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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1118 8:30 a.m. MINUTES ADJOURNED MEETING PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. TUESDAY - NOVEMBER 18, 2003 I. CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Campbell called the meeting to order at 8:37 a.m. II. ROLL CALL Members Present: Sonia Campbell, Chairperson Sabby Jonathan, Vice Chairperson Cindy Finerty Jim Lopez Dave Tschopp Members Absent: None Staff Present: Phil Drell, Director of Community Development Bob Hargreaves, City Attorney Mark Diercks, Transportation Engineer Mark Greenwood, City Engineer Phil Joy, Associate Transportation Engineer Tonya Monroe, Administrative Secretary Also Present: John Criste, Terra Nova Planning & Research Ill. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. IV. PUBLIC HEARING Any person wishing to discuss any item not otherwise on the Agenda may address the Planning Commission at this point by stepping to the lectern and giving his/her name and address for the record. Remarks shall be limited to a maximum of five minutes unless additional time is authorized by the Planning Commission. %NW MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 A. Case No. GPA 01-04 and the Draft Environmental Impact Report as it relates thereto - CITY OF PALM DESERT, Applicant Request for consideration of a Comprehensive General Plan Update and the Draft Environmental Impact Report as it relates thereto. The following is a verbatim transcript. Campbell This public hearing is open and also this morning we will go ahead and be hearing this public hearing from 8:30 to 11:30 and will resume the public hearing 6:00 this evening with our regular hearings and then whatever is left over we will go ahead and discuss with the general plan. Jonathan Madam Chairperson, I just wanted to advise you and the rest of the commission that I did have the pleasure of listening to the tapes of the last meeting of which I was absent, both the morning session, the evening session and it was a thrill, and I do feel qualified to participate in this matter. Campbell Good. Okay, Mr. Drell. Drell We are going to start off with Mr. Criste kind of giving the overview and WAO discussion of the EIR. Criste Thank you. Good morning. Before I launch into this, maybe we could just summarize how we expect to finish up also. We are going to be covering just a summary of the environmental impact report document portions of which, actually large portions of which, you already heard about in many manifestations here, the general plan being the most important. Then we have some items that are at the end of your staff report that are action items for the Commission, as well as the land use discussions that we have been going over and Phil's going to run through those after I complete the overview of the environmental and we have I think all the exhibits that are in the environmental document if any of you want to see them on a large scale here, otherwise you have your EIR which is fairly clear and I thought we would just go over this in general and then if you have any questions, I would be glad to try and answer them. One of the I think finest exhibits, frankly, in the document which I owe to CVAG, thank you, is exhibit 1-2 in the introductory section of the EIR and that is what is called a Digital Elevation Map of the Coachella Valley or a 2 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 portion of it and we've shown the boundaries. It's sometimes called a hill shaded map because what it does is it shades the hillsides so that you get the sense of topographic relief in the planning area and in the valley overall and this really tells the tale very much about what the circumstances are in the planning area. We are very much a topography driven kind of region both on a growth scale with these mountains that give us open space, give us wildlife habitat, hiking experiences, but are not really available for development to varying degrees of very develop able land and then lands that in the middle of the valley as you can see are affected by other constraints. If you look in the middle of this planning area exhibit, you can see Indio Hills which are a indication of a direct sign of the San Andreas fault zone and the compression that goes on in this particular area and the uplift that results. You can also, it is implicit also in the exhibit is the substantial drainage areas that come out of the mountains and the heavy deposition of materials into the valley floor as you know, some of these materials are miles thick so this is a very active flood zone. ..► So, right away we have these kinds of obvious conditions from a bird's eye view or a satellite view almost, but also you can see the constriction and isolation of the valley from the largely maritime air masses to the west and how the San Gorgonio Pass then is a funnel and the valley itself, and its shape and its low elevation, how they create this regime of winds that also then really characterize our region very much. So, I am really enamored with this exhibit. I think it really does and it is very instructive in the planning issues, the most basic planning issues. Jonathan I am sorry to interrupt. I had a question that I actually meant to ask you earlier. This exhibit shows the general plan planning area with that dashed line. How is the determination made to include the non city area, non incorporated area on north of 1-10 and is that an indication that at some point there is an expectation that it will be part of the city proper. Criste The answer to the second question is no. The answer to the first question is that the GPAC in wanting to cast a broad net, if you will, from an analysis point of view, didn't want to look at this too much in context, but rather wanted to look at the general planning in a land use context. Also to the extent that these lands north of the interstate especially, and this is where %wr 3 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 j the extra land comes in by the way, all the lands in the planning area on the south side all occur within the city's legal sphere of influence as recognized by LAFCO. In the north we knew that we had lands that serve as a gateway to the city, lands on the north side of Monterey, Cook, etc., and that people coming into that end of the community would be affected either for better or worse by the kinds of planning that went on there, etc. And what part of the rationale for analyzing this area was multifold, but that was one of them was to have an analyzed base to come to a LAFCO or to come to a county hearing and say, 'We know this area fairly well, we evaluated this area in detail in the context of our work and we have some real concerns and we can back them up." That was really I think the heart and soul of the idea. Then maybe the greater extension had to do with the value that the city it was reflected in the GPAC for preserving open space and how important this area with the preserve, the fault zone, oasis and then the connection to the park there was a logic to extend there as well. So that was how the planning area became defined and it was voted on by the GPAC. Drell The GPAC didn't spend a lot of time but maybe out of the how many meetings it might have spent one meeting or two meetings to try talking about it. Criste The next exhibit on the next page kind of gives you an overall sense of the planning area in terms of scale. The city corporate limits are about 25 square miles, the sphere of influence that LAFCO recognizes is about 41 square miles and when you tack on this big north end that we were concerned about at least having the good information base on that added 69 square miles to the planning area. The project description is fairly extensive and of course it is a summary of the general plan itself and that also includes a breakout of the dedication of lands by percentage, general types, commercial, etc. Their exhibits in the beginning also that include the existing conditions which represent the current city and current county general plan. For the current county purposes we used the RSIP that was under consideration at the time. The county integrated plan and we had a couple of areas where apparently between the time we did our mapping and the time that matters were resolved with the adoption of the general plans, changes, minor changes occurred. Two important changes are, there are a couple of policy areas in the Sky Valley planning area that the county has 4 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 asked that we respect and delineate on our final map. One refers to Sky Valley Mobile Home and RV Park policy area and there is one other policy area which I don't recall at the moment. There is also a piece of land up on Highway 74 that the county had designated as open space and is private and they're designating it as a very low density residential, I think one per ten. They asked that we would honor that as well, although in that particular instance that is a specific designation so I am not sure that we should feel compelled, nor is it likely to be relevant. Finally, the county has delineated low density residential in the Cahuilla area of zero to two and our low density designation is zero to four and they would rather that we assign a more restrictive zero to two per acre in those areas where there is a difference between the two designations. I think that is pretty much the limit. I will check to see if I have covered everything in that regard. Those are the differences between the county's maps as they are presented in the EIR and how they would like us to present both in our preferred alternative and in their maps in the document. +•• The EIR evaluates such things as land use compatibility and so does the general plan at length in things like community design element, etc. It also evaluates traffic which we went over last time and pointed to the mitigation measures which were imbedded in the last table of this section of the EIR and we will continue through adaptive management to make sure that the road system performs to standard and there is a brief policy amendment that we can cover at the end of this discussion with regard to the level of service that we are desiring in the City. One of the biggest most important constraints that we have to deal with here is also the seismic constraint in the valley. We have really we're a highly exposed area and we have got a very high potential relatively for strong earthquakes, up to a 7.4, 20% probability in 30 years the EIR says or our consultant says. Since the Landers quake we have gained in popularity from a earthquake point of view. The intensity of the earthquake's potential seems to have gone down a little bit because of the way things are changing underground, but these are very imprecise matters. We know, however, we have this hazard so we should expect very strong ground shaking at the very least and ground rupture up along Indio Hills area sometime in the next 50 years for sure. We have other constraints that are soils, rock falls, things of tow that sort which the city inherently manages through code and we reference 5 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 though in the EIR some of those and just ordinary measures taken to assure land use compatibility with seismic and other geotechnical hazards. In hydrology, by necessity we have a highly developed drainage system. In the cove communities especially we have been subject to some significant floods and most recently since 1976 where we developed along the Dead Indian drainages and those sorts of areas. We have major facilities in place already, like the Whitewater River which is usually dry, but large capacity facility as it runs through the city, it will handle 82,000 cubic feet per second which is a pretty enormous river. We also have the Palm Valley channel underneath that Indian Creek basin which addressed the 1976 flooding and made projects like Canyons at Bighorn possible. Others at San Pasqual Channel which is a local channel, the Deep Canyon Channel and then the partially constructed, largely still underway and Mid Valley Channel located on the south side of the railroad rights-of-way and connecting to drainage systems of the Coachella Valley Water District further down stream. There is also in the north end of the planning area, the Army Corps has approved a very large hydrology project to protect the urban areas primarily along Varner and up the Ramon Road in Thousand Palms and that needs a lot of funding but that would protect those lands and some other lands as well. So, we recognize all those plans. We have standard mitigation measures that staff already applied and public works apply to development proposals as they come in the city. We also have then covered lots of other areas of concern, air quality. Air quality of course is a regional issue, water resources are regional issues. We spoke about both of these at length, about how important they are to us. We have a role to play in regulating the use of water and the emission of pollutants and our effects on regional air quality, but we are also not masters of our own fate by a long shot. So, we do our best with the mitigation measures and within the context of regional planning at CVAG and SCAG. We hope to continue to manage air resources and water resources better and better. We also finally in the impact analysis, we performed a rather detailed fiscal impact analysis using a methodology that the county recognizes for things like annexations and those kinds of incorporations to assure that there is an adequate flow of revenue to government to provide services and we find that the preferred alternative general plan by a large margin will be revenue positive to the city upon build out and that is within the city limits proper. 