offices or industrial business parks you've provided at least some opportunity for people to make that choice, that I'm going to live and walk to work. So that is the theory. Obviously not everyone is going to do it, but if 20% or 30% of the people do it, for every car we keep off the arterial, that forestalls that level F maybe a little bit longer. Finerty As I look at the staff recommended alternative for office professional and I see only 3 tiny spaces which is the equivalent of 14 acres, why is staffs thinking that we need so little OP? Drell Again, the office professional, we have all of this office, industrial business park which encompasses office professional. Again, this is our experience that we have used the office professional zone in the existing city primarily as a fix where we had formerly residences on major arterials and we needed a compatible buffer use to go between the residential behind and the arterials or commercial in front. Finerty Yeah, but... Drell Let me finish. And this is just going by our experience, we created the service industrial zone on Cook Street to put all the, at that time, light industrial uses. It seemed what the market decided was that the distinctions that we made it in light industrial didn't...really weren't all that important and we had tremendous demand for office professional going into the light industrial. In this situation, since we're starting from scratch, the only area where we have that residential kind of high arterial commercial conflict is along Gerald Ford at the Gerald Ford/Sinatra corner and we are potentially 11 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 suggesting that in the study zone at the Frank Sinatra/Portola comer, but otherwise we are saying that... Finerty But there is really no buffer. Drell Where? Finerty At the Frank Sinatra area because you've got mixed use and then you've got that little bit of OP and then you've got the open space, so I don't know what you're really buffering. Drell Where are you referring exactly? Finerty Okay, on Frank Sinatra west of Cook. Drell Frank Sinatra west of Cook. Finerty It is a little purple spot. Drell A little purple spot. Finerty Just west to the mixed use. Drell And that's a, you're right. That could be mixed use, that could be anything. You're right. That little spot is, again that was at the suggestion of I believe the developer of that property. I guess it's not large enough to do a major commercial development the way he has it. That University Drive, that arterial spine road has to...they want a certain distance from that intersection to Cook Street and that left that little piece of stuff between that and city owned property, and it wasn't big enough for a significant commercial center and it's not big enough for a resort property probably. If you look in our preferred alternative, we had originally, this is before we kind of, we really showed that as a resort commercial at that comer. Finerty It just seems like that corner is really .... Drell You mean it's fragmented. 12 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Finerty Yeah, exactly, and it seems like that there could be a better way to divvy that up. Drell Where you don't have that little, well again, it allows some private offices to have a view of the golf course. Finerty The other thing, and I don't know how the rest of Commission feels, it would be simpler for me if we didn't have all these categories. If we are going to say that office professional is really part of the business park and commercial is commercial. Drell There is a little, well there is some use for that distinction. The industrial business park does include the body shops and the sheet metal fabricators and all the mix of stuff you see at Cook Street. Finerty And that is not light industrial? Drell Well, it is a, what we found in Cook Street, it was hard based on what the market was demanding, it was hard to make that distinction. The distinction we do want to make, there are certain areas where we don't want...there are certain broad areas and I think the areas north of Dinah Shore are areas where through design we can incorporate compatibly all of those various gradations of uses. There are certain areas where we don't want the sheet metal shops and those we just want the offices, so there is, while we eliminated the distinction between light industrial and industrial business park,the distinction in a few select areas, and remember, these designations apply throughout the whole city, not just here, and we still have, it is still relevant throughout the rest of the city where we still have that buffer problem to retain the professional office designation. Where we just want offices, we don't want a mix in the light industrial type uses. Finerty Well I guess I was looking at taking that little spot of OP on Frank Sinatra and making it all office professional on that corner and eliminating that mixed use. Drell Or, I would make it all mixed use. Remember mixed use allows the.... Finerty I know, but I am not thrilled with mixed use because of the high density residential. If it were mixed use between office professional and commercial, 13 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 I would be happy with that. But to me, it is just another pocket where you know 22 units per acre could end up in there. Drell Well, and I would argue that that is a good thing, that where there is proximity, again a part of the goal here was again to put as much multi family housing as close to the University as we could. And, Finerty Well, that was some people's thoughts. Drell That was the vast majority vote of the GPAC's. Finerty It was heavily made up of educators. Drell It was made up of a group of hand selected representatives of the community by the City Council. Finerty It was still heavily made up of educators. The other issue with regard to OP on Gerald Ford, I guess basically is the intersection of Portola and Gerald Ford, if we're talking about using OP as a buffer, why are we only buffering half of it? Drell If you look at the preferred alternative, we did do neighborhood commercial right on the corner and then high density and then medium density. We did buffered, we did grade it. Finerty No, I am talking about, I am sorry, I am talking about buffering it west of Gerald Ford, because it looks like you would have low density residential backed up to Gerald Ford. Drell Oh, I see, so continuing west on Gerald Ford, there is no problem there. Again that is...unfortunately,that is the one property owner we got absolutely no input from on what they might have wanted...was the redevelopment agency who owns that property. Finerty Okay. Drell And so, in those situations where we got no input whatsoever, that was designated as low density residential, we kept it low density residential. Remember we can always amend it and come back and change it if the 14 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 property owner so desires but that was, I guess that was just a matter of our path of least resistance. We didn't want to be ...... Finerty I think it is a good concept in general to have OP buffer low density, I was just thinking that we need to be consistent and if RDA didn't have any input, maybe if we were to make that OP all the way across there, then if they were to look at it, then maybe we would hear from them. Drell I would agree with you 100%, because the reason why I think that is a good idea, I believe that having uses that face the street with an open front without a big wall,which is a far more attractive street scape then what you get at the back end of a residential area. Secondly, it is more economical in that, you know we are having this controversy over the maintenance of residential perimeter landscaping. Finerty And that would eliminate... Drell Exactly, that would eliminate it because you have a use that...the offices by nature have to maintain their front yards instead of having it a the backyard. So I would agree 100%, it creates a more attractive street scape to have nice buildings facing the street as opposed to block walls in the back ends of houses. Lopez Just as a point of clarification, we are looking at Gerald Ford at the corner of Portola, the purple area there. Drell Yes, she is suggesting that that purple area should extend to the west all the way to Shadow Ridge. Lopez And then what about across the street? Drell Um, we had discussion with the, again you probably want to hear from that property owner which I don't know if he is here or not. You know the original idea when you look at the preferred alternative, to have some degree of and we were showing medium density residential, we were showing some right at corner, some neighborhood shopping, a little neighborhood shopping center and some high density so there was some degree of that going on. If you look further down on the north side of Gerald Ford, you saw apartments. Again facing...the idea was that those apartments would face Gerald Ford, not back onto Gerald Ford, so there was some attempt to put 15 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 high traffic compatible uses on Gerald Ford. The property owners were adamantly against that. They wanted to do what they wanted to do which is what you see in the staff recommended altemative and believe it or not or if they believe it or not, ultimately I suggest things to the property owners but if they are intent on doing something, then sometimes for the sake of compromising and moving forward I go okay. But if you guys feel that it is important to do something else, that is for you to recommend. Campbell Can you tell me what the quasi public facilities are? They are scattered in different places? Drell Okay, if you look at the ....... Campbell The staff recommended ..... Drell If you look at them now, they have a S, if it says public facility S, that is the, okay, on the Monterey/Gerald Ford neighborhood, that is the K-8 middle school, the public facility... 3 Campbell The gray areas. Drell The gray area anticipated by that property owner, they are talking to a church. Campbell So, we have 3 gray areas in the staff recommend alternative. Drell The other 3 gray areas are.... Campbell Gerald Ford and Portola and then Portola and Dinah Shore..... Drell Okay, the Gerald Ford and Portola one is the, if it doesn't say S by it, that means it's not specifically at this time designated as a school. The PF... Campbell It is only a PF. Drell The PF, the thought and again if you have, if you remember the master plan submitted by this property owner, more specifically defined the PF for this project and his thought is...on that one he is in negotiation with the church. t Finerty Which PF are we talking about? 16 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 %1W Drell The PF at Gerald Ford and Portola. Campbell The big square. Drell The little PF that is next to the park off of what would be Berger and what is going to be called University which is the internal road there, in getting that master planned, they are anticipating a child care center, a library, or a fire station or something like that. Campbell And how about the one on Dinah Shore and Portola? Drell Dinah Shore and Portola... Campbell Left of .... Drell Oh, oh, that is an Edison facility. Campbell Okay. That is there already? Drell No, Edison owns the property. It's not...which brings up another thing I should mention. I am not sure, and Mark might talk about that a little bit and we had a long discussion with it earlier in the week, a lot of the geometry at that intersection right now of Dinah Shore and Portola as it relates to a future interchange is right now strongly influenced by that existing Edison property with forces that intersection to be exactly where it is which I understand is not absolutely ideal to the geometry of the...so conceivably that could change. I don't know if it will or not, when we finally get down to designing the long term design of the interchange. But that's what that is for. Another thing I would like to point out—it is something you should know about, think about...you see both in the preferred alternative and actually probably all the alternatives, along Gerald Ford, a kind of a green belt or .... Finerty OS/PR? Drell Yeah, in our environment, it is more of a...I would call a tan belt. Also, you are seeing the same sort of thing up at that intersection of what would be Dinah Shore and Portola. Those were at the specific request of a discussion of some members of the GPAC to create somewhat more significant areas of desert landscaping in this plan, something more than just a perimeter 17 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 landscape treatment and those are kind of designed...If you look at that Gerald Ford/Cook one, it is backing up onto multi-family which more than likely will be facing inward, facing to the south and that would in essence provide the buffer between Gerald Ford and the multi family and would create as you're driving down Gerald Ford, somewhat of a perception you are leaving one neighborhood and going to another, which is that one at begins at Portola and Gerald Ford. The other is the one at that intersection at Dinah Shore and Portola and that is as part of some future interchange as people enter the City, their first experiences of a desert environment somewhat not a commercial industrial comer. So, those were 2 areas that were in response to that desire from GPAC to create some of these areas that was staffs kind of recommendation...those were 2 areas where it might serve some urban design purpose. The issue on these things is, where is the land going to come from and who is going to maintain these things? We learned with, for those of you familiar with Haystack, the Haystack Park controversy where the City tried to combine as a condition of approval, on Canyon Cove, the installation and maintenance of that drainage channel park and it was challenged by the residents and the determination was, that facility even though it was adjacent to their perimeter, is really a substantial public benefit facility and, therefore, in the assessment district that was created to maintain it, the City ended up getting stuck with 60 or 70% of the maintenance, so the presumption is if we required developers