6 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 We have other comparisons as well within the EIR under the alternatives discussion but for our purposes and for the purposes of any amendments we are clearly a strong revenue positive scenario that we are going to be operating under. The EIR also looks at other mandatory discussions under the California Environmental Quality Act and then as I mentioned the extensive alternatives discussion which evaluates the relative impacts of the other alternatives to these various categories that we have been discussing. The document then includes all the technical reports that we generated in a somewhat condensed form so that the public doesn't have to struggle to find them nor do you and if you are interested you have got them readily available to you. We are in receipt of about a half dozen letters, meaningful letters with regard to comments on the draft DIR. These include comments from the Southern California Association of Governments and their desire that we demonstrate consistency with the regional plan. Clearly we are consistent and we are now drafting those responses and pointing to the relevant policies and programs of the general plan to demonstrate that. The others had to with �• largely, a couple of the letters had to do with immediate planning areas. One concern was raised about land uses along Gerald Ford, east of Monterey. Another has to do with perhaps traffic safety if you will, associated with land uses at Dinah Shore west of future Portola. Largely though, the letters overwhelmingly are about land use. I would like this designation or that designation which in our determination have no real net effect on the environmental analysis. We have your usual questions about everything letter as well and so we are responding at length about a whole list of issues raised almost categorically about the environmental document and it is fairly routine now in the overall and in advance of our hearing next month, we will provide you with the drafts of the responses that we have prepared so you will see the full context of the environmental documentation. And I will be glad to answer any questions. Campbell Any questions of John? Tschopp You are going to make the responses available to us prior to next month's meeting? Criste Yes. 7 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 I Tschopp In a nutshell, are there any responses that you would anticipate that would mod have any kind of impact on the process or implementation of the GPAC? Criste No. As is typical, it is largely a matter of clarification or pointing to where the information was and facilitating a better understanding. Jonathan John, I wanted to ask you about the fiscal impact analysis. There are tables beginning on page V-49 and they seem to indicate that if we just focus on the city limit only analysis, the "no project" seems to have a net annual positive cash flow of $16,000,000. The more intense is about $9,000,000 and the less intense is about $12,000,000. So, I guess I am a little bit confused because I would have thought logically that the more intense would create more revenue. Is that because of the higher expenses? I know that this is kind of a detailed analysis and I apologize if I am catching you off guard but the trend is just a little different than I would have suspected. Criste I didn't prepare the analysis but I think I understand the model well enough. The intensity of the land use that we used was as much a function of dwelling units as it was anything and so... Jonathan As it was what? Criste As it was say commercial or industrial. Jonathan Okay. Criste And in very general terms, the balance between revenue positive and revenue negative has to do with housing units versus say commercial resort hotel, those kinds of revenue generators. That is, from a property tax point of view and a service point of view, residential is generally a negative for the local jurisdiction. That is why there is a need to have as much as you can a balance of other revenue sources to backfill that would otherwise be a loss. So if you have a community that is a residential heavy and low on commercial and maybe even resort which is a very good revenue generating land use, you are going to find that those communities are going to be in very tight fiscal constraints. So, our more intense is a higher residential loaded alternative. 8 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 Drell Remember, in all the alternatives, the commercial designations are roughly the same. They are pretty much set by land use compatibility issues in proximity to the interchanges and to the freeway. Jonathan I see what you are saying. So the more intense results in possibly more residential units which increases the revenue somewhat but the costs go up more if you've got those right revenues. Drell Right, provide more services and percentage wise less revenue. Jonathan Right, okay. Thank you. Campbell Any more questions of John? I do have some blue cards here if anyone is interested in talking in regards to this. I have Rodriguez, Lucia, no? Not on this, or Donna Matson, not on this? Okay. Anyone else? Drell Okay, what we are going to try and accomplish even though we are not `w going to have our final resolutions and response to comments at this meeting, is at least make some fundamental decisions. So, when we get to our next meeting, we can wrap it up relatively quickly. That's the objective. So we are going to go over things basically areas where we are suggesting amendments to the original draft or new language, new alternatives. First, we will first talk about the land use designations. We are suggesting that hotels and motels be listed uses in the commercial zones as, which is again something that will always be subject to a specific approval process but at least provides the opportunity for within the community commercial and the regional commercial and all those and we can have hotels. The second is introducing the concept of mixed use commercial in all the commercial zones as well which in essence leaves open the possibility of integrating residential uses into commercial uses. Again, this is something that will be subject to specific designs when we actually get projects but again would leave the...it identifies the potential desirability of proximity of residential and commercial uses together and again provides the opportunity for property owners to propose those. Finerty Phil, I have a question. `. 9 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 Drell Sure. Finerty And I am not sure if you want to do these one by one or do them all together, but... Drell I would rather do them one by one. Finerty Okay. My question is with regard to the mixed use. I am very uncomfortable with mixed use that includes the possibility of high density residential along with commercial and I would feel much more comfortable if we removed the high density residential and put in office professional. Drell The inherent nature of mixed use includes the potential for high density residential. Again,the proximity of high density residential next to commercial uses...we have them in the city...on El Paseo we have mixed use projects with El Paseo Village as an example where a project was developed with the front of it commercial and the back half of it high density or in our definition then residential. Again, it is not something that it provides, again there are a lot of demonstrated positive outcomes of it relative to traffic, relative to convenience. It doesn't force you to approve any. People have to make designs and they have to justify that the language requires that..... Finerty I know, but if the language is there, then it opens up the door. If the language isn't there, then they are forced to come in with the change of zone. Drell And the staff recommendation is the door be open. You can disagree with it or not disagree with it, but that is the staff recommendation. That the door should be open. One of the issues we are dealing with, I had a discussion yesterday with folks at the Housing Authority recently went to a meeting led by the state housing development department relative to the new what they call Regional Housing Allocation Numbers, which is what our next cycle of the general plan is going to have to deal with and based on the 2000 census, and the projected and measured growth over the last three years in the city, our numbers are going to be significantly higher than we have ever had before and one of the issues in the general plan is using our land most efficiently and we have very little of it left and one of the ways of...with minimal impact on the land and minimal impact on existing traffic and circulation systems and open space and everything else is to find creative ways to integrate housing with other uses. It has been done traditionally for 10 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 UW hundreds of years very successfully throughout the world and in California and in Palm Desert, so that's our recommendation. Lopez Phil, real quick. In the language of the commercial use, mixed use, it includes medium density also. Drell Sure. Lopez And that particular...that would be 4-10 developed units per acre if I understand right? Drell Correct. Lopez You are looking at perhaps even residential homes mixed in with this particular area versus condominiums or...(inaudible) Drell Planned in conjunction with. Again, El Paseo Village is an example where condominiums were planned with a commercial project. Lopez These also could be single family homes. Drell I doubt that within the same project you would have single family homes. Generally you have the examples of second floor apartments or sometimes, or... again, commercial land by its nature is very very expensive. The only way it makes any economic sense to integrate housing into it is in a rather land intensive manner. You are not going to see, again you are talking about $10, $15, $20 per square foot real estate and typically when it's done, it's done in second floors or in multi story buildings adjacent to, but interacting with. The difference is there's an interaction with, it's master planned together to maximize their compatibility and utility together. To a certain degree, hotels are residential use and we have been integrating hotels and commercial projects from the beginning so it is, the big advantage of them is that they are very complimentary in terms of their peak hour. Commercial uses are most busy during the midday, residential uses are most busy in the morning and evening. Again, this is not something that we will force Ms. Finerty to live in, but it provides the opportunity for the marketplace to decide if and when in the next .... remember this is a 20-year plan. What I am hearing from residential developers right today, that there is almost no good 11 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 residential land left. They are scratching to find real estate and this is just an opportunity that is open. The door is open and there is no question we are recommending that it be open that in the next 20 years if the market dictates relative to the scarcity of residential property that there is... and you can find a compatible, creative way to integrate residential uses into a land plan for commercial that the door is open. Finerty Phil, at the last meeting I had asked you what the mixed use was and you told me commercial and high density residential. However, under land use designation, it doesn't spell out what it is and I think that the rest of the commission needs to have a clear idea of your intent of mixed use is for commercial with high density residential as evidenced in the map where it is that you would like to see the high density go relative to the other uses. Drell This isn't a zoning map. This is a general plan. All we are saying is in these areas there will be an opportunity for it to happen. I am not ... Finerty But it doesn't say, it says a specific designation for mixed use developments. I think mixed use developments needs to be spelled out. As Commissioner Lopez just asked, does this allow medium density residential and that was not in the answer that you gave me at the last meeting. So if mixed use development is medium, high density, and commercial or whatever combination, I think it needs to be clearly spelled out. Drell Okay, it can include any mixture of commercial uses and residential uses. In a compatible design that you examine and say, "Hey, that works." We are not saying that it will happen anywhere, it will be a decision ultimately that the marketplace will make and a creative designer will make, but it can include all forms of both office... Again, you have a project before you right now that you recommended for approval that is a mixture of office and commercial and hotel. Again, hotel is a form of where people live. Tschopp If I remember right, the use of mixed use commercial is used very sparingly throughout the plan. Drell No, no, there is two areas where if you get out the amended land use designations... John do you have them handy? Lopez The one dated 10/17? 12 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 1"03 Drell There are two things. There are two specific areas that are designated on the land use map. But in terms of the language, we create a mixed use section where we felt that it was specifically appropriate and I will read the language of the mixed use section. "The land use designation provides for a mixture of uses including those identified in any of the commercial land uses which includes offices, hotels, and retail as well as professional offices, institutions, medium or high density residential." It says medium or high density residential. "This designation is applied to lands which have benefitted from approval of a master development plan, or specific plan. The mixed use development is intended to be a highly integrated master plan that optimizes the complimentary land uses and distribution's internal non vehicular access, low traffic volumes within the residential areas in the master plan. Commercial mixed uses development will vary in size and are discretionary approvals." In addition, in all the...and actually in all the other commercial zones and actually they were part of the original language, regional commercial mixed use developments with professional offices and residential may also be tow permitted through approval of such an integrated master plan..So, that language, again, the door has been left open. Actually our current zoning actually allows accessory second story apartments in all commercial zones already. Again, people haven't—the market hasn't made that decision that it is ready for that, but actually our existing zoning ordinance does provide for it. Jonathan How does the land use designation interplay with zoning? Drell We will—after the general plan is approved, then our next task is to adjust our zoning ordinance to implement the programs and policies of the general plan. Jonathan So the mixed use commercial designation, would that create a new zone? Or would that suggest that a mixture of zonings be allowed within the designated mixed use areas? Drell We have an existing zone called planned community development which pretty much mirrors to a great extent this philosophy. It allows for the integration of residential and commercial uses in a master plan and they have to come and present the master plan and one of those is gonna be 13 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 before you that the University Park master plan is being pursued through the PCD zone. So, it is not a departure of really what is already in the zoning ordinance. Jonathan Isn't the PCD zone traditionally used for residential development projects? Drell It has been, but it wasn't designed for that. Jonathan Okay, you are saying that it would allow the mixture of high density residential with commercial? Drell Yes. Jonathan So, the mixed use areas that staff is recommending in their staff recommended alternative would presumably be zoned PCD as a result of the general plan land use? Drell One of them is already zoned PCD and the mixed use concept... Remember the Wonder Palms development agreement and master plan? Those ' planning areas in Wonder Palms already incorporate in their planning area descriptions mixed use. The only one that's different,the one that's the more southerly one off of Cook Street since...and that area is proposed to be included within the Wonder Palms Plan. Remember, because when the Wonder Palms approved, that was part of a golf course at the time and actually there was a hotel planned at that site. So, but again, it's a discretionary approval ultimately based on the approval of a master plan. The next is the amendment of the Hillside Reserve. Originally it was designated as a maximum density of one unit per five acres. We are based on making it more consistent or consistent with our existing hillside ordinance and the proposed amended Hillside Ordinances we're providing a density of up to one dwelling per acre. Again, remember, we have...these ranges, this goes for all the ranges...through designations on the zoning map we determine and only we determine, obviously property owners can request but there is no requirement that we zone any property at the top of the range. The reason why the range exists it gives us the flexibility and the owners and developers to argue with us, but it is ultimately our decision of where the zoning map ends up or where our approvals end up granting within the range. 14 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Remember general plans are general. There is a lot of confusion between general plans and zoning ordinances and zoning maps. The specificity on these maps should not be looked at as a zoning map, nor should these land use descriptions be looked at with the specificity of a zoning map or a zoning ordinance. So, again, we are recommending that, and the determination as to where in the range and we have to have a rational reason for determining, we can't be arbitrary. In the Hillside area it acknowledges that there are constraints relative to topography and others which will determine where in the range a project might end up. Okay, somewhat departing from the script, go back to, I am going to go like we've done before, south to north relative to issues of some concern and controversy either based on staffs reexamination of the plan or public input and the first would be beginning in the south, the much discussed 12 acres. Campbell Phil, are we looking at our general plan deferred map here? +►�•► Drell Yes. That is what I am looking at since that is the only, again, our GIS guy has been on vacation for the last two weeks so we haven't produced any new maps. Although here, this has already been modified from what you have in your original text as the representative of the property has pointed out. This is the 12 acres, right here, of land at the south edge of the city. That when the original lines for what was originally called the Hillside Overlay and then became the HPR zone was drawn, it was drawn based on a USGS map with 80-foot contours, which means that only changes in elevation of more than 80 foot showed up as a slope. For those who were around in 1982, when George Fox first came to the city and based on that original map had asked for a 700-room hotel on his property based on the fact that the map at that time showed his property as flat. We did a, as one of my first tasks when I came to the city I was given the case and I looked at the more detailed topo map and I said, hey and I walked out to the site, and I said that is not flat, that is a cliff, that is a canyon and instead of having 70 or 80 acres of flat area, there was 12 and based on that information we, through what was then called the West Hills Specific Plan, redesignated the toe of slope based on the more accurate information we then had. This area originally, again, was drawn in the same way and a line was drawn separating only about an acre or an acre and a half on the 15 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 7 east side of it as hillside and the applicant is absolutely correct, in the J general plan discussion, we didn't focus on every single parcel. We for whatever reason we didn't focus on this parcel at all. It wasn't until the applicant submitted plans to the City, showed us a topo map, we suddenly said, hey, you are right. This is hillside. We went back and dug through the old file, the original file on what was then called Altamira which later became the Canyons where analysis was done on this property and the conclusion was, yes, this is hillside similar in topography to the adjacent land in the Canyons which was designated Hillside and subject to our Hillside Ordinance. One of the reasons, one of the obligations or the methodologies of the land use designations is you designate similarly situated properties with similar characteristics and topography the same. And based on the information both provided by the applicant and the old property owner in the form of a topographic map and the old analysis we had, our inescapable conclusion was this was similar in characteristic to other properties in the city that we designated as Hillside Reserve. It wasn't a matter of spite, or anything else, it just, it was a matter of fairness. It's not necessarily to make anyone unhappy or happy or whatever, it meets the physical characteristics as defined by the land use designation. The property owner has I guess suggested that we defer action on this designation until his, until their project winds its way through the system. That is how it gets up for you to determine another opportunity. I guess we can give it a study designation, but in reality, based upon the physical characters of the property, it definitely meets the Hillside Reserve definition. So I guess that is issue number one. What is your pleasure and I guess maybe it would be the opportunity for each one of these to allow the affected public to give their last pitch, if you want, and then give us direction on how to amend the map or not amend the map for your December meeting. So, I'll... Campbell Is there anyone in the audience wanting to speak regarding this section we were speaking? Perry Good morning. My name is Patrick Perry. I have spoken to you before regarding this particular piece of property. I represent the property owner which is Cornish & Bighorn, LLC. I have my blue card here and I will hand it in as soon as I finish speaking. 16 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 `w Campbell Can you give us the address, please, too? Perry My address is 515 South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. I have spoken I guess a couple of times regarding this particular piece of property. Again, this was designated or redesignated I suppose as Hillside Reserve after the original preferred alternative was prepared and was included in the draft general plan by GPAC which, it is my understanding, spent approximately two years preparing the preferred alternative and the general plan, did not focus on this particular property, left the designation pretty much the same as what it had been pursuant to the previous zoning, which was a portion of the property as Mr. Drell pointed out, was designated Hillside Planned Residential and the remainder, actually the bulk of the property having been designated low density residential which permitted up to five residential units per acre. The civil engineer has done a calculation determining that based on the current zoning up to 57 units per acre would be permitted on the property. A tract map application for four residential lots with a total of 57 residential IMF units was submitted to the City in early August and it was only after that point as Mr. Drell again pointed out that staff looked at the property again and determined that oh this is Hillside and so now we need to redesignate it. Again, this is not something that was included in the original general plan, draft general plan. It was not something that was included in the draft environmental impact report as part of the preferred alternative, has not been studied. I think that to adopt the staff recommendation as opposed to what has been provided in the draft general plan as well as in the draft EIR would require some form of recirculation, public review and comment, not only with respect to this property, but with respect to other properties that have been, well, changes have been made in the staff recommendation that are not reflected in the preferred alternative or even in either of the other alternatives, the more intense or the less intense alternatives or in the EIR. I have been to the property and I agree that there are hillsides on the property. The property in many areas is steeply sloping. However, it is not fundamentally different in character from the adjacent properties either on the same side of Dead Indian Creek or on the opposite side of Dead Indian 17 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Creek which would appear to require that it somehow be designated differently than those adjacent properties. The only difference between this particular property and those adjacent properties is that this property is undeveloped at this point and those properties are undergoing development as part of the Canyons at Bighorn. The properties immediately adjacent to the north are being developed under the low density residential designation which is what the designation for this property is, at least for the bulk of it. We understand that the definition of the low density residential and the general plan is being revised from 3-5 residential units per acre to 0-4 residential units per acre. We understand that as a result the current map if the general plan is adopted as proposed in the preferred altemative, the number of units that will have to be reduced and we don't know what the calculation will be but it will be somewhere around 45-47 units total for the property, and that is acceptable. What is not acceptable is the fact that this has been reduced so drastically. At least in the original Hillside definition which would permit a maximum of two units on the property which is one unit per 5 acres and I understand that is being, there is a recommendation that that definition be changed to allow a maximum of one unit per acre, but that still significantly lower than what is permitted under the current designation. If there are concerns about what the maximum number of units can be developed on this property, according to the characteristics of the property, the carrying capacity of the land, the impacts on biological resources or traffic impacts or any of the other environmental impacts that would be concerned, availability of infrastructure, access and so forth, those can be resolved through the tract map process. As I indicated there is an existing application which has been submitted. It was deemed incomplete. We are in the process