to do this, that which would exceed what we normally require as a perimeter of the project would probably be ultimately on the City's nickel. So, these would be kind of an open space park as being what they call a general benefit as opposed to specific benefit, it would probably be the City's responsibility. Finerty GPAC also felt that we ought not to have every piece of land covered with a building. Drell Correct. And of course you know we do as you see in the plan between the golf course and the parks and those with significant open space and you see within the...really on that school site although it doesn't and it really should show up on the staffing alternative...basically on the K-8, they're asking for 18 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 %NW 25 acres of which 10 acres would be a common use public park similar with, hopefully if we can talk to the Palm Springs District, the same sort of arrangement we have with the new school and park we are doing on Country Club. Finerty Right. Drell And then in the Cook Street/Gerald Ford neighborhood, we are showing again three smaller, initially with the high school we were showing a large park, the high school left and we broke that into 3 smaller parks distributed throughout that neighborhood. Finerty I noticed that north of the freeway, the less intense use is broken down differently than on the preferred and the staff recommended alternative, specifically with regard to high density. Drell Yes. Finerty Do we have an idea from the county which would be most accurate? Drell We just got a comment from them, they didn't even mention that at all and I apologize, when I had the GIS guy redo the staff recommended alternative for the University area, he didn't do anything to the area north of 1-10. It was my intent that we would substitute the less intense alternative for the area shown currently, mainly because I just don't think a mass of high density that large is a good idea. Finerty Okay, so the staff recommended alternative north of the freeway should reflect the less intense. Drell Yes. Criste If I could just add to that, the one other additional change at least I would like to submit to you would be that we have changed the maximum lot size down from what the county's requirement was for Mountain Estates it's called...we cut it in half and the County's designation is one per 40 and to be perhaps consistent with both the county and the multi species plan expectations, I would suggest we go back to that county designation of one per forty where we have one per 20. That is the only addition I would suggest. 19 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Drell In this map you won't see any of that, which is further north. Criste It is further north. It is also a mix of large area so that while the density change may seem insignificant, there are thousands of acres designated like that so it would make a big difference both in terms of just open space preservation, traffic and circulation, and consistency with the multi species plan. Drell And frankly, although it was an interesting exercise dealing with the area north of the freeway, it is an area where, in that particular area we probably have no plans to annex and I am not sure the folks in Thousand Palms have any desire to be annexed to the City, so it is a suggestion to try to better address the...what we feel a huge housing demand created on both sides of the freeway...the housing demand created by the commercial in that area. But still, the concentration of high density in the GPAC was...we felt was inappropriate. Lopez Again, I apologize for being late this morning and you may have touched upon this since opening remarks and comments, but I guess I would question the general plan staff recommended alternative is your best effort to incorporate what GPAC has done, as well as what information you have received from developers... Drell And property owners, correct. Lopez And property owners. The preferred alternative is GPAC's best. Drell Yes. Lopez An then they have also more intense and less intense. Drell Those were created by staff for the...initially, just for the...to meet the requirements of the environmental impact report and to see what differences what varying the mix would have. Lopez So the preferred alternative is GPAC's recommendation. Drell Correct. 20 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 Lopez And then the staff recommended alternative is taking their recommendations, incorporating what you know from developers and land owners. Drell Correct. Lopez Okay, thank you. Campbell Any more questions of staff? No? Okay. Drell I would suggest that we open the public hearing and let those members of the public who didn't get a chance to speak at the last meeting to address their concerns. Campbell The public hearing is open and we have 2 blue cards here and so these people can speak first. Rick Domonsky? Well then I will call somebody else and he can speak after this other person. Malcolm Reilly? (No response) Anyone else who wants to speak? Tom Noble 42620 Caroline Ct. Palm Desert Really, just...You have quite a bit of correspondence I sent at earlier meetings, specifically with the property that the staff of the preferred alternative has returned in effect to its current zoning of service industrial above the Dinah Shore extension and west of the Portola extension. I appreciate Mr. Drell's listening to the concerns we had about the GPAC's preferred alternative which included quite a bit of high density residential property and I would just like to go on record in favor of the zoning as changed in the staffs current recommendation. Thank you. Campbell Is Mr. Domonsky here now? Reilly I am not Mr. Domonsky. Can I speak first and have Mr. Domonsky follow me? Campbell Yes go ahead and state your name. 21 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Malcolm Reilly 11640 San Vicente Blvd. Los Angeles, CA We are the owners of the shopping center at the southeast comer of Country Club and Monterey. This is the shopping center with the recently vacated Albertson's Market. We are the owner of that shopping center and we also own the market. We bought the property with the idea of upgrading the center and replacing the supermarket. In that regard, we are in negotiations with Gelson's supermarket. We do not have a commitment from them. I want to make that clear and our intent is to hopefully make the arrangement with Gelsons to upgrade the center and make it the type of center I think Palm Desert would like there. The reason that we are here is to talk about the northeast comer which is the vacant parcel of I think approximately eight acres. It is currently zoned residential and I believe the staff is recommended continuing residential but they have asked or suggested an additional study for use of that property that would be other than residential. We also know that the owner of that shopping center is contemplating and has told people that he is going to hopefully put in a shopping center, a supermarket or in a shopping center in that location, we feel that the intersection which is basically a neighborhood intersection could not support three supermarket oriented shopping centers and indeed Gelsons has told us flat out that if that property is ever contemplated to be zoned commercial, or if a supermarket were to go there, they would not be interested in going into our shopping center and quite frankly, from our experience, I don't think we would be able to obtain another supermarket if a project were to go on the northeast corner. Now, to further support that position, we have asked Rick Domonsky of Thompson &Associates, which is a market analysis which will tell you a little bit more about the impracticality of putting three grocery operated shopping centers at that intersection. Campbell Mr. Reilly, what kind of market is that, I am not familiar with that. Reilly Gelsons is a full line, 33,000 square feet, I guess you would call them boutique at 33,000 square feet, but they are very high quality and very high service, they are the anti-WalMart, they actually increase their sales when 22 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 r., WalMart comes because there are a lot of people looking for the more intimate, very high quality type of grocery store. I don't believe there is a grocery store like it right now in the Coachella Valley. I know Jensons is excellent but they are not exactly like a Gelsons. They like the medium size, comfortable kind of quiet type of shopping versus the other types of shopping that are being built. Campbell Thank you. Reilly By the way, they only contemplate doing one store in the Coachella Valley and this is the only location that they would go, so they tell us. Campbell Great. Thank you. That sounds nice. Good morning commission members, staff. My name is Rick Domansky. I am senior client manager with Map Info/Thompson Associates. It is a recently merged company. Campbell Can you give us your address for the record? Rick Domansky Map Info/Thompson Associates 7567 Amador Valley Blvd. Suite 310 Dublin, CA 94568 Prior to our merger, I was vice president of supermarketing for Thompson Associates for 13 years and partner of the company and we just recently merged to form Map Info. We have 600 people in our organization. Prior to my coming on with Thompson Associates I was director of area research for Ralph's, for federated department stores, for 15 years. In fact my career started when your city became incorporated in 1973. At Ralph's I was responsible for introducing Ralph's into the Coachella Valley, bringing them into Palm Springs, and Indian Wells at Cook and 111. And since that time when I was at Thompson Associates, my work was basically desert crossings. That's it. I did Desert Crossing for Lowes, the entire shopping center. I also brought in Lucky's at Deep Canyon at 111 for American Stores so I am very familiar with your city. And certainly the venue of WalMart coming into the Coachella Valley, etc. 23 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 In March of this year we were given a challenge by Mal Reilly to say basically, "hey, we know Super WalMart is coming, we have a brand new Albertson's 50,000 square footer across the street, what is the best alternative for our vacated space? Who could be the best 'grocery user' if we could do it?" And the answer of course is going to be an upscale full serve, full line grocery store with a great perishables image in meat and produce. That is the kind of concept that can essentially overlap the impasse of the Super WalMart centers as has been Raily's case in Bel Air, in places like Reno and Sparks, Nevada. So, we understand that. Gelsons just for your information, started actually in 1950-1960 by the Gelson Brothers and they since have sold to Art Mayfair and they are a very reputable chain. They don't build stores too close together. Theirs is a very unique customer. They like to have their stores in good income areas about 10 miles apart. When we looked at this site, looking at that alternative, we looked at three possible users. We looked at Whole Foods, we looked at certainly someone like Henry's, we looked at Gelsons. Now, given the fact that these two stores were already on the drawing board, the numbers came in lackluster. They weren't bam burners but they were lackluster. In other words, if you had to build a brand new Gelson store in Plaza de Monterey, it wouldn't pencil out, it would be a negative R.O.Y. The fact that it is an existing center, they can revamp it. It's got good access, great visibility. It barely works as it is. The fact that Gelsons has no sister stores in the Coachella Valley because theirs is going to be a single store strategy for the entire Valley, Palm Desert, obviously, geographically it's the center. But also, the intersection made a lot of sense for them given their sales volume. If they had a sister store in either Indian Wells, La Quinta or Palm Springs, it probably would impact their sales by 10%. That would be a break point. It would not happen. In other words, you cannot rebuild a Gelsons at that intersection. So, this is almost a custom fit for them. The fact that if you bring in a third store with a high perishables full service image, obviously you know to compete directly with them, the critical mass of three stores at that intersection, you run the risk of actually having all three stores fall below break even, including a Henry's, a Gelsons and Albertsons, with the Super WalMart center. That being said, that's what you risk. 24 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 tow The fact that Gelsons can survive even with the growth that we built into 2008, which is probably, we have added about 10,000 people to that three mile ring around them, it barely makes the R.O.Y. requirement. The fact that they are a little bit more private company and if that were a company like Vons or Kroger or Albertsons that requires a 20% R.O.Y. to make the deal, it would never happen. I mean...so it is actually very custom fit for Gelsons. It would be a unique addition to your valley, certainly. Everybody in the valley, they have a great high recognition. They did their own consumer research recognition...85% of your residents know what a Gelsons is, they've shopped in a Gelsons according to some of the research that they've done internally and I have also been told by Jim Hansen at our last meeting that we can't survive if another store goes in across the street, so I just hope I am not here 5 years from today, trying to support a 990 only store or something for that site. That's all I have to add. But like I said, I am very familiar with your city and I had a hell of a time getting Lucky at Deep Canyon but I convinced them it was the spot to go in and they did very very well there, so I am certainly...do 200 studies a year, done over a 1,000 and this is what we do and this is what we know. Are there any questions? Finerty Yes. How quickly would Gelsons want to move? Domansky I'm sorry? Finerty How quickly would they want to move? Domansky To move into the site? Finerty Yes. Domansky I guess that is really a question for Mr. Reilly. Come on up here and join me. Reilly Assuming we were successful, we would have 3 or 4 months of working on the building to suit their requirements and they would probably want to open a year from now. They would not want to open off season, so probably a ,r year from now is the answer to your question. 