of preparing additional materials, architectural plans to show that yes, indeed, 57 units can be developed on this property. A soils report is being prepared. We have CC&Rs that are being prepared and we need to do a new slope density study for that portion of the property that is currently designated Hillside. Those are in preparation, we expect to have those submitted to staff within the next couple of weeks and we would request the tract map process that is currently underway be the means according to which the maximum density that can be developed on this 18 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 tow property will be determined rather than to have it arbitrarily determined in this fashion through a general plan designation. If you have any questions, I am available to answer them, but otherwise it is simply to repeat what I have already stated previously as well as what we provided in written correspondence. Campbell Any questions? Jonathan You are circulating or processing an application that I think you mentioned that has 57 dwelling units? Perry Yes. Jonathan And this is on approximately 12 acres I believe? Perry Yes. Jonathan Two of which are Planned Hillside Residential? Perry It is about 1-1/2 acres, possibly 2 acres. I am not sure what the exact calculation of the square footage is. Jonathan I am trying to figure out how you got to 57, but I guess that maximizes the... Perry It maximizes the allowable units under the existing zoning and the civil engineer did the calculation. I can try to provide those figures for you, but I don't have them.... Jonathan No, I just wanted to make sure I understood. Thank you, though. And I guess this is maybe a question for staff, but the residential hillside reserve designation? Is Mr. Perry correct that would allow up to one unit per acre? Drell That is what we are proposing. Jonathan And that is I guess a departure from the proposed hillside amendment which allows one per 5 acres. Drell No, remember, it allows for slopes less than 10% it allows one unit per acre. So it is a generalized designation when property that, until you come in with 19 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 a topographic analysis with less than five foot contours, you can't draw that line on the zoning map. So in the general plan we are saying in this general area we believe it to be hillside. Once the zoning process begins and we get the detailed analysis, then we can refine it and figure out where in the range it should go. Jonathan So if a property is designated Hillside, then under the land use designation potentially it can be awarded one unit per acre, but under the proposed hillside ordinance revision, if it was above 10%, it may not qualify. Drell Correct. Jonathan Okay, thank you. Campbell Any other questions of Mr. Perry? No? Finerly I just have a question of staff. I sat on GPAC and regardless of whether GPAC made a recommendation to change or not change, is clearly not the gospel because it has to come to planning commission. We may allow a change or not, but then we are not the final word either. Ultimately it goes to the city council. So, I view this as an opportunity to right a wrong and I just want your confirmation that this was not something that was overlooked, this was something that through the process of reviewing the general plan has come to our attention which we are taking our time to determine what would be the best for the city and its hillsides, correct? Drell Correct. Also, I would like to comment and John can maybe add about the general threshold in CEQA for recirculation or reanalysis and the important word that always comes up in CEQA is the word significant. That in the context of the whole city general plan including, I don't know, maybe 20,000 units, the difference between one in 57 is not significant, especially when what we are proposing is a less intense, a less impacting by definition alteration. But in the level of analysis in whether it is a traffic or anything else is not designed to pick up the difference in the general plan analysis as opposed to the project specific analysis which we are also doing for this project, it is not designed to discern as significant a difference between even again one in 57. That is just not, you are looking at traffic volumes on these streets of 20-30,000, so and I would say in general, the reason why you have alternatives is you are analyzing a broad range and as we have shown in the suggestions and all the various permutations to the alternatives as embodied 20 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 aaw by the staff recommended alternative, fall within that range. And that is why we do alternatives and if what comes out of this process is within the general range of the alternatives in the study, then typically that does not trigger need for recirculation. Jonathan To play devil's advocate for a moment with regards to materiality. If one unit compared to 20,000 is immaterial, so are 57, correct? Drell Correct. Jonathan What is the average slope for those 12 acres? I guess for the 9 acres that are not..... Drell It's based on, we have not done the slope analysis ourselves, based upon the study we said, it might be 15, 10 and 20. In which case the property might be limited to two units. Again, in George Fox's example, looking through the minutes of a previous discussion before I got here, again, they were talking about the potential of having hundreds of units on his property based upon this misconception of where the toe of slope was and at the time •..► the hillside ordinance was even more restrictive, it had one unit per 20 acres for the very steep slopes and he was going from hundreds of units to two or three. We ended up amending our Hillside Ordinance to make it a little bit less Draconian, but ultimately it is the obligation of both land use designations and zoning designations to treat similar properties the same. Regardless of how long or as, to agree with Commissioner Finerty, the fact that we had inaccurate information in the past that led us to draw a wrong line on a map doesn't change our obligation to eventually get it right. Tschopp Did the errors have any impact on the surrounding neighbors of this piece of property? Did it allow them higher densities? Drell No, the similar property at the Canyons is designated and was regulated under our Hillside Ordinance that north beyond the channel the slopes are under 10%. Basically our determination on...for Bighorn was based on these same definitions. Tschopp I think you answered my question, I just want to clarify it. The same code that is being proposed here was applied to the neighboring properties? .r, 21 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 Correct the same designation. Drell gnati on. We are designating them the same and they were regulated by the Hillside Ordinance. Tschopp I understand the importance of this piece of property, but I guess I go back to this is the general plan and it seems we are talking thousands and thousands of acres, we are talking 12 acres here. Drell Correct. Campbell Any more questions of staff or Mr. Perry? Perry May I respond to one thing that Mr. Drell stated? The adjacent property that is currently zoned Hillside Residential is based on slope density calculations which, if they were applied to this property, and there is an old report that was provided in one of the earlier staff reports from I think the meeting before last that showed there would be up to 15 units that would be permitted on this particular piece of property. Again, if the new Hillside Reserve designation is applied, we are looking at a maximum 12 units, actually 11 units because it is slightly under 12 acres. That's for slopes that are under 10%. If it is over 10%, then we are looking at something more like probably in a range of five and 10 units, so the new designation will not permit the same number of units as what are currently permitted or have been permitted under the existing Hillside designation for the adjacent Canyon's properties. So, this would be more restrictive than what has been permitted on the adjacent properties that are already designated Hillside, significantly less than the adjacent properties that are designated low density residential. Campbell Thank you Mr. Perry. Tschopp Mr. Drell can you comment on that? It goes to the heart of my question I guess. Drell The difference he is talking about revolves around the direction that this body is taking and the council has not yet acted on relative to the new ordinance in which all the, right now the current ordinance has a five or six-category table that allows densities down probably to actually more than one unit per acre. j 22 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 The one unit per acre suggestion in this designation was based on the fact that all the alternatives that we looked at in the ordinance, none of them had densities greater than one unit per acre. So, it was, so I guess to a certain degree and general plans should lead in essence the process and if the commission or the council feels that the higher densities that are currently allowed in the Hillside Ordinance and the current specific plans should be retained that allow, I think it goes down to one unit per .66 acres I think, then that number could be substituted for the one unit per acre. It is just that it takes time to, the consensus of discussion in the recent past, the one unit per acre was as high as it seemed people were willing to go and there was some discussion even not to have that, so that is where the range comes in. So, that's why general plans still, we're providing the range which allows the flexibility of the City to then finish up the general plan, the Hillside Ordinance discussion subsequent to this, but again you guys can and the council can ultimately set this at the top end of the range at anywhere you want based upon taking a suggestion from the property owners or other property owners. Finerty So, Chairperson Campbell, would this then be the appropriate time to have commission discussion with regard to this particular piece of property? Campbell Yes, we can if there is no one else in the audience who wants to speak in regards to it. Okay? Discussion? Finerty Okay. I believe it was this summer, we had discussed the Hillside zoning in depth and we had alternative A and alternative B. And at that time I was adamant in favor of alternative B which allowed the one unit per 5 acres so this has clearly been a concept that has been out there for quite some time. I really have a problem with this property owner maximizing the calculation to allow 57 units which is clearly not my idea of protecting the hillside; rather believe it is abusing the hillside. Mr. Drell had alluded to that none of the any other properties had densities greater than one unit per acre. So, it is my belief that the commission ought to head off somewhere between the two and 12 units to be allowed and that the 48-57 if we go with the low density residential proposed of 0-4 units per acre that would allow the 48-57 that it currently is, that is totally off base with regard to what we need to do to protect our hillsides. %MW 23 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Jonathan I guess I overall do concur with the philosophy, but I did walk the property. I think that 57 units would probably be an abuse of the hillside. However, in my mind we are not reviewing an application at this point. We are looking at a land use designation and I think, I am struggling, I have a problem with the property owner having rights accorded under a designation of 3-5 dwelling units per acre and a governmental entity coming along and saying, 20 years or more you've have had the right to expect 57 units, we are now coming along and saying you have the right to expect two or five or seven or 10. 1 have a fundamental philosophical problem with that. I guess where I come down is to leave the land use designation as it is, but I will be very critical of the actual application in terms of reviewing the impact on the hillside and what is appropriate. In other words, the current designation doesn't prohibit us from making a determination that less units would be appropriate for that particular site, certainly less than 57, whereas changing the land use designation would prohibit us from allowing more than whatever the calculation might yield, whether that is two or 10 or whatever. So while I'm very much in agreement with the philosophy of protecting the hillside, I have a real problem in taking l away the owner's rights and I would rather review the specific application and deal with the specific issues at that time. Lopez I would concur philosophically. I think that the land use 57 units or at least maximizing it to 57 units would be taking advantage of the current land use, so I would concur, I think that is by far the high end. I have seen the property and I would think that would be an abuse of our hillsides. And I would tend to agree that I would rather leave the land use designation as it is, but I would like to put a little more importance on this specific area and perhaps I think early on in the conversations we had several meetings ago, and perhaps being a little more consistent with some of the other areas within the city, that we designate this as perhaps a hillside study area. This would give us the opportunity to zero in on this specific plot of land as we have done on some other areas within the city. Again, designating that as an area of high importance, high visibility, that we need to be careful as to what is developed in that area and what the intensity of that area is and let the specific applications speak for itself and the slopes and designations dignify what we have put in that particular area. But it should be taken at a higher visibility than just another application. 24 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 Tschopp Well, the easy part is agreeing philosophically that we want to protect our hillsides. That goes without saying. But I do agree with Commissioner Lopez that this is a high visible piece of property and still in the context of the general plan and not specific land planning issues, I would like to see this area also put aside as a study area so that we can look at a specific plan down the road that is compatible with that area, and also with the surrounding neighbors. I think if you look at the neighbors of this property, you will see it's one of the best done properties done in the desert. So without seeing a specific plan it is very hard for me to come to any kind of resolution what we should designate this property. So, I would like to see us designate this as a study area and look at specific plans as brought forward. Jonathan Does study area mean that we don't change the land use designation at this time, but reserve the right to do so at a later time? I can support that approach. Campbell I, too, agree. Drell It acknowledges that there is uncertainty as to the appropriate designation. We always can change the land use, we can change this the month after we adopt it, but acknowledge specifically that this area, the designation is uncertain, it's on the edge of at least and probably we could even identify in the text on each one of these study areas what the discussion involves. In this case it involves whether or not it should be regulated as hillside. But it leaves the determination open to the future. Tschopp I think I would say that the goal is to have the property designated as residential hillside reserve, however, we would reserve that until we have specific plans on the property. Campbell I, too, agree with my other three fellow commissioners in regards to this property and it was not specifically discussed in our general plan for the last couple of years and I do agree also that 57 units on 12 acres is quite a bit in an area where it is an entrance to the city, but I am open to go ahead and have such study session in regard to this and Bighorn and the Canyons at Bighorn, I agree that is the best project and you go in there and you hardly at the Canyon's see that there are any homes there that are really visible. 25 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 They are all pretty well camouflaged and we will go ahead and make a motion on this, today, now? Drell Right, just a minute motion directing us to do something. Finerty I just want to state that I understand the commission's desire to make it a study zone; however, I believe we are just delaying the inevitable. And at some point we've got to paint or get off the ladder as to which way we are headed. So, I am going to be voting in opposition to this for that reason. Campbell We need a motion. Jonathan I will make the motion, but I guess I share that concern and I guess I am thinking that the appropriate time to delay the inevitable to is when we see an application and can deal with the decision on the basis of realistic expectations. So, I guess the motion would be to make this area a study area, I think we are talking about what is generally referred to as the Cornische at Bighorn subject property. A study area for determination as to potential change of land use designation at a later time. Lopez Then I would second that. Campbell All in favor? Criste Madame Chair, before we take a vote can I just ask for a clarification? There are two issues I think in front of us. One is the hillside residential designation and the proposed modification to the language. And then...there are three issues. The application of that designation to this site, but as I understand it, the action you are talking about now is recognition that given the uncertainties regarding the site, the appropriateness of allowing the applicant to demonstrate carrying capacity, if you will, that you are thereby designating a special study area, essentially granting it some recognition that the designation is open to further consideration essentially. Is that correct? 26 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 i.. Campbell Okay? We have a motion and a second. Alt in favor? Jonathan, Lopez, Tschopp, and Campbell: Aye Campbell All opposed? Finerty Opposed Campbell Motion carries 4-1. Tschopp If I could just comment, I think Mr. Perry has heard the commission's comments and hopefully would take those into consideration as he moves through the application process. Jonathan Agreed. Drell Apologies,we kind of skipped ahead on some of the issues in terms of taking an action. Relative to the definitions we discussed, the three being the mixed use, the addition of hotels to the commercial zones, the rewording of the +••► density in the hillside reserve. Do you want to discuss those, act on them individually or all at once, or? Jonathan I think it would be appropriate to do these item by item. Finerty I agree. Drell Want to start with the hotels, an addition to hotels in the commercial zones? Jonathan I have no problem with that. Finerty I would move that for approval. Jonathan Second. Campbell All in favor? Everyone Aye Campbell All opposed? None, motion carries. 27 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Drell I have the addition of the possibility of mixed use in commercial zones? Jonathan (inaudible) Campbell Well, the public hearing is open. Yes? MacLeod My name is Myron MacLeod, I live at 4035 Avenida Brisa, Rancho Santa Fe. I am perceiving a stigma attached to high density residential to be included in the commercial area and I have been thinking this over in the audience and I would urge the commission to think in terms of that as being an opportunity for something other than commercial. If you were a resident living next door and you are not talking about taking a piece of residential land and now upgrading it or downgrading it to high density, you are talking about something that is already designated commercial. So if I am living next door, if you don't allow this mixed use, and you are pretty much rolling the dice that I am going to have some kind of commercial project next door, if you allow the mixed use, then if it is economically feasible, then perhaps there might be a high density buffer between my residence and the commercial. So I see that as being a designation that is a substantial difference. It is not taking residential and saying okay we may allow high density, it is saying that we have already designated this as commercial and this is just one use the developer could submit for an application and if the city doesn't like the specific plans or doesn't think it mixes in the neighborhood, I believe they still have the opportunity to reject it, but at least allows that as a possibility. Because I see that apartment houses done properly could be a good buffer between low residential and commercial or office buildings or can be a good buffer between a school and commercial property. So, I just wanted to include those thoughts. Thank you. Campbell Anyone else in regards to this? Any comments? Commission? Finerty I would be opposed to the mixed use commercial for the reasons stated earlier. Jonathan Let me ask you all something. I do see the wisdom that staff expressed and that Mr. McCloud expressed of having high density residential adjacent and 28 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 %NW accessible to commercial, maybe retail and so forth. I see the wisdom of that. I guess what I am thinking is can't we already have that? And that is why I asked about the interplay of the zoning. Can't we already implement that goal through the present zoning standards? Drell Now remember, the general plan is the broadest policy designation. Jonathan I understand. I am trying to engage the discussion amongst the commissioners. But I may ask you a few questions as we come up to it and I hear what you are saying. But I guess what I am wanting to engage the conversation about is if this is necessary or do we already have that ability to accomplish what I think is a worthy goal? Finerty Is what I am hearing you say that the developer would have an opportunity through the change of zone to bring to us for consideration a high density residential project in a specific area with the specific plan and then we would have the opportunity to vote yea or nay anyway without utilizing the mixed use commercial? r.. Jonathan Exactly. Lopez Would that process then be through a conditional use permit or would that just be ... Finerty We would just vote to change the zone and we have done that several times, most recently,we just changed to office professional out in the north end and we do that regularly. It has been a process that's been in place for as long as Sabby has been on the commission, I think. Maybe even longer than that. Jonathan It doesn't get any longer than that. I mean, for example, if a developer came to us with a 20-acre project, couldn't like three acres be high density residential and five acres be office professional, and ten acres be service industrial and we have done that before. Campbell I would be comfortable with that because I don't like that staff recommended alternative that we have here for the general plan that it shows the mixed use on the comer of Cook and Frank Sinatra, that large area. I don't think that is an area to go ahead and have mixed use right there again at the entrance of our city. So, I would be in agreement with that too when it comes in front 29 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 F of us that we can go ahead and have an opportunity to go ahead and change the zone. Drell Okay, there's two things. Right now each of the specific commercial designations does contain the possibility for mixed use. What we are voting on is a specific mixed use zone, so you are correct that the current commercial designations do not preclude the submission of a mixed use proposal and so, is it absolutely necessary to have mixed use to have a specific designation? You are correct, we don't have to have one. Finerty Thank you. Jonathan But what you are saying, Mr. Drell, is that staffs recommendation is that we specifically target within the general plan that area west of Cook Street and north of Gerald Ford as specifically being appropriate .for mixed use development. Drell And my specific objective in showing those areas was to generate as much housing in close proximity to the commercial and university as we could. It is not necessary to designate those that way and keeping, not having the ..r specific mixed use designation doesn't preclude, correctly as you said, projects from coming to us since the definitions of each of the specific commercial categories holds open the door for that if someone wants to make that application. Jonathan And I guess I want to underscore that very point is that while we may end up not adding mixed use commercial designation, I think that the goal has a lot of merit of when we create high density residential to do it within close proximity to commercial and retail and so forth, I think makes a lot of sense for many reasons from a long term planning standpoint so I embrace the goal, but I am not sure adding the mixed use commercial designation is necessary towards that goal. Campbell Okay, any other comments? Tschopp Well, I guess, seems like we are spending exorbitant time on definitions, I think the general plan is the goal. It is a long term planning process and I guess I see it a little different in that if we designate certain areas as potentially mixed use commercial, we are saying that we believe it has the 4 potential to meet a more specific need and yet does not preclude us from 30 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 •.m stating that the specific plan in front of us doesn't work. So I think in a lot of ways what we are trying to do here is define better for the city and for the applicants what we are looking at as our long term goal of the general plan. So I think the more specific you get in certain areas, the better you are doing a job of planning for the future. Jonathan Would you follow that with designating specific areas perhaps as the staff recommended alternative indicates for that or are you saying...? Tschopp At this time we are talking about the use of the mixed use commercial designation. Jonathan But if we are not going to designate specific areas with the designation, then it's unnecessary. Tschopp I think if we designate those areas as this designation, that it doesn't preclude us from denying the applicant any more than it allows us now to do it. So I guess I am saying is what we are telling the applicant is we will look to this area as this mixed use, but you still need to demonstrate that it will �.. work and that is feasible and viable. Jonathan I guess that part of the reason that I am asking the question is while your point about the mixed use commercial designation appeals to me, I am not sure that I am prepared to designate specific areas, particularly those recommended in the staff recommended alternative as those designations. Tschopp So my point is, I'm only talking about the definitions and the land use designations now. We have not gotten to specific areas yet. Lopez I think that is where I also stand. I am looking more at the language of the mixed use document that we received