25 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Finerty Thank you. Lopez A quick question also. Based on the experience that we have had here, do you have any ideas about the traffic circulation through that area? That has been a difficult place to get through with the smaller stores in there as well as having an anchor. Does that come into the conversation at all? Reilly Well there is no question the ingress and egress is not ideal, but there have been supermarkets there. Lucky's did a phenomenal volume when it was there on its own, far more than anything that Gelsons contemplates, so it will be something quite frankly I wish I could say otherwise that people get used to and know how to get in and out and they know how to go by the deli and make the left hand turn there, and so forth. But we are aware the traffic is not going to get any lighter, and it is a consideration, but that location has supported very very high volumes in the past. Campbell That was going to be one of my questions also. Domansky I would also like to add that Gelsons is kind of almost like a destination retailer so I would assume that probably a good third of its business is going to come from outside of Palm Desert, from Rancho Mirage and certainly from La Quinta and Indian Wells as well. Campbell Also, the parking lot needs to go ahead and be worked on too because the circulation there is very very poor. Reilly We have a major renovation and upgrade plan for the center, we are just waiting hopefully to get Gelsons in tow and we think you will be very pleased with what we do. Tschopp Okay. A couple of questions for you. I know your specialty is grocery stores, but did you consider other alternatives to that site other than a grocery store going in there? Domansky That is up to our client Mal. Our direction was to, it was actually not even direction, it was a challenge. I've known Mal from my years from Ralph. We have done a lot of centers with Mal Reilly, certainly and I am I guess the guru of grocery stores, or whatever in the California region. He basically gave me a challenge and said "If this were your center, what would you do with it?" and I looked at it. He never...he was bouncing around names like Wild Oats 26 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 and Whole Foods and I turned around, I gave him a report, I go, man beeline for Gelsons. I know that they want to come into the Coachella Valley. This is the most central most spot, it is their size, it is their customer, they are going to start off, you know given the fact that you've got two stores coming in it is going to be a slow start off, but the point is is that they have a great reputation and everybody will know them. Everybody knows who they are and that to me was like, once I get my mind set on something, we went after them and I totally went after them. Was I right? Reilly Yes. Tschopp So you really didn't look then at other uses for the center. Reilly Sure, we have a downside scenario, doomsday scenario, if we don't get a supermarket, meaning neighborhood shopping centers of this type are predicated on a supermarket, they bring people there one or twice a week and your shops rely on that and that's what makes them successful. But if we're unable to get a supermarket but it depends, I am assuming that there is no retail or no shopping center across the street we'll get by. We will probably subdivide the building and we talked to furniture stores and we have talked to discount women's clothing. Those types of tenants, you could probably guess who they would be. There is the dollar stores, 10,000, 15,000 square feet. There are party stores, that type of thing. As I say, it is a fall back position but that is the type of tenant that I would foresee and the center would be of a different nature. But we would lease it and it would be successful and a good shopping center. But it would not be as good as if we were able to get Gelsons which I think would make it an "A" quality center. It would be something that we would be very very proud to own from our standpoint, and this is what we are hoping will work out that way. Tschopp It is my understanding that the staff has made the northeast corner a study area right now and it is zoned residential, but as the City goes through this process and looks at how to buffer residential from high volume intersections such as this area right where we are talking about, have you given your input or would you give your input on what you think would be the appropriate zoning across the street? Reilly Well, no we haven't. We sort of looked at it from a defensive standpoint and in all honesty, residential would be good for us because it would bring 27 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 customers there, but I don't think we would have any objection to other forms of retail as long as it does not include a supermarket, perhaps office if there is demand for that type of a use, would be a good use for it. Maybe even a mixed use if the traffic can be worked out. But no, we really haven't given any thought to what we would do with that property. We are just concerned that if it becomes a supermarket anchored shopping center, it would be very very bad for our center. Domansky Not so much bad for their center, but detrimental to Gelsons. I mean, this is their magic spot. This is what they want to make happen, I believe, and it is ready to go. Campbell Thank you. Mr. Drell you want to go ahead? Drell Okay, I believe now if the Commission has no more comments over land use, that we will probably take it up again at the next meeting when Sabby is back but I think the suggestion is now that we go on to our introduction to the Circulation Element, so that would be the next order of business. Criste Requested a break. CHAIRPERSON CAMPBELL CALLED FOR A FIVE MINUTE RECESS AT 9:52 A.M. THE MEETING WAS RECONVENED AT 10:03 A.M. Campbell We have now resumed the public hearing and I just wanted to let the public know that this meeting will terminate at 11:30 and will resume again at 6:00 pm. We will go ahead and not close the public hearing but will continue till 6:00. Okay, we're ready. Criste We are going to go start our venture into the circulation element. I know you've had a chance to look at the elements in the general plan and the EIR also provides a very detailed discussion about the traffic model and we've provided what essentially is a summary version of what comes out of the general plan and the EIR and we are going to run through a real brief power point presentation showing a lot of major intersections and some other items and then briefly reference again the staff report materials and then staff is going to go over some of the major issues that they want to relate to you relevant to the traffic issues associated with the general plan. So, to get started here, the City Engineer sent out staff to take some photos of key intersections and roadway segments so you can see we've got some really .r 28 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 excellent photographs to show the roadways and examples of operating conditions as well. This is Highway 111 looking west. Here is another stretch of 111 looking west at the Desert Crossing Center section. You can see here we have three through lanes and dual lefts for the westbound traffic. This is 111 again looking further west towards Rancho Mirage. You can see we have high volumes of traffic and our six-lane configuration completed in this stretch. Same general vicinity. This is Monterey and 111, one of our highest volume intersections. Here we've got again 3 through lanes, 2 dual lefts and then a dedicated right turn lane, so it really helps to optimize the flow of traffic through that intersection. New improvements on Fred Waring. This predates actually the construction of the new improvements or completion of them. Looking east, again one of our high volume roads. Another view of Fred Waring west of Deep Canyon looking east. You can see how traffic moves in these groupings sometimes called platoons that are sometimes were formed by the signal phasing. Another good example of intersection turning movements. Here we've got a dedicated right turn coming southbound off of Portola. That is in the bottom left hand side of the photo. You can see how that's a free movement for southbound Portola travelers onto westbound Fred Waring. Fred Waring east of Portola...part of improvements again with the center turn lane. This is one way of facilitating left hand tuming movements in the absence of a raised median and turn pockets. There are occasions where this is an appropriate type of configuration. Heavy congestion on the east leg of Fred Waring and Portola. Good movement here...you can see along Fred Waring, near City Hall. Here is an example of the street that has plenty of capacity. This is Haystack looking west. Notice also the bike lane striping and the center lane to facilitate left turns in both directions. Another view of Haystack. This is Monterey and Country club and the area where the subject of discussion was earlier. We are looking south in the upper right hand corner is the new Albertson center in Rancho Mirage and to the left is the existing Plaza de Monterey commercial center. Washington at 42, another high volume street and again the 6 through lane configuration. Washington looking north. Again, another view of Washington showing...notice that we have limited access points along Washington here which keeps a smooth tow 29 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 flow of traffic or limits the amount of disruption of the traffic flows, so restricting access on large arterials can really enhance capacity. This is the south side, or looking south on Monterey from up on the bridge essentially, the approach on 1-10 and the Home Depot on the far right and the Desert Gateway property it is in the center mid-ground by those power poles.This is a typical commercial access. This is at the Home Depot looking across the street to what would be a future access drive for the Desert Gateway project and it will be a signalized intersection. Some of our streets aren't fully improved yet. We are waiting for adjoining developments so we have had edge to curb kind of conditions like this or rather edge of pavement. Out in this area we are also contending with blowing sand, we've had this problem of course on Sinatra during construction of Shadow Ridge and some other areas. This should start to dissipate as development occurs on the south of the interstate continues to stabilize these areas. This is on the 1-10, looking east on 1-10, east of the Monterey on ramp. These are the new or revised street cross sections that City staff has put together and we have now incorporated into the draft general plan for your consideration and approval. They substantially conform to those that were set forth, recommended by traffic engineer and earlier staff versions and this is just an example of one of these kind of a critical intersection where we optimized turning movements through an arterial intersection. Also you will note that the bottom figure is a left turn pocket. This is for instance what is being done now on Magnesia Falls at Monterey to preclude a dangerous or hazardous westbound left off of Mag Falls onto Monterey that is precluded, but the left turn pocket for southbound traffic is being preserved and is now open in fact, just recently. The general plan traffic model does not take any consideration for mass transit or for the use of bicycles or for the use of golf carts. So, in that respect it should be viewed as a fairly conservative projection. It is a highly variable thing about how you optimize the use of mass transit and other types of non single occupant vehicle travel. Again, a lot of this lies with the kind of complimentary land use planning you do along the lines that Phil was discussing earlier. 30 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 We have lots of great sidewalks that people use here as almost an extension of the resort lifestyle and of the retirement second home lifestyle. These are really critical parts of the public circulation improvement and there are also in this kind of environment also an extension of the open space environment essentially. Again, golf course paths, and notations we have for that signage. Here is a case of having a bike path on Country Club and a nice meandering sidewalk along the same street. We have a map in the, I can't remember if it is in Parks and Rec, it is in Parks and Rec much to the chagrin of the traffic engineers, the golf cart and bike path route which they think should be moved into the circulation element. I don't think we are adverse to that. It could even be in both in some fashion so, but it definitely affects the operation of the road system and the traffic engineers want to make sure that they are fully engaged in those considerations. This is mass transit or a rather non-motorized transit on Amsterdam. This is a garage for bicycles and you can see there are thousands of bicycles in this one little parking area. We may not be able to accomplish that, but we do tam have the kind of opportunity in a user group on the north end eventually that may extend substantially our use of bicycles in the City. This is a good example of the relationship between land use and streets and how you have just a mix of pattems and then need to integrate traffic with surrounding lands from an access point of view and this was a pretty graphic example in the city. We also have issues where if you place residential development for instance or any kind of development along our roadway and have access onto it, in this case even parking on a long strip, you are going to affect the capacity of the roadway and you create more potential for turning conflicts that can either lead to accidents or just reduce capacity. This is on Shadow Mountain, so incidents here are probably, traffic lines are so low, we probably don't have much in the way of conflicts of that sort in this area. Here is an example though where you have an office center and a single dedicated access drive can serve in this case, probably about 30,000 square feet of office space pretty efficiently. 