as the text in bold dated 10/17 and I like the flexibility of that particular category regardless of where it would appear in any current maps that we have before us, it does as we build out the remainder or sphere, it does give us some flexibility as to at least a designation of certain areas where this might be very beneficial. Now it could be accomplished with what we currently have, but I kind of like having that flexibility in that particular (inaudible). Jonathan I was just going to say, if in that light if we are just kind of embracing the concept and the goal and allowing the land use designation that specifies 31 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 that without going the next step and specifying the areas as to the application of that land use designation, I wouldn't have a problem. Tschopp Do you need a resolution? Drell All we are getting is minute motions for what we come back with on this and giving us direction on how to prepare that final document. So this will be a minute motion. Lopez I would, oh... (inaudible) Campbell I already spoke. Lopez I would move for a minute motion and designate commercial mixed use as part of our... Drell Catalog. Lopez Catalog of land use elements. Tschopp Second. Campbell Okay. All in favor, Aye. Jonathan, Lopez, Tschopp and Campbell: Aye. Campbell Opposed? Finerty Opposed. Campbell We did not designate any specific areas. Drell No, we haven't gotten to a map yet. We aren't talking about a map yet. Lastly is the change in the Hillside Reserve definition from 1 unit per 5 acres to .2 per acre which is 1 unit per 5 acres to 1 unit per acre. Jonathan I would support that. Lopez I would, too. 32 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 %1W Lopez I would move my minute motion to approve that particular definition. Jonathan Second. Finerty And that is to allow the range? Drell To allow the range. Correct. Campbell All in favor. Jonathan, Lopez, Tschopp, Campbell answered aye. Campbell All opposed? Finerty Opposed. Campbell Motion carries. Drell Next, moving north. The discussion relative to the Allesandro Alley. (Let me �.. get to that machine.) Do you have to see the exhibits again or...? Finerty I think we have been there, done that. Drell Okay, basically the options before you are the two, this is the Alesandro Alley. (We trying to do to that one.) Jonathan We've got them, unless you want to put them up for the audience? Drell I guess technically there's three alternatives at least before you. One being which is what the current policy within the Palma Village Plan is which is to ultimately eliminate all these residential lots and turn them into a parking area with a wall similar to what you see behind Walgreens. The original GPAC...which was a double row of parking with one-way aisles on either side requiring about 46 feet of additional widening of the alley and then the, producing approximately 254 parking spaces, and then what staff is now recommending and I will explain why, of a single 24-foot alley with one row of perpendicular spaces generally 188 feet and about 26 feet of additional real estate expansion. Secondarily to that would be also the .... 33 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 Jonathan How many parking spaces? Drell 188 and 26 feet of widening. Jonathan And the other one was how many feet of (inaudible)? Drell 45 feet and generating approximately 254 spaces. There was also secondary discussion, I am not sure we acted on it or not, which would actually increase parking to a certain degree on this plan of the closure of San Marcos and principally driven by, in essence, I have authorship of all three of these plans. I was the one who came up with the original plan to wipe out the whole residential lot and put in a big parking lot and 1, along with Phil Joy, came up with a plan with the double center aisle and it came down to I guess politics is the art of the possible. And I think there in terms of bang for the buck the perpendicular space plan is, therefore, much...does the least violence to the residential lots, is easiest to implement, and as Commissioner Jonathan had pointed out, could even be implemented to a certain degree incrementally over time while the center aisle program would have to be implemented in one. So it has far more possibility of being implemented at less expense, therefore, it is far more likely to happen and the other issue was whatever we decide it is something that we want to happen relatively soon and given all those considerations we feel that the 26-foot, 188 space plan is most appropriate. Campbell I do have some blue cards and I know these two ladies have been waiting for this. Donna Matson? Matson My name is Donna Matson and I own the property at 73341 San Benito Circle. It is has been in my family for over 30 years. Good morning Madame Chair and members of the commission. We are following this very very closely and we certainly hope that you will give serious consideration to taking only the 26 feet which would leave us a quality of life which we would not have with the 35 feet, bringing for quite a few of the property owners, taking 35 feet would bring the wall and the parking right up against our house or take off the back wall of our house and with several restaurants in the area, having cars parking there all through the night. And there was honking last night about 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock and 12:30. The slamming of doors, the alarms clicking on and off, talking, and the exhaust fumes from the automobiles would not be a quality of life that many 34 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 of us would like to deal with. With the 24 feet, 25 feet, recommended by the staff, we could certainly have the wall and some vegetation, landscape it, buffer and have a better quality of life and as part of that, that you would take only parts of the property at once and not just in a big sweep which would help you to plan to see in the 20 years, where you are going. For 20 years we have sort of sat here knowing that the bulldozers can come any day and bulldoze our property. So, not only did it make it impossible to sell it, we didn't want to improve it too much and we kept delaying on putting on new roofs and doing new plumbing, but once you have made this decision, it does help us plan what our quality of life will be in that and we would very much appreciate your considering our position. Thank you so much. Campbell Thank you. Okay, Lucia Rodriguez? Jonathan Just clarification while she is coming up. Is the double row 35 or 45? Campbell 45. Jonathan It's 45. Okay, thank you. Rodriguez I am Mrs. Rodriguiez. Good morning. I am Mrs. Rodriguez and I reside at 73780 San Benito Circle, 73361. And I would be willing for the 26 instead of the 45 1 think it was, cause that would really really take most of our backyard, you know, and I plan to stay there awhile. My daughter and I, 1 think that is kind of our home for a long time. So, if the parking lot does go there, does that automatically put that into commercial property in the back? I just wanted to ask that question. Drell It will be acquired by the public and it will be for a parking lot. Rodriguez Will that be commercial then? Drell No. It is the, the limitation and the current limitation that is in the code is that the residential properties can only be used for parking. It's a public purpose. It would be a public easement so whether it is commercial I am not...If you are asking about how it would be valued? Is that your question? Rodriguez Hmmm mmm. %NW 35 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18,2003 Drell I can't tell you, I am not an appraiser. But again, the history of city acquisition for right-of-way has almost without exception left the property owners quite satisfied. We are very fair in determining what our citizens are compensated with. Rodriguez Thank you. Campbell Thank you. Anyone else? Drell I would like to make one little comment that, the people who choose to continue to reside in these homes cannot expect that this is a tranquil, quiet environment. There is going to be, again, living in a place like this, there are burdens and benefits and the burdens are not gonna disappear between 45 feet and 25 feet. The benefits are still there of convenient access and everything else, but it will interfere with the sort of folk that want to go to sleep at 9:00 at night, this is probably not be the best place to live. Campbell Any comments from the commission? Greenwood I would like to make a comment from the public works perspective. It has been mentioned several times the number of spaces and we need to be careful not to expect that exact number of spaces. The actual yield will probably be somewhat less, maybe 20% less than the ideal. What is presented here is kind of the ideal and there will undoubtedly be compromises that have to be made so, you should probably expect, if we are talking 188, we should probably expect 150 maybe. Drell That will also apply to the alternative as well. Greenwood Right. All the alternatives will be, we're talking about the ideal numbers and the actual will be somewhat less. Jonathan I do favor the single row alternative. I think it's a wonderful compromise and an effective solution to the horrible situation that exists along that alleyway. I would recommend though that incorporated into this recommendation to council would be that this be done in conjunction with the parking management plan of all the business owners that would maximize employee usage of the rear spaces and implement mitigation measures with regards i to the resulting noise and light impact on the adjacent residential properties. 36 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 bw Additionally, that council consider the benefits of incremental implementation so that as one or two or three or whatever number of adjacent properties are resolved in terms of acquiring the required space, that the City move forward with adding the parking spaces without waiting for all of the properties to be acquired which could be another 10 or 20-year process. So I think incremental implementation of this alternative can make a lot of sense. I would further suggest that council adopt an actual timetable and communicate that to the residents so that we have on paper an expectation of how and when this will take place. I think we owe that to the residents and finally, that as the council considers the financial aspects of this process that they recognize the responsibility and the benefits that accrue to the adjacent, to the actual businesses and the property owners. Finerty I would concur and I appreciate the patience from Mrs. Matson and Mrs. Rodriguez. I know it has been a long time and we appreciate your participation in coming to let us know what it is that you would like to see here and hopefully soon you will have your answer. Lopez I would also concur with my fellow commissioners. I would also like if we would incorporate or consideration be made to closing San Marcos Avenue. I only look at that from the standpoint as once this alley is developed and the parking areas are developed, that is an access that I think the homeowners that are along San Clemente Circle, that is one way of getting out or another access and it is going to cause some traffic problems I think with on that street. I would rather see everything flow back on Highway 111 instead of going into a residential area as an access, but I would like consideration made of that, too. Finerty What is the Public Works Department opinion of that? Greenwood We are talking about the closure of San Marcos? (Inaudible) Greenwood Generally it is acceptable. You know it's an access to the residential neighborhood. Our one concern is that by closing off that one access to the neighborhood, traffic volumes will increase in other parts of the neighborhood because people will have to find another route out, so, but I think overall it is an acceptable option to take. 37 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Campbell You think that San Marcos is really quite widely used right now or not? It's only probably used more so for the people that live on San Clemente Circle. Greenwood It does have a traffic volume I would estimate between 500 and 1,000 cars per day, so it is mostly local traffic although some people do use it as a cut through. If we were to build a parking lot directly adjacent to it, it would get used as a cut through more and the situation would get worse. (Inaudible) Campbell Didn't we actually at one meeting talk about having a gate there so a pedestrian can walk through it? Jonathan A pedestrian access. Campbell Mmhm. Greenwood Bicycle-golf cart access is what we would do. Jonathan I apologize, I meant to add that to my list of(inaudible), I would concur with closing off San Marcos, but creating pedestrian bicycle access. Criste Because we have not conferred with the Fire Marshal and if you look at the configuration, that may merit keeping the street, making it an emergency gated access so fire and police could get in, having pedestrian access as well, but not vacating the street. Campbell But then if we do that, we wouldn't be able to go ahead and put any parking spaces right there if we have the gate. Drell Needless to say we would have to do it in consultation with the Fire Marshal, although we would be creating a situation which is identical to the other Circles and each of the Circles already has two accesses, so for a street like that to, considering all the cul de sacs we have in town, here having a street with two accesses I don't think will need