31 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 Along Portola we have a street, at least one street that has been closed off from access to Portola and we have access control on this street and in the future probably along others to again make them safer and to preserve capacity. This is just north of 111 and Alessandro. Also along Portola we have issues of widening and you can see that there are good development and relatively new development adjoining and we discussed that in some length last time about having to become thoughtful about compatibility of adjoining land uses along these major arterial roadways. This is again the same vicinity further north. Also in the same area where we have single family housing coming—taking access directly off of Portola and you see the truck coming along so you can imagine during busy times of the day, getting in and out of this property can be a challenge. This residential development north of Fred Waring Drive in the area that we have been discussing up to an area which is a little further up the way where the homes are served by an internal circulation and don't take access off of Portola. This is the north end of that stretch of housing on the west end of Fred Waring. This is an example of conversion that has occurred. This is Fred Waring Drive and I believe there are houses along the way. This is where we had a successful conversion of a single family neighborhood that developed before anybody, the county primarily, before anybody really envisioned what Fred Waring would be in the terms of its importance as an arterial and a very successful conversion of what was becoming a highly impacted residential area to office and it is a very good example of that kind of conversion. Also, this is the Walgreen's at the east end of what I call Alessandro, but I don't know if that is the right name of the alley that we have been discussing north of Highway 111 that serves the commercial developments like Andreino's and some others. This is the west end of that area and then this is internal to that area that we've discussed about...this is not only important to circulation which it is, but also the opportunities that we'll be discussing about providing some kind of additional enhanced parking and also buffer for the residents to the north and that is pretty much our presentation. 32 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 The handout materials that you have, you will notice that in the general plan and in the EIR, we have talked at length about levels of service on two levels. One is the level of service on roadway segments which is really a qualitative mid block kind of qualitative analysis. Do I feel like I am moving along? Do I feel like I have room to maneuver in the stream of the traffic? That is really the measure for the mid block and then for the intersections, the level of service is a function of the length of time that you have to wait to get through the intersection, essentially. We have the City's traffic model which has been through at least 2 or 3 iterations at this point, is a focused version of the CVAG and SCAG model which is a regional traffic model. Our model is a much more focused version of that. The materials you have talk about the productions and attractions that are identified through the land use map and which generate the traffic that flows on the streets. A lot of this traffic is internal to the city, but a lot of it is external to the-city because we have a lot of attractors that draw traffic on a regional level. We discuss those types of trips at some length and there is tar a greater discussion in the EIR and also the traffic report. The city has been broken down into 331 small cells or geographic areas called transportation analysis zones and in each zone is a lot of data and the first level of data is what are the types of land uses that occur within that zone and how much acreage is that data, and then what its distribution is within the zone. And there is also a host of background data which is socioeconomic data that also has some effects on the amount of traffic that is generated from these various types of land uses. This gives us a finer detail, a finer grain, if you will, a resolution of how the traffic system is operating. We also have about 15 land use categories that were used in the model for the various types of land uses that generate traffic. The model sometimes is referred to as a gravity model because essentially it is looked at as if these were gravitational forces that were drawing traffic. One of the things it does as an example is that the model will say look at a regional kind of attractor, like a regional shopping center, and it will start searching the land use pattern around the center and it knows how many trips it's going to generate. That is how many trips it is going to attract. It will start to go progressively further and further afield in order to capture more of these trips. The trip assignment, or the trips that the computer figures are 33 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 going to be generated, are distributed as I will mention in a minute, out as far as they need to go in order to capture what we think will be the optimum traffic level from that particular land use. The other thing the model does, it looks at both within a transportation zone, there may be a mix of land uses that compliment each other so there may be trips generated back and forth between the land uses within a given zone. This is the kind of condition we are trying to optimize in the University Park planning area where although there are more than one analysis zones in there, we're trying to keep the distance between trips and the trip generators as short as possible and the idea is that if you can keep them within a taz or adjoining tazzes, you can keep them off the arterial road network, then they essentially can use the secondary road network in order to get to and from those locales. We looked at existing traffic conditions and at future traffic conditions with the general plan alternatives and under existing conditions we found that several links were operating at very high volumes, 10 of them at what we would call a level of service D, 7 at level of service E, and 7 at level of service F. And these are more qualitative again rather than a quantitative kind of analysis. And then with regard to intersections, we evaluated 52 intersections. For our experience, it is an unprecedented level of general plan analysis. Including calculating all the turning movements for the preferred alternative for all of these intersections and under current conditions we find that 5 intersections operate at E or F and 3 intersections are operating at a level of service D and that is with existing levels of improvement. We then have some tables that show both link volumes and levels of service for existing conditions and the same thing for the 52 intersections that we discussed and again since the constrained part of the road network are always the intersections, that is the greatest constraint occurs there, if you can solve your capacity problems at intersections, you've addressed the lion's share of capacity issues associated with your roadway network. We find under current conditions that 1-10 at Ramon is operating at exceeding capacity in some instances. Fred Waring and Deep Canyon, Deep Canyon and Highway 111, Fred Waring and Cook Street, El Dorado at Hovely Lane, and Washington Street at both Country Club and Hovely Lane. They are all currently operating at what we would probably characterize at marginal. In that case levels of service D or unacceptable, which would be levels of service E and F. The other thing I would mention is that we have one street 34 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 it that is on the county-wide congestion management plan. That is Monterey Avenue and we are required in order to continue to qualify for revenues, shared revenues for street improvements, we have to maintain that at a level of service E or better. That would be any intersection along Monterey Avenue. We also for the sake of trying to look at how the land use plans relate to the traffic that is generated, we asked the traffic engineer to break the land use and what's called the productions and attractions analysis up into 3 districts. So, we broke the city planning area into 3 districts. The first district is north of Interstate 10, the mid district is from Frank Sinatra north to Interstate 10. So, it is essentially all the University Park planning area. The last district is everything south of Frank Sinatra. We then have a table that gives you the projected traffic volumes for major links and then a table that gives us intersection impacts and what we have done here is we've made bold all those intersections that would continue to operate a level of service D or worse in the peak hour period and in what is called the post 20/20 period. That is a presumed build out period for the %W general plan and uses CVAG/CVATS numbers for the level of traffic outside the city itself. You can see that what we have been able to do or what the traffic engineers have been able to do and again this is a very rough even though we have a very refined picture, this is a rough approximation of how the system will operate. It's not meant to be extremely precise, but it is for land use planning purposes. You can see that with improvements that are proposed, all intersections analyzed will operate a level of service D or better and there are probably additional improvements. In fact in some instances there are additional improvements that have been recommended that will allow intersections to go from a essential level of failure to a level of service C. So we have some of the quantum leaps of improvement which are reflected on Table 6 which is on page 19 of your staff report. Here again, what we have done is we show the seconds of delay and we make bold those intersections which continue to operate at a level of service, well they did operate or would operate at a level of service D or worse, and then in some instances you will see that below them we now have them operating at a level of service C or D. So, again all the intersections operate at a level of service D or better with the recommendations set forth by the traffic engineers. 35 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 The other issue that we've mentioned throughout and there are programs for are the ongoing monitoring analysis function. This is very much an adaptive management kind of process and so the reality check made regularly by the traffic engineers, they do traffic counts, they do other kinds of analysis that help to allow them year by year or on a multi year basis to plan for future improvements, the capital improvement programs, those sorts of things. And then we should mention again that we don't have mass transit factored into this so if we can enhance the availability and use of mass transit and alternative modes of transportation, we can further enhance operation of the street system. We have essentially used the general plan, policies and programs and we have some discussion about some of these to essentially mitigate issues, mitigate potential impacts before they occur because this is a predictive tool and we have a brief summary of mitigations. Again, a couple of the other issues we had remaining were that the staff has had a new master circulation plan drafted which they are going to introduce to you in a minute and also we have modified per staff recommendation, we ., are requesting that you consider an amendment to policy one having to do with the minimum levels of service. This continues to be something of an issue between staff and myself and the traffic engineers for that matter but has to do with what is a reasonable level of service from a policy point of view for intersections and their operation. We also modified the reference to truck routes in the element to eliminate reference to specific streets. You know that we have an issue with regard to Monterey Avenue and the widening of Monterey south of County Club. Now Rancho Mirage is going to be doing some analysis. Their issue has to do primarily with noise and we are seeing we are somewhere in the range now with build out rather of above 40,000 trips per day. So, we will see how that evolves over time. The Portola interchange issue. Staff has an exhibit they will be showing you of a concept for that. It does not do, it is not a miracle worker by any stretch but it has, it doesn't prove a couple of important interchanges like Monterey and Cook, it improves Monterey traffic volumes themselves. It also importantly provides yet another access point to Interstate 10 which is our 36 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 w.. regional transportation link and when you consider the fact that we are in a high seismic zone we have flooding, we have issues with regard to emergency preparedness, etc., I'll encourage you to anytime you can enhance access for this purpose as much as we did with Magnesia Falls Drive and the bridging of the San Pascual Channel that those things should be kept in mind and be valued. Staff is also concerned about maybe adding a policy and program with regard to the utility company's work in public rights-of-way and trying to say something specific to that so we have drafted a policy and a program to address just that. I will be glad to answer any questions. Finerty Yes. With regard to level of service. On page 13 of this handout, it talks about for many years level of service C was considered desirable and optimal. However, it's saying now that level of service D is now considered the generally acceptable service level. Who decided that? to" Criste Well, I would say as a member of the Institute Traffic Engineers, for urban areas there is a consensus among transportation planners and engineers that a level of service D is a very cost effective and acceptable for peak hours level of service. For rural areas or for smaller towns and for a certain type of environment consistent with the built environment that has been created, that level of service C is more of the ideal that a smaller town environment that we would all like to live in. But the level of service D is a fully functional volume to capacity, operating conditions are good, they are just high volume and they require less right-of-way and essentially optimize those operations. Finerty And you just had mentioned that level of service C is something that we would all like to live in. Isn't the current standard in Palm Desert circulation to be at level of service C? Criste The current general plan does recommend that the policy is that you make a good faith effort to reach level of service C. That's right. Finerty Why would we want to depart from that level of service and that quality of life that our residents enjoy? 37 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 Criste In a nutshell, there is physical reality. That we have physical conditions at intersection nodes, mostly those that are along either highways or major arterials that are urban and in some case relatively intense urban kinds of facilities and that is why LOS-D and those kinds of conditions seem rational. Drell I think the answer is I think we ran into that great example I think was what Dinah Shore and Monterey where physically short of building an interchange, you know where you just can't, in the system of urban design that we've created where we concentrate traffic in certain very intense areas, that you can't build enough lanes to accommodate service of level C at peak hours. Greenwood We have a continuing presentation and we have about 10 more minutes on the staff presentation and level of service is something that we are prepared to show you and show you what a level of service C looks like versus level D and we would like to have this discussion. If you will let me start on some of my presentation, then we will get to that level of service question. Hopefully some of your other questions too. As John discussed, a lot of what we are trying to do here is based on modeling which basically tries to predict the future based on the past modeling has some great limitations Basically what happens when we are doing a traffic model is that if we find that one street 20% too high and other street is 20% too low, we average and say, "hey we did a great job." It is looking at this global scheme and then trying to predict how much traffic is going to come on another street and that is really based on past habits. We have to understand that traffic modeling is a very imprecise tool. When the model says there is going to be 35, 000 cars a day on a street, that doesn't mean 35,261 cars, that means somewhere between 28,000 and 43,000 and that is a pretty big range. So we have to understand the vagaries of this and it really gets to be a problem when we get onto streets like Monterey and Dinah Shore where it's saying there is going to be 70,000 cars a day that gets to be a problem. In another street where it has jumped out at us is on Portola in the area of Fred Waring. We don't know whether the traffic model isn't so precise that it can tell us we definitely need 4 lanes or that we definitely need 6 lanes. It is right in between there so we will come back to Portola. So, anyway as we discuss the modeling and all of these recommendations, let's be sure that we are talking about an imprecise tool. r` { 38 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 VMW Another issue in the traffic model itself is that from the most intense alternative to the least intense alternative we are only talking about a 5% change in volume overall. The global citywide volume of however million cars a day there is only a 5% change so that is relatively minor. It's how you spread them out across the city and the problem is that almost all of that change is happening in the north sphere. Anyway, Mark (Diercks) has some displays here of the level of service. The level of service is basically like a report card. A is great and F is failing. This is an example, I think it is on Haystack. The level of service A means that you have complete freedom to maneuver, go as fast or as slow as you want, you are not impeded by anybody, you are not impeding anybody. Lopez Did you take that in August? Sunday morning in August? Laughter. Greenwood Level of service B or C is, this is hard to say whether this is a B or C but generally B you still have complete freedom to maneuver, you can go as fast `... as you want and there is plenty of lanes for you to do what you want to do. Again, you can go as fast or as slow as you want, you are not impeding anybody. Campbell Washington, right? We are looking at Washington now? Greenwood This is Washington and Hovely. Now, let's go back to B and C. B is extremely good. C is what has been the goal in Palm Desert up until this point and maybe will be beyond this point. Level of service now is generally measured for the worst hour of the day. The peak hour of the day. This is kind of an industry wide standard. The problem that we have in Palm Desert is that we are not like everybody else. Being a resort community, our peak hour doesn't happen between 7 and 9 am and between 4 and 6 pm. Our peak hour happens, basically it builds slowly from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., kind of jumps up at mid noon and the peak lasts from noon till 5 pm. Each hour of the day, each hour of the afternoon is like any other hour in the afternoon, so we are in the peak period longer than most cities are. Most cities endure it for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. We endure it for 4 or 5 hours all afternoon. 39 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Now the goal level of service C. Some would say level of service C is wasteful because you are in the off peak hours many hours of the day where you have all this pavement out there and no cars on it. On the other hand, others would say, people come here to enjoy that kind of a traffic situation. We like being able to get where we want to go when we want to go there and not have to sit through a traffic signal. Basically level of service D means when you come to a traffic signal, you don't necessarily clear it on the first green light. About half of the time you are going to sit there for a second green light before you get to go. Level of service D means you can't maneuver in the lane to go a little faster or a little slower. You go as fast as the car in front of you and the car behind you is going as fast as you are. You can't change lanes because there is a car in the lane next to you. If you are in the left hand lane and you want to make a right hand turn, you better plan it two blocks ahead of time, cause it's going to take you that long to get over there. So there is a big difference between level of service C and level of service D. It is true that kind of industry wide the standard has been set at D but I j think you have to evaluate it if that is what you want. I enjoy having level of service C but I admit that it is an expensive standard to meet. On the other hand it might be one of the reasons for our success, too. Level of service F is failing. You are going to take 3, 4, 5 cycles to get through a signal. This is Fred Waring before we widened it and nobody would accept F as a standard. Some do like...the congestion management plan accepts level of service E as the standard which is completely unacceptable also. When you set a rather low goal and then I guess brag that we met the standard. Another thing too on level of services, these are goals not standards. Set a high goal and do everything we can to get there, but sometimes we don't get there. If we continue to set our level of service at C, Dinah Shore at Monterey is not going to happen at C. Even with an intersection that is built like this one here, with 3 through lanes, free right turn lane, dual lefts, that intersection is still going to be D or E. We at the staff level, we've drawn a line at a 6 lane road. We are not going to contemplate an 8 lane road. Again, that wouldn't meet our quality of life standards and I don't think these huge freeway size roads are not what we want to do. So, at some point we do have to draw the line. Even if we set the level of service goal at C there won't be 7, 8 J 0 intersections that don't meet it. Possibly, and again we are thinking that we can predict the future based on the past, too 40 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 so that is something that we want to make sure that you contemplate and give us some good discussion or guidance on. There is a couple of specific locations we would like to talk about. The first is Monterey Avenue. The city of Rancho Mirage currently has a request for proposals out to engineers and planners where they have stated, the Rancho Mirage City Council has stated, they do not want to see the southbound lanes on Monterey, this is on Monterey looking south of Las Palmas Country Club on the right, Monterey Country Club on the left. They do not want 3 lanes southbound. They don't care if we do 3 lanes northbound, but we think that this is a serious issue for us. Monterey Avenue is the main entry into Palm Desert and if the southbound lanes are congested, that is a problem for us. In the background here you can see the bridge at the White water, you see how the curb is transitioning here. This bridge was built for 6 lanes but the City Council now in Rancho Mirage decided they don't want that road to be 6 lanes. So, we would like to have your opinion about this issue. The concern in Ranch Mirage is that there are houses right behind those trees. The concern is that it would be an impact to those residents and will reduce their quality of life. I think our response is that there is, if we did a proper sound wall and rubberized pavement, that their quality of life after the project would actually be better than before the project. You can't consider it a good quality of life when there is arterial right outside your door and has traffic backed up for 6 hours of the day. It is something we want you to think about. The next one is a Portola interchange which we have...I think you may have seen displays in this before. Monterey is here and Cook St. is right here, Portola in the middle and there is this proposed interchange here, realignment of Varner Road, Dinah Shore Drive comes down, turns into Technology Drive. This is kind of preferred alternative. CalTrans is currently conducting a project study report which is kind of a very preliminary step in a 7 to 10 year process. What Portola interchange does most of all is causes the Monterey interchange to be at a reasonable level of service. If we don't build a Portola interchange, the Monterey interchange will be level of service D or F. If we build the Portola interchange, it takes about 20,000 cars a day off the Monterey interchange. So, that is really the need for it. One of the concerns that I have heard expressed is that if we build this interchange, Portola Avenue further to the south down to Fred Waring might be impacted `.. and the traffic model looked at with and without the interchange and the 41 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 model says there is only about 1,000 vehicle per day difference down on Fred Waring with and without the interchange. About 1,000 cars a day more with the interchange than without so that is not a huge impact. The majority impact to Portola is in the north sphere, say north of Country Club, but overall, from staff perspective, we definitely think this is a very key transportation element that we need to do. Portola Avenue at Fred Waring is another issue that I think we talked about last time, what to do there and I mentioned earlier when we talked about the level of service and modeling. This is where the model predicts. Right now we have measured about 20,000 cars a day here. This is Portola, Fred Waring is here, Rancho Road is right there, Lincoln Elementary School is right there. If you can zoom in, there are 11 houses here on 12 lots. There is some balance here, somewhere, how much road to build, what to do with these houses and what the zoning should be. The traffic model predicts only about 30,000 cars a day on this block of Portola. On the other hand I think volumes may have been artificially held back because further south on Portola, south of Fred Waring, it's only been 2 lanes till now we just recently paved and we are widening out to 4 lanes. Anyway, the future volume as best as we can tell is going to be in the 30,000 range and that could be handled marginally by a 4 lane road. That would be a level of service D in this link of 4 lanes but what is on the board here and I think you have a display from last time on this that this is the staff recommended alternative and this is one of the locations where we realized we may not reach our goal level of service C. Finerty Okay, you said that if that stretch of Portola is widened to 4 lanes that would put it at level of service D and you say marginally handled. Greenwood Well, it won't meet our goal of level of service D. Finerty And if it were at 6 lanes? Greenwood It most likely would be level of service C. Another issue is how we join and connect to Highway 111. When we have done these widening projects for the most part it has been to acquire older properties that were not fully utilized and could be put to better use some other way. In the case of Highway 111, we would have to impact some vital businesses, very expensive construction, very expensive acquisitions, it would have be something we were really sure we wanted to do when we set out to do it 42 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 because it would be one of the most expensive arterial projects we had ever done in Palm Desert. So, given all of these limitations, staffs recommendation is this is one of the places we compromise and accept that we may not meet our goal. On the other hand, traffic may adapt, if Monterey and Cook Street are in such great shape, traffic may just avoid Portola and generally smooths out. And that is the kind of thing the model has trouble identifying. On the circulation map is another thing to be sure...I think you have an 8-1/2 x 11 color circulation map and this is another version of that here. Basically, all the blue lines on this map are 6 lane roads, which is a big change for us. All of these roads are currently 4 lanes and there are some little bits and pieces of 6 lane road. This circulation map is also tied to these street sections that we have prepared and I think you have in your packet or maybe from last time. The street sections, there are several things to contemplate. One is the designation of certain roads as 6 lane roads. Where before we had 4 lane designation with an option for 6 and now we are saying Monterey is going to be 6 lanes, Fred Waring is going to be 6 lanes, Cook Street...a lot of streets are going to be 6 lanes. Then the issue of the parkway width, too. In the past we have had basically 12 feet of right of way from the face of the curb to the right of way line is 12 feet. And then there is an optional 20 foot landscape easement. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. We have been more definitive on these sections here and we are basically recommending a parkway width that is three times the sidewalk width. So on a major arterial where it is 6 lanes, we have an 8 ft sidewalk. The Parkway width there is 24 feet. The back 6 feet or so of that or 8 feet is a utility corner, so we move all the utility vaults and stuff back away from the streets so you don't have all those ugly cans sticking up right out of the curb line. Finerty Okay, the Parkway width for 6 lanes is what? Greenwood The parkway is 24 feet. Finerty And with 4 lanes? Greenwood Hang on. A four-lane thoroughfare has an 18-foot parkway with a 6 foot sidewalk. You should have some displays of this in your packet, I hope. Not 43 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 J Mi. this big though. This is our recommendation. It helps us with utilities, gives us a definitive parkway width. What a lot of times now with developers, we get into a lot of discussion about if there is going to be 20 foot optional or not, is it 12 plus 20, is it just 20, this is a lot more definitive. Another section on here is the rural street section, which really only applies to one place. It is the Palm Valley access channel also known as Calle de los Camposinos. That is where Homme Adams Park is where we have that section that is just sealed now, it is not paved, it just has dust suppressant on it. We are proposing to make that a full city street with a modified section of only 24 feet of pavement, no curb and gutter, just a graded shoulder. That is also included here. The last thing to discuss is median island widths. We currently have islands that we have built at 12 feet, 14 feet, 16 feet and some 18 foot. We have given it a lot of thought of what the median does for traffic, and we are recommending an 18 foot median, mostly for 2 reasons. One is that it leaves a 6 foot nose where we have cut in a left turn pocket like at a signal and in that 6 foot nose, it is marginally plantable. We can put some small shrubs and stuff in it rather than just have cobble out there. The cobble is expensive and doesn't really provide that much of an aesthetic look. The other reason Mai is for this section that Mark has put up, where we allow a left turn in but no left turn out, we need 18 feet in width in order to fit all this stuff in here, and build a median here that really does prohibit the left turn out. And I think that's it. Drell That is for just the major arterials? Not all of the arterials will be... Greenwood Well, the arterial streets and thoroughfares. Everything where we...Yeah. And that is everything I have for you. Campbell Any questions of staff? Drell I have a little comment on the issue of the parkways. I still believe the parkway width should be flexible depending on the nature of development adjacent to it. And where we have retail commercial business that faces the street that it can engage the street a lot closer, I believe. Obviously a graphic. example...El Paseo is a major thoroughfare? 44 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 Greenwood Actually El Paseo has its own designation. Drell And, basically in those instances where we have retail commercial businesses that are designed to engage the street by virtue of their architecture, that those need a special category like El Paseo where the—as opposed to where we have a big parking lot we want to screen, or the back of a building we want to screen, but where we have again a project that is by nature is engaging the street, it should be allowed to, based on its unique design, to be closer to the street. That is my comment on that. Finerty I have a couple of questions for Mr. Greenwood. Drell Sure. Finerty With regard to level of service, if we continue as we have had as our standard level of service C, we would acknowledge that 7 to 10 intersections will not achieve that level of service at peak hours. Greenwood Potentially, yes. Finerty However, if we were to agree to basically compromise those standards that we've had for the past several years and go to level of service D, does that mean that certain remedies that we would normally take to achieve a level of service C would then not be necessary and we would very comfortably kind of slip into the way traffic would move at a service of level D and therefore we would have more intersections where we couldn't change lanes easily and we might not get through the intersection on the first signal because we would no longer be compelled to make those remedies if we set our goal at level of service D? Greenwood Yeah, I think it would have substantial impact on 2 fronts. In the development review process, we would essentially be prohibited from having the project mitigated to anything beyond our goal which if we say our level of service is D, we could not require the developer to do those improvements, I don't think, beyond that level of service D so there would be a problem there. The other issue would be on our own capital improvement program that we take our lead in the capital improvement program from our citywide goals. If our goal is level of service C, we know that when we build a road we need to build some roads to 6 lanes. If we say that goal is only D then rather than ... widening Monterey to 6 lanes, we would say, well then we will go work 45 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 somewhere else, either Monterey slips further or we just never get there, so yes, it would have major impact. Finerty And so, am I hearing that the Public Works Department? Do they have a preference as to whether we should have level of service C or D? Greenwood My preference, speaking as the City Engineer, is for level of service C. Because of our unusual traffic characteristics where we spend more hours of the day in the peak hour, it is more of an impact to us and also from a quality of life and economic development, although those aren't my primary concerns in my job, I believe people come here to enjoy that kind of environment where it has a more rural feel where you can move around easier and I think that is one of the reasons why we have been successful. Finerty I would agree and I was involved in an apartment project on Washington in the city of La Quinta and I had reason to go through their general plan and I was astounded that they accept level of service D and I couldn't help but think that's one of the many issues that separates our city from others in the Valley because we do tend to achieve and strive for those higher standards. .r� Tschopp I have a couple of questions. Your comments...that is interesting you prefer C, because when I read this through, it just basically says we are defaulting to D because there is no affordable alternative that would work and I guess it is more of a comment. It sounds like we are kind of lowering our standards to meet the inability to mitigate the traffic problems. So the question I have is I have always understood traffic to, in a lot of ways, act like water. Take the path of least resistance and at some point in time does cities, because it is not just germane to us, do they just say we are not building anymore, we are going to accept this level and force traffic to take the primary roads and then would that impact then our planning here? Instead of looking at expanding these roads, just saying this is the way it is going to be and hopefully someday down the road we develop workable mass transit systems, etc. But my concern being we build 6 lanes, 10 years now we are building 8 lanes and we look like East L.A. Greenwood That is why I mentioned earlier that from a staff perspective, we are drawing the line at 6 lane roads and intersections with this configuration of either a free or a signaled right turn lane, dual lefts and three throughs, that we would, I guess what we are recommending are levels of service C up to this 46 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4 2003 tow level and that we wouldn't be willing to build 8 lane roads to mitigate to level of service C. As far as the confusion between what the staff report says and what staff is telling you that the consultant prepared the staff report and I have never been able to convince him that level of service C is the way to go. Finerty So we have a difference of opinion between the Public Works Department and between the people that prepared the report? Greenwood Well, I wouldn't say a difference of opinion...ongoing discussion. Finerty Okay, fair enough. Just like husbands and wives. Laughter. Drell I think that the consultants, if you look at the circulation network, we are calling for virtually every arterial that we can physically increase to 6 lanes, to be 6 lanes. So, the plan is showing that. So, it's a matter of spin more than anything else. That while the consultant is being a little more up front, or not up front, but just pessimistic saying that we have already, that by virtue of this circulation network, we can force people to adopt this circulation network if they are impacting it and if they need it with the 6 lanes, we can require them to do 6 lanes. On the other hand there is nothing wrong with still having the goal of C as long as it takes to acknowledges that based on those projections that we will likely exceed C in many instances and not be willing...and we would be doing same damage to our environment and our character by going to, you know if you have ever driven around Scottsdale, it seems like they are freeways, and only the people live in the areas between the off ramps. So, again, having the goal of C is I don't think is a problem as long as it's acknowledged that in many instances it will be difficult or impossible to achieve it. Finerty But having the goal of C from what I am hearing is really important because if we lower our standards and accept level of service D, then there are many improvements that we've been accustomed to that would no longer be happening. Drell Yeah, but we are pretty much...but again, I have no objection or...and I think it is perfectly appropriate to keep the level of C as a goal just as long as the understanding that you don't confuse the word goal with standards. There r... are other considerations that will impact the decision whether we decide to 47 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 { e do a certain improvement or not and decide to approve a certain project or not. Finerty Right. Drell The goal is C, but among other goals we will finally decide on what the ultimate solutions are going to be. Finerty So there is no longer a need to have an ongoing discussion? Drell I don't think so, I mean it is up to you guys, but I have no, as I say as long as it is worded in such a way it is...the problem has been in the past there has been confusion between the word goal and standard and we don't want to be held to a standard that is impossible or undesirable for us to achieve. So, as long as it is clear what we are talking about, that we obviously want the most optimum traffic flow conceivable and level C is not...in many instances is conceivable so as long as it is clear that what we are talking about in terms of the difference of goal and standard, I don't see any problem with having the goal at level C. Greenwood The way I think this would work is that as development reviews came before you...you would get some kind of a statement that you are meeting the goal or not and every project is the planning commission's call, but I would hope that John would be able to work in the text that our goal is level of service C up to these levels of improvements and maybe said...I don't know if we should even mention a maximum we would go, but anything that didn't meet this goal would have to be discussed in the development review process. Finerty John, can you come up with that language? Criste I think so, this is where the weasel words get really important here. You want to give the staff the leverage to require the highest reasonable level of improvements that you can get per the...what we've been used to and our concern would be, as Phil points out, is that we do not want to paint ourselves into the corner where then someone leverages our own policies against us either in court or elsewhere and so we need to have the best of both worlds and I think we started re-working that language in that sense and maybe we just need to do a little bit more that we do identify C as our goal and that under certain circumstances we may, and I will have to draft h something to see what we can come up with. 48 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 `W Finerty Would it be appropriate then as your drafting why C is going to remain our goal because our residents have enjoyed C? This is one of the reasons why people prefer Palm Desert. This is one of the reasons why people leave Orange County and come to Palm Desert. This is the quality of life we are used to and we want to do everything within our power to continue that. Criste The only last things I would say is that we've got, if the model is predictive, then it looks like we have limited areas where we are going to have these problems and that they are going to be at the obvious points along the interstate and elsewhere. The other is that, I can't think of a jurisdiction in the Valley that also doesn't find LOS-D as identified as some kind of goal or acceptable level, so we don't want to be fighting a tide that overwhelms us because