three. Lopez The only other consideration I would like to be included on this is that once developed, and I think this has been already touched on briefly, lighting, the proper lighting for safety as much as it is would not, to not be an intrusion into the residential areas and to put some of the burden onto the commercial 38 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 locations along Highway 111 that the areas that are behind those buildings needs to be maintained if this is going to be access, public access, especially for people that are there parking to go shopping where it might be, that all of those areas along the alleyway, I don't want to call it an alleyway any more because an alley has certain connotations, but I think whatever this area will be called in the future, that it be significantly improved as to the condition from what it is currently the state right now. Tschopp You know by location to me this is one of the most desirable areas of Palm Desert both for commercial building, commercial customers, for residents, and it is truly not being utilized and we are not realizing for the residents, for the businesses, and for the city, the monetary and return that we should be able to get from this property. So I wholeheartedly agree that this area needs to be, this plan needs to be implemented both so that the residences, businessmen can plan for the future, and I would strongly suggest that the City get pro active in implementing whatever action is taken. Having said that you would almost like to take this further into a grand plan where you actually buffer the residences, you move the street further to the south, put the parking close to the buildings, but because that is not feasible in the near future, I think this is a nice alternative that would likely to be implemented. And so I agree with the recommendations made by the other commissioners and then I would also say that we need to close San Marcos to keep people like me from using it. So, and also that would help keep the integrity of that residential neighborhood from being impacted by the commercial development. Campbell Well actually, myself, I would rather go ahead and see it the other way. Have a lot more parking and do it correctly; if we are going to do it, do it all at once and do it right. But we do have the two residents who are living there that would be happy with the less amount of parking and as long as like Mr. Lopez said, as far as we have the lighting, we do also have, we need landscaping there between the parking...stalls, let's say, and also the perpendicular parking, that is not really easy for people to get in and out of, so we have to go ahead and make sure the parking spaces are maybe made a little bit wider even though we do have compact cars right now, you have to go ahead and think of the people who are driving those cars. Another thing as Mr. Drell said, even though you will be taking less property away from these residences, we really don't want to go ahead and have them back year after year complaining about the noise, the honking, the whatever goes ... on. So, that is why I was thinking more land. They probably wouldn't be living 39 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 there if we took more land away and it would be less confusion in the long run. We've had that experience before, many years. Jonathan I will go ahead and make a motion that we recommend to council the adoption of the single row alternative in conjunction with the parking management plan which would incorporate mitigations regarding noise, light and also incorporate a maintenance agreement for that parking area for that property. That council consider the benefits of incremental implementation. That they adopt and communicate a timetable for the implementation, that in considering the funding mechanism they recognize the responsibility and the benefits accruing to the property owners, I am talking about the business property owners along Highway 111, and that the plan include the closure of San Marcos to vehicular traffic with provision for pedestrian and bicycle right- of-way. Finerty Second. Campbell All in favor Everyone Aye. Campbell All opposed? None? Motion carries. Drell Next item. Portola. Again, staff recommendation is based on a variety of considerations. We went through a similar experience with Fred Waring and in that case we only had about 45 feet left which the determination was it was not sufficiently useful for any other land use so we retained the ownership of all the land, then landscaped it and maintain it. It is a very expensive proposition for the City, but given the fact that we didn't feel the remaining property was useful for anything else, that is what we did. In this area, we will end up on the west side of Portola with significant real estate. From south of Portola we are looking at over 100 feet, I mean south of Fred Waring we are looking at over 100 feet left over. North it is somewhat more limited, it's 60-90 feet. My department is also in charge of planning for parks and we don't think this is a great location for parks and given our limited, and conceivably more limited budget based on what might happen in Sacramento, we don't want to be maintaining areas that we don't feel are all that useful, so as a result we are recommending that these properties be made available for office 40 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 low professional use. It allows the obligation of landscaping, creating attractive street scapes, puts it on the private property owner, provides opportunity and resource for small businesses to develop small offices. Also, where the buildings are built, our experience everywhere else where we've used offices as a buffer on major streets, it significantly lowers the noise impacts of the street, significantly improving the quality of life for the adjacent residences, their businesses, what activities they have and it is not particularly loud. Accountants typically don't make a lot of noise or architects during the day and there are mostly businesses that are empty in the evenings and weekends and so I think we've demonstrated that office is a good neighbor to residents and a beneficial neighbor relative to noise and impacts on the street and it provides the financial cost of creating an attractive streetscape on the private property owner and not on the City and allows the City to spend its money on other things. And, therefore, that is why we are recommending that these areas be designated for professional offices. Finerty And what did you say about north of Fred Waring about 60-90 feet? Drell It is a little more challenging, but 60 feet provides enough to develop both buildings. There you are going to have, where you have the 100 feet you can have buildings with parking in the rear; where you have the 60-90 feet, you are going to have parking lot, buildings, parking lot and buildings. Finerty You're recommending office professional on both sides? Drell On both sides. Campbell On the north side of Fred Waring, the 60 feet from Fred Waring to where? Rancho Road? Or Rutledge Way? Drell It goes up to where I guess the Vineyards begins, so it is probably like half way. Right here - these houses don't—they front on the interior street so it is really the last house impacted would be here. From here on these houses would lose a little bit of their backyard with the widening but again they are served by this interior street. Campbell Okay, so the walled areas, after the walled area right there after Rutledge, the walled area you are going to go ahead and start taking 60 feet off out of that? 41 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Drell No, we are not taking 60 feet, there is 60-90 feet remain. The widening is only taking 12-14 feet I believe. Again, it takes a lot more. It is very possible that the end of the day the lots that are adjacent to the free right might not be useable, but that would be a judgment we would have to make based on final design. Campbell So you are planning on eliminating all those homes right there. Is that correct? Drell Where you see with the right-of-way, the right-of-way line comes up virtually to the front wall of each of those homes in that area. I think the given is that when we have the ultimate desired section for Portola, those houses will be gone. We heard testimony from those property owners as far as they are concerned, it is an unacceptable situation today, prior to the widening, where we've just kind of jammed in the four lanes. But the section we are showing includes both the landscape median and bikeways which we feel are necessary. This is a residential area and we feel it should reflect residential design ethic which would be to include those two things and by virtue of its location next to the corridor between three schools that I feel the bike lanes are important, so that is what kind of drives the street section. Again, when the final design comes in and it turns out we take more but 60-90 feet is in our view is still potentially supports office development and ...(inaudible) hmm? (Inaudible) Oh no, 60-90 feet is what is left. If you look at the exhibit it shows...varies 63 to 91 feet. That is what is left, so... you are still looking confused. Campbell No, no. Drell And that it is not wide enough for a real park and too wide for a parkway and, therefore, and it has utility for private use. Campbell And just also we wanted to go ahead and make sure remember we had a gentleman speak that lives on close to the comer of Portola and Fred Waring that we do need and I travel that Portola all the time that we need two right lanes from Portola into Fred Waring. Finerty He said southbound. Yeah. It was Mr. Thompson. Campbell Yeah. 42 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 r.. Drell That is a design issue, I don't know if our ..... Campbell Because it is not showing here on the map. Drell No, mainly because I don't think that is a design that our Public Works Department is particularly fond of, but the dual right-turn lanes. Greenwood Generally dual right turn lanes don't function that well. We have one at Fred Waring and Highway 111. Pretty inefficient, we get a lot of strange turning maneuvers. Free right turns work much better, have the same or greater capacity and actually take about the same footprint, maybe even a little smaller footprint, so we prefer a free right over a dual right. Campbell Yes, but right now, you know, people are just pulling up there and you can't make a right-hand turn because it is not moving right now. Greenwood Right, that's because the road needs to be widened. Campbell We'll try it. Jonathan Question for you Mr. Drell. This conversion of this portion of Portola to office professional. Does it lend itself to the Palma Village approach where adjacent residential lots can be used for parking with the office professional use? Drell As you know, I am not that enthusiastic about it as a solution to Palma Village any more either. Again, my, I can see the possibility of where the adjacent residential lots are sufficiently deep that we can borrow some real estate from the residential lot. Jonathan I have noted a few parcels like on a few locations like on De Anza, north of De Anza, El Cortez south and north of this street. Drell Yes. Again, where the, what I again probably knew then and kind of ignored when we came up with the original idea. Encroaching into the residential shouldn't go to the extent of eliminating half the street. That neighborhoods function a whole lot better when there are houses on both sides of the streets, not a wall and a parking lot on one side so where adjacent residential lots are deep enough that they can lend some property to the office to make %NW the office site planning more efficient, then that could be appropriate. 43 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 Campbell Mr. Drell I have a question in regard to the office professional that you are talking about north and south between DeAnza or Catalina and Santa Rosa Way that you want to go ahead and have put in office professional and taking access from Portola Avenue. Now will that be ingress and egress from Portola or are they going to go on the side streets to go ahead and go behind the office professional buildings and only egress on Portola or shall we have it like we have it on Fred Waring on some other buildings there that you cannot have access on Portola from the parking lot except from the street? Drell The goal would be to design the parking area so we have as few driveways as possible and always that any traffic entering Portola could be heading straight out, not backing out. There probably would be at the side streets also driveways to accomplish that goal of minimizing the access on Portola. We would especially try to use DeAnza where we could since DeAnza is going to be a signalized intersection. Also, DeAnza is of course is a collector, but .... Jonathan That is side street access not rear access to the residential neighborhood? Drell It would be on to Catalina which is a, as it hits Portola, it will be not unlike San Anselmo or probably ultimately San Pasqual where we have, where the side street is used as a side access to the back end of a parking lot. Remember, again we are dealing with a street Portola which is going to have 30-40,000 cars on it. The impact of traffic from these offices, if you sat out in front of any of them on Fred Waring and counted cars, you would fall asleep very quickly. This is the idea that these projects are going to be belching out huge volumes of traffic that are going to be impacting anybody has not been manifested in any places where we have done this. The only problem we have had is with the Sunlight Medical Center which is a parking issue. It is not a traffic volume issue, hopefully we have addressed that. In the likelihood because of the shallowness of these lots they will be single-story because our office ordinance requires at least a 65-foot setback for a 2-story building and if you only have even a 100 feet and then a 15-foot setback in front, your 70 feet, you don't have much left for a building, so it is going to be likely and you can specify as a policy that this area will only be one story. Campbell So the one story would blend in with the homes, and so forth. Drell Right. 