an awful lot of our traffic comes from the surrounding communities and if we are out of step, we can take on a lot of responsibility or try to without really being able to control all of our environment. Finerty I realize we can't control what other cities do but on the same token many % r times I have heard city council state that it is up to Palm Desert to take the lead and set the standards. Criste The thing that we could do is we could take all the vacant land and make it open space. Finerty Okay, laughter. Tschopp Two comments. As you look around too at times you see roads widened later on in many instances and at times it does away with that buffering area. I think if you look at better designed roads you will see that there is always a buffer between the road and the residential or even commercial, I guess that I am encouraging that we, as we plan the future we try to encourage that we have that buffering area available to us even if we decide later on to expand the road. I know it is expensive but that is something really important. Greenwood And in support of that, that is why we are showing the wider parkways on these sections where before we had 12 feet now we have 24 feet, they're down to 18 feet. That is one of the key reasons is that it gives sound space for growth if it should have to happen in the future. So, we agree. r.. 49 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 s� Tschopp The other comment I have is in answer to your question on Monterey, Monterey is and always will be a major arterial and I guess I would be in favor of widening that street both for the benefit of Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage because it feeds both cities and I hate to see the disruption of residents on either side of the street, but the reality is if that doesn't happen like water, the traffic will seek a lesser impacted area and head down other streets such as Portola, Cook and Bob Hope and defeat the whole purpose of this. So I am in favor of widening that street. Finerty I would too and when we talk about the quality of life, if they have gridlock and stuff is backed up because cars aren't getting through on the first signal, I wonder what they are going to think of all the vehicle fumes, exhaust fumes going into their backyard as they are trying to sit out there. Tschopp Good point. Greenwood Maybe we should point out too that there are no houses that actually back up to that wall. There is a perimeter wall, an interior street and their front yards and then the houses, so they still have quite a bit of buffer. Lopez A lot of room between backyards. Campbell Yes, but those are the same people that were complaining about Magnesia Falls, too. Greenwood Yes. Tschopp As I was going to say, another question I had I was reading the report it had that if we adopted the preferred alternative, the amount of traffic would increase 8.9% in the north sphere as opposed to what the current plan is? Drell Remember, the north sphere...you want to look at the mid district, the north district. The north district is the area north of 1-10. In fact you will see that and we have requested explanations from the engineer of what he thinks is happening in the model. The traffic actually decreases in the mid-district. If you look through the EIR it decreases significantly with the less intense alternative and again we are awaiting further explanation. Have we got that yet John or not? 50 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 `w We asked for what does he think is, what is happening to models actually to generate that less level of traffic? Greenwood There is some anomaly in the north sphere. They are showing 40,000 cars per day on Dillon Road or something and that is just... Drell No, the reason is when you look at the land use plan you see that massive amount of...that huge high density zone. Again, I would pay less attention to that north district analysis. The mid and the south include the existing city limits. Tschopp Lastly,just a comment I would make is that I have heard your reasoning and so forth and I understand it, but I truly think for any city to survive the congestion that is happening now and will occur in the future is, somehow we have got to improve and focus on mass transit. For whatever it is worth. I know it is in the report as a comment, but this city and all over, you've got to have a mass transit system that is convenient, timely and works. Drell I would like to respond to that and that is a very appropriate comment and we 66W had a meeting with Sunline last week, Leslie Rochon. This is the fundamental urban design conflict. For mass transit to work, you need sufficient customers in proximity of the line. Because what you need for best transit to work, and I lived in a town where mass transit worked up in Santa Cruz, you could ride the bus all day and never consult a schedule. The reason is, there were enough...buses came every 15-20 minutes to every stop and all you had to do was find a bus stop that was going in the right direction you want, and sit down and you knew there would be a bus there in 10 minutes and that is what made it convenient. You didn't have that fear, "I missed the bus, I'm wiped out." To do that, you need enough customers concentrated along the route and when she looked at the staff recommended alternative and more so with the preferred since it's got more units, this area is, the University area is unique in that we have a concentration of destinations. The University on one end, the regional retail on Monterey, the business office industrial on the freeway, and if we succeed in getting the residential development that we have both origins and destinations in a fairly concentrated loop from Cook Street to Monterey and in looking at she commented that it might be the one area in the Coachella Valley which can have an efficient, convenient, successful mass transit route, which can run enough buses picking up enough passengers that can support a line running NOW right there. The problem with the solution of always concentrating on the 51 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 traffic solution, unfortunately, it has never worked in Southern California. We have been building more freeways, adding lanes to freeways, widening streets, and it is always forestalls and unfortunately you run out of physical real estate. The advantage of mass transit is you can always add more buses and so that is one of the things we are trying, which is a contradiction where you think more intensity creates a worse traffic problem. It is a matter of finding the right balance that is enough to support a transit system in the future and even most ideally, you can avoid a vehicle entirely if you get uses that people can walk to. The other comment you had made about the water seeking its convenient paths and one of the other considerations is the connectivity and that is we have been designing a lot of our developments so they focus traffic through a fire hose. We have been concentrating traffic in a relatively limited number of major arterials and forcing everyone to drive on them. 1-10 is a big problem in that there are very few places to cross, there is physical barrier. Therefore, both the interchange and this is another problem that is probably going to be more apparent in the future as north 1-10 develops and you have people wanting to cross the freeway. They are going to have to be sharing the same interchange with the same people that are wanting to get on the freeway. That is the problem you see in Orange County where you have widely disbursed interchanges, this is probably the other as important aspect of Portola as getting on and off the freeway at Portola, is allowing people to get from the growing Thousand Palms area to Palm Desert without screwing up the traffic at Monterey and Cook. So one of the concepts that we are trying both in a design element and this is to try and disburse traffic. Try to create from a neighborhood, you know things you are going to be looking at when you look at the master plans for the neighborhood we have been talking about in the north area, creating the right balance between not having too much access that you screw up the capacity of the arterials, but enough access so you don't concentrate the traffic at choke points which everyone requiring a signal which end up being 8 phases which also ends up reducing capacity. So you want to be able to give people enough choices to distribute their movements so they don't impact any one intersection and in essence we want to spray design, not a fire hose, because it's the fire hoses that ultimately choke down and create collapse of the arterial system where you just can't get through those few critical intersections. Greenwood There is a side effect although we have to be cognizant of in the multiple path philosophy and that is traffic driving by someone elses house and it is 52 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 i Ow not just particular to Palm Desert, it is everywhere in California, probably throughout the nation. People want to live on a street with the absolute minimum amount of traffic on it. We get people in the Kaufman and Broad development off of Frank Sinatra complaining that people from 2 streets over have to drive down my street to get to Frank Sinatra, so we have to be careful not to end up with streets with 2,000 cars a day on them because it will be an ongoing problem that we could never solve. So we have to be careful when we are spreading this traffic out exactly where we are spreading it out. Lopez A couple of questions and observations. I agree that the bike paths and cart paths should be incorporated into this circulation. I think it is imperative that as we develop these new locations within our city that we make sure that we incorporate access for bicycles, access for carts...I mean I ride a bike a lot around here and there are times when all of sudden there is a bicycle path and then there is not a bicycle path and now you are fighting traffic and it is a dangerous situation. If we are going to have, if Cook Street is going to be what it looks like it is going to be in the future, being able to get yourself around that area on a bike, Monterey, Country Club, Fred Waring, we need tow to make sure that part of the philosophy is let's make sure that we have that aspect of transportation incorporating what you all create for the future. I think that is imperative. Greenwood And that is what we need to know from you, whether you consider the bike lanes to be a recreation facility or a transportation facility. Lopez I think it is both and I think it needs to be, but I think you need to be the champion of that. I think recreation wise, it is important to have that for the recreation aspect, but for the development of it, it needs to be under your umbrella. The access control areas that we see every once in a while around the city where the pylons are out there and the little things...Is that a temporary thing waiting for an excuse to put a median in? Greenwood Generally we hope so. That's what this detail on the median islands is where...these don't involve any of the orange cones out there permanently. So where we have orange cones, we hope that it is temporary everywhere. We don't have them in as many places as other cities, but it's still too many. Lopez Yeah, there is a couple of places where they stick out and they are rather unsightly I would say. 53 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 i The Portola interchange and the addition of that interchange and how it affects traffic on that particular artery in the future, especially as it goes by school zones, I think it is going to need to be studied very very carefully. I know the widening of the streets there, but also how because that whole neighborhood area generates foot traffic by young children who are going to school and I think we just need to make sure that we keep that particular area under a microscope and make sure that safety is imperative, that area as well as being able to cross those crosswalk areas and all. Greenwood You are talking about at Lincoln and the Middle schools? Lopez Yeah, those areas. And I do think and I would agree with the rest of what has been said here that I would hate to see the bar lowered to a D. I would rather see the bar maintained at a C which is actually raising the bar because as we develop more, or actually it is going to be more difficult to maintain that but that should be what our goal is and I know language has to be created here as to what a goal is and what a standard is, so on and so forth, but I think what we need to go into this is knowing that this is what our goal should be and should be maintained to be. There are going to be areas that it is either too costly and we get to those areas eventually in the future or if the cost is such that we need to take a look and see whether we should bear that or not, and in fact keep the quality of life as it is and it would cost more money, but based on the growth...no, I won't say that. Finally, the alley way, the alley that we have talked about previously, as we go down this line and when we start making a decision as what we are going to go forward with on final resolutions, and so on, we need to come up with a finalized plan what we want to do with that alley area. Is it going to be parking? Is it going to be...? How you all will address that in the future is going to be important. I know we have come up with the decision as to what we want to see, but that will also be an area that we need to take a look at. That's all. Campbell Okay, as far as Portola north of Fred Waring and where you are planning on taking those lots, 12 lots. Greenwood I am not planning yet. Campbell Okay, we are looking at hopefully very soon in the future. What will happen then on the south of Fred Waring, where we have the church there? Will all 54 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 two of that be eliminated up to Alessandro in some way or you patched up the east side, now you've started to work on the west side? Greenwood Yeah. Actually,from De Anza to the south towards 111, that is what is under construction right now, that will be 4 lanes, so the area from De Anza north to Lincoln School or short of Lincoln School there, I would hope that we can treat that really as one project. We would not anticipate relocation of the church or anything. The right-of-way gets awful close to the building, but at least in our preliminary layouts, we are just trying to see how this all works but there are a few houses on Portola south of Fred Waring that also are potentially impacted depending upon what the decision is, but I guess we are looking for guidance from you and do you want to see that go forward as this thoroughfare 4 lane road. Campbell Or 6 lane road. Greenwood Or 6 lane road, yeah we really need your considered opinions on that so we know what to do. It makes big difference. It probably doesn't make a difference on the number of houses that are impacted but makes a difference on what the remaining land can be. If it is a 6 lane road, the remaining land can only really be a parkway, but if it is a 4 lane road then that land is potentially useable. Campbell Because actually, you know I am in favor of the bike lanes and the golf cart lanes, but actually as you see it on Hovely Lane West, here you have a wide street yet it is only 2 lanes because here you have one, you know, both sides you have a bike lane and a golf cart. So, actually it should be made wider in some way. You cannot make it wider now, maybe the lanes should be narrower so you can have 4 lanes and then plus your golf cart and your bike lane. `Cause actually to me that seems to be like a wasted street. Greenwood Actually on Hovely Lane West it is a parking lane and a bike lane. Campbell Okay. You don't see that much parking on there. Greenwood That street is either too wide or narrow depending on how you look at it. Campbell Uh huh, if you make it too wide, it will be a lot more traffic. Then there is another question I have on Hovely Lane East, where the development that 55 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 I g■ Venetia is, the homes right there. You did make that when you make a right turn from Portola on Hovely Lane East you've made that a 3 lane. Greenwood Yes. Campbell So that the parents can pick up their children from school. That was the purpose of that one lane, also. Greenwood The third lane, basically it is an extended right turn pocket to get into the school to pick up their kids although I think the parents might misuse it a little bit and actually pick up their kids at the curb there, but. Campbell Well actually they use 2 lanes. Greenwood I have heard that before. Campbell Yes, because I make the trip, they're both 2 lanes trying to go ahead and get into the parking lot, so I don't know what you can do about that. It was just before, it is just back to what it was before. Greenwood I don't think there is anything you can do. Tschopp I think there is. I think if you send a patrol car to start hooking a couple of mommies dropping off their kids and get the word out. Really I think it is a safety issue and you can't plan anymore, you need a little assistance help from the police. Greenwood The Sheriff's Department is very good about supporting us. Drell That is a very good example of a school that got planned inclusively by the school district. We only got consulted in getting permission for their driveways and hopefully we won't repeat that experience again. Finerty So, if we summarize, it sounds like we are all in agreement with regard to the bike lanes and being for recreation, but under the auspices of transportation that Monterey should definitely go three lanes northbound and do whatever we can to Rancho Mirage to explain the wisdom of why it needs to be 3 lanes southbound; to keep the level of service C, explain the difference of goal and standard. The medians you asked about the 18 foot width, yes. We talked about parkways and landscape buffers. With Portola, say north of 56 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 %1W Fred Waring, if that, it seems to me if we are between 4 and 6 lanes now, it would be advantageous to go to 6 lanes and to have some sort of parkway or landscape buffer as opposed to going 4 lanes and then cramming in office professional in that area. Lastly, and I know you didn't ask about this but I think wherever meandering sidewalks can go in, it is certainly an asset. Tschopp I agree to everything you said, but I guess the one question I have still on Portola is, obviously we have a safety issue now with houses backing up. If we go to 4 lanes as opposed to 6, do we eliminate the safety issues or do they remain? Greenwood It is four lanes now, but it is just so narrow and the sidewalk is so close, it is not really an acceptable right condition. If we widen the road at all, I think it requires that we relocate those houses. Tschopp And that would entail then commercial development in those certain portions of designating a study. Greenwood It could. Drell A concept where you could design those commercial developments with parking lots which would allow people to front, we would go forward onto the thing. The issue on whether the remainder property gets used as commercial or as open space is a matter of money. It is not a good place to put a park on a highway like that so it becomes a, if you imagine Fred Waring is about 40-45 feet, that strip of landscaping, these areas are 60-90 feet deep and so it is a matter of the City, whether we want to spend the money to install and maintain those areas as landscaping which is very expensive, or we want to let commercial developers build things and maintain their front yards. So it is a matter, to a certain degree there is a noise advantage to having buildings instead of open space for the people behind but it is a mixture of considerations and involving a lot of money. Tschopp I guess, just to tag onto it what Commissioner Finerty is talking about. On Portola, I think that the other thing we need to add is it is an area that needs to be moved forward. I hate to see us leave the people there in limbo like has occurred in other areas. So I guess that area to me I would say if we are going to do anything, we need to move aggressively forward and make it 57 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 i .ri happen so that it would take away some of the uncertainty and impact on some of the residents there. And then Commissioner Lopez' comments on the alley there off 111. Again, I think we talked about that, but I would say again also that is one that needs to be aggressively moved forward to take away the uncertainty and the impact to residents. Campbell Anything else? Anything to add? John does. Criste Just a verification then because this is obviously related to the land use issue, is that where we want to widen the streets and we are going for these optimum kind of transportation systems and we are affecting these existing residential uses for instance, I don't know that we have resolved the issue of whether for instance, what I think was the staffs suggestion that the area north of Fred Waring, that stretch of houses on the west side, we would change that to say, office designations so that these kinds of consolidated uses that could share single access and have rear loading parking for instance, with buildings on the streets, could provide tremendous acoustical buffer for those residents that would remain to the west. .i Finerty Could that be one of our mixed use between office professional and open space so that we have time to decide what we are doing? Criste I am a little confused frankly about when we talked about the mixed use commercial or the mixed use designation. My understanding really was you know prior to that the draft of the general plan speaks to mixed use as a viable alternative in most of the commercial designations. As an example is you can always mix open space with any kind of use. It really becomes what is the economically viable use that remains or can remain for these kinds of properties consistent with the traffic goals you are trying to reach and so yes, it can be those kinds of mixes. Finerty It sounds like that is the direction we are kind of going in and that would give us... Drell Although I think what we need if we are going to contemplate 6 lanes north of Fred Waring we need to see the sections. I would suspect that we are going to be impacting a lot more than those 9 or 10 houses if we go to 6 lanes. 58 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4, 2003 ... Greenwood I am glad that you gave me another crack at it here, yeah, we need to understand that the 6 lane section now impacts the Lincoln school frontage and I think it is a mobile home park across the street from it. It affects the commercial properties down at Alessandro on both sides. Those buildings are fairly close to the road and then if we are talking about 6 lanes all the way down to El Paseo, that block between 111 and El Paseo has the highest volume on Portola. If we are talking about that block, these are vital brand new commercial buildings that we are talking about. Finerty Can we look at north of Fred Waring on Portola going to six lanes? Greenwood We have some layouts from that discussion at GPAC. Finerty Right. And keeps the focus there rather than to tear up the whole city and all the buildings? Greenwood That is where it gets a little bit odd because then the volume between Fred Waring and 111 is actually higher than the volume north of Fred Waring so we would widen where the volume was lower and leave it narrower where the volume was higher which creates a bottleneck. We have gotten all tied up at the staff level, so .... Finerty But wouldn't we anticipate though, let's see you were talking before that if we do the interchange at Portola and 1-10, that that would take approximately 10,000 cars away from Monterey? Greenwood It was more like 15,000 to 20,000. Finerty So if using that same scenario Portola was widened to 6 lanes, it has got to alleviate some traffic from probably Monterey and potentially Cook. Criste Monterey, Cook and Portola are not going to operate at unacceptable levels it appears from the traffic model. The other is ... Finerty Which is imprecise. Criste Yes it is. But the other is that you have some relatively sensitive land uses that are going to stay there forever along Portola and if you look at the volumes, the projected volumes, I don't think the projected volumes warrant 6 lanes north of Fred Waring at this point. 59 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 .di Drell Yeah. Well, that is where we get into the discussion, it is right on the cusp. It is in the 30,000 range where you are either at a fairly good D at 4 lanes or maybe a D and with 6 lanes you are at a solid C. A lot of that traffic that the Portola interchange is intercepting, is traffic that has been disbursing and a lot of those destinations are north of Country Club or north of Frank Sinatra. So remember, we are creating by virtue of that commercial, the University, the regional...huge destinations are right on the south side of 1-10 which is what a lot of that traffic is on that Portola interchange is going to be diverting, so as it goes south, its impact gets diluted and what the traffic model is saying is people are coming south, they are stopping, they are turning right, they are turning left and by the time it gets down to Fred Waring, that big slug of traffic that is starting at the Portola interchange is diminished significantly. Criste Right. Lopez But I think the area where I have always been concerned about is the area between Magnesia Falls and Fred Waring. You know I think it would be delightful or wonderful to see that we could break this thoroughfare on Portola that I am not too crazy about 6 lanes on this road, but if 4 lanes is going to handle the inbound traffic that disburses before you get to Fred ,.. Waring and 4 lanes from Magnesia Falls to Highway 111 belong with sidewalks and open space that creates a safe environment for all those people along those areas is where I think we should be focused on. Criste I think that is where the deficiency may be, not so much that we need more lanes, but that we don't have enough room to do a proper 4 lane kind of configuration now and we have kids on bikes, walking and as parents have said, we have got them right up against the line of traffic because of the lack of width but the 6 lanes does not seem to be warranted by the model. Drell Given the pain and expense it will cost. Greenwood Another issue too is that the 4 lane section that we had presented here I believe had bike lanes on it and a 6 lane section that we would contemplate probably would not, though it is hard to say. Bike lanes between Fred Waring and 111 are very difficult. I think we could do it on a 4 lane section there but I don't think we could do it on a 6 lane section. 3 ..rl 60 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION NOVEMBER 4. 2003 Campbell So, actually to me I agree with Commissioner Lopez. I would just go even really on Portola. The worst part is between Rutledge, not even Magnesia Falls, and Alessandro that really needs the work on that side. Lopez One other real quick comment. I think this was an outstanding element. If this draft of the staff report that we received the other night that when I first read through it, man oh man, you guys are more important than just putting up a traffic light some place. This was done very, very well and it was very very informative. Finerty And look how quickly we got through it. Lopez Yes. This was really put together very very well. Greenwood We should give the credit where it is due John Criste, the consultant, prepared all the text and Urban Crossroads. Lopez Well I know John had a lot to do with it, but I know that the input from you all is invaluable and I really do think it is very very well done. Campbell Great work Mark and John. Okay, it is now 11:30, so we are going to go ahead and resume our public hearing at 6:00 this evening. Action: It was moved by Chairperson Campbell, seconded by Commissioner Lopez, by minute motion, continuing GPA 01-04 to 6:00 p.m. on November 4, 2003. V. ADJOURNMENT Move by Chairperson Campbell, seconded by Commissioner Lopez, adjourning the meeting by minute motion. The me a 'oume 1:34 aa.m. PHILIP DREL , Secretary ATTEST: ONIA M. CAMPBELL, Chairperson Palm Desert Planning Commission tow 61