44 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 a.. Campbell Okay. Lopez Once completed, (inaudible) envision the speed limit to be on this particular area, Portola. Greenwood Speed limits are set based on state law so it is hard to predict. I believe the speed limit there is 40-45 now and would probably stay about the same. Lopez As far as the areas, and I have mentioned this before, I am very concerned about the high residential area, a lot of kids are on this road five days a week, going to and from school. Looking for more of what the vision is as far as their safety. The walkways and how much space there's going to be from the (inaudible) how much room will they have off this road for walkways. Drell So relative to the sidewalk design? Lopez Right. Greenwood I think our layout showed an eight-foot sidewalk on the west side which is .. why the existing sidewalk on the east side is 6 feet and it is curb adjacent. If we could work it out, I would love to be able to move that sidewalk on the east side back against the wall and put a small parkway there. I don't know if it will work out or not but get that pedestrian traffic away from the street a little bit and also then having the wider lanes will help also get traffic right off the curb. Drell If you remember, we were putting in the bike lane. Greenwood The bike lane... Drell We will have a bike lane adjacent to the curb so that, right, we will move the cars from 18 inches away from the sidewalk to 6 feet. Lopez Knowing that's a middle school and not a high school situation, there is going to be kids on bicycles and I know if I had someone who was nine years old, 10 years old, I wouldn't want them in a bicycle lane on Portola at 45 miles an hour. You know they'd better stay on the sidewalk. I have a difficult time riding my bike in some of the areas in town when traffic is zipping on by, but what I am more concerned about is what type of an environment sidewalk 45 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 wise, safety wise would be for the children in this area who are going to school. This is five out of seven days. The other two days... Greenwood We do allow generally as a habit we allow bicycles on sidewalks everywhere except El Paseo so the bikes will still be allowed on the sidewalk there, although there would be a striped bike lane. So you have the choice of using one or the other. Lopez Bike lane is good because it does get more space obviously. Greenwood Bike lane becomes a buffer. Finerty Mr. Greenwood, on the west side of Portola we are talking about over 100 feet left, the other side 60-90 feet left. This is predicated on widening Portola to four lanes with bike lanes. Correct? Greenwood Yes. Finerty What would be left if we were to widen Portola to six lanes with bike lanes? Greenwood About 15 feet or so less than what is shown. Finerty Okay, and we always do have the flexibility to increase the size or the width I should say of the sidewalk for safety purposes and then we would have the capability of allowing some sort of greenbelt type area as we have done on Fred Waring, a landscape buffer beyond that widened sidewalk. Correct? Greenwood Yes, it is possible. Although the Fred Waring greenbelt was something of a grand experiment and I don't think we want, I mean it is great for where it is at but we are not looking to do that anymore, it is a very expensive maintenance operation and so we are not proposing to do it although if the project worked out that way, I guess we would accept it. Campbell And regarding also to Mr. Lopez that was talking about the bike lanes and this was why l was bringing up office professional and taking access from Portola, that I think if we can go ahead and have less driveways even from office professional to Portola would be a lot better than even these kids riding their bicycles and watching for the cars coming out of the driveway like we have right now. 46 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 Drell And that would be the objective. Whether we could eliminate driveways altogether is probably unlikely, but the goal would be to eliminate most of them and to have as much shared. Again, this is a situation that children are faced within most cities. There are driveways all over. They are walking and they are supposed to watch, that is part of living in this dangerous world. Campbell I know, but if we are going to go ahead and build something, let's do it. Drell There is no question that in evaluating proposals we will do everything possible to minimize the number of driveways. There is no question about that. Lopez Theoretically you would have less driveways than you would with residential homes. Drell Oh, there is no question of that and hopefully, for example, north of Fred Waring, we would use, hopefully where there are now six or seven driveways we might end up with hopefully no more than two. That would be the goal and again utilizing, the trade off of utilizing side streets, there would be some interaction between, just like some residential streets, just like you have on they see on Monterey and Arboleta, or Acacia or Fred Waring, but it provides another opportunity to keep another driveway off of the main thoroughfare. Tschopp Question for you. What would you say the time frame for this being implemented and what would be the immediate and short term impact on the residents there? Drell To a certain extent, especially I would say for the folks north of Fred Waring which are far more severely impacted today, again just like we talked about with the Highway 111 issue, there is, we don't want to drag them out like we...we delayed Fred Waring almost 10 years until it finally happened in 10 years of complaining, screaming and deteriorating housing that occurred on Fred Waring. I think the goal here is again whatever we do we aggressively promote one or the other. Either the office solution because part of the solution is aesthetic. It is an aesthetic one as well as functional for the neighborhood. Or if we don't then we acquire the properties and do something with them so that they look, they are useful, look nicer. Whatever we do, we should do it soon. 47 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 Greenwood These projects find themselves in competition for our resources with a lot of other important projects. The Portola interchange, Fred Waring widening, all the development in the north sphere, so basically the Public Works Department and some of the other departments lay out their 5-year plan for what they plan to work on each year. Well the next five years are fully spoken for. In fact they are probably spoken for 200% of our time capability and 100% of our dollar capability. Street projects are built with a variety of funds. Measure A is our favorite fund. It's got the fewest strings attached and it is a pretty plentiful fund. On the other hand our allocation of Measure A funding is spoken for for the next quite a few years so it would require readjusting of priorities and deciding what other important projects we are not going to do if we are going to say this Alessandro project or Portola project are the most important things, that is fine, but some other project falls down on the list and then as far as the acquisition of right-of-way, generally we work with the redevelopment agency for that aspect of it. So we also have to be on the redevelopment agency schedule as far as funding and time. So, neither of the projects we have spoken about today are going to happen immediately. A fast track would be 2-3 years. But a typical schedule would be 6 or7 years. So that is the kind of time frame we are talking about. Campbell Another question of Mr. Greenwood. As far as doing Portola 6 lanes is out of the question. Is that what you are telling us so we don't even have to go ahead and ...... Greenwood It is not out of the question. It does have impact so that it leaves us where I think what Phil is saying is that with a four lane with bike lanes, we have a remainder of property that is on the acceptable side of being able to develop as office professional. If we go to six lanes and lose that 15 feet or so in width, marginally acceptable properties probably become marginally unacceptable and probably wouldn't develop so that would leave us the wider parkway to deal with which can be done. From a staff perspective it is not the preferred alternative. Finerty Mr. Greenwood, if I remember at the last meeting, we had extensive discussion about Portola being widened from four to six lanes. I know we talked about the modeling and I thought what I heard you say is that right 48 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 now the modeling shows that we are between the necessity for four and six lanes. Greenwood Right. Finerty Okay. Jonathan What are the mechanics of implementation of this proposal? In other words would the city come in and do the widening of Portola? And then private owners might or might not come in and put an office building or do you see it happening as private owners purchase office buildings? Drell No. Two things could happen. Either in anticipation or once the policy is said and the understanding is that we are going to do this, we can have which is already started happening maybe prematurely or not on that corner. We have heard from Chris McFadden on Catalina where property owners, the office development can actually precede the widening and what we do is, that is actually the most economical activity for the city because if we condition the dedication as part of the project so we don't pay anything for the right-of-way. So the buildings are sited in anticipation of the widening and then when the widening comes, it happens. Jonathan Except that what happens is you have, like the McFadden property that facilitates the widening, but then you've got three properties that don't and one that doesn't and 10 that don't so it takes forever to enable the widening. Drell Initially you hope if we go with the office professional that a certain percentage of those will get redeveloped and will get right-of-way. Once the trigger is pulled on the project, then the redevelopment agency goes out and short of rounding up a bunch of other office people to buy the sites and dedicate them to us, we would buy the properties. For example, a good example is what we did at the corner of Portola and 111 on the southeast comer. We bought the whole site, we did all the improvements and then we sold all the remaining to a developer to develop as an art gallery. So that's...you know we...and we solicited proposals from various developers and in that case we even have more control over exactly what happens there because we are the underlying property owner initially. 49 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Tschopp The current demand for office space is apparent given all the construction going on for building OP. That may not remain the case down the road. Do you see any of this land along Portola being suitable for high or medium density residential, apartments? Drell Not impossible. I could say conceivably some of the sites maybe south. Unfortunately, they have to be 2-story. Physically you are not going to get the high density on these small offices without two story. Obviously as you know, the resistance to high density in two story high density close proximity to the backs of single family backyards is a battle that even I don't wish to take on. Campbell Plus a lot of traffic. Drell I have a hard enough time getting these things approved out in the middle of nowhere. Finerty But isn't it kind of medium density residential out there now? I mean we wouldn't turn that area low, would we? Drell It is probably close. It is probably four units per acre. It is the high end of low, low end of medium. But...a great example, when we try to do a self help housing in this neighborhood over here, identical houses next door, this whole room was packed saying what a horrible thing we were doing. So again, I would not encourage or invite a property owner to try to do that here. Maybe if the City took the lead and did it, and in essence they would push me in front to take the bullet anyway. In these tight locations our experience has been that small offices prove to be the best solution. Finerty And how would that work if we had a proposal for medical use? Drell They just need more parking lots. They need a 15% larger parking lot. I would say in these tight situations they are probably not, again, a little dentist is fine, your urgent care clinic is the one that blows you out. Jonathan There is an alternative of medium density and you mentioned the Vineyards earlier. Those are garden homes that share a wall for example so you could end up with really two units on some of these lots. 50 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 low Drell Remember, those face inward. They don't access Portola at all. They are internal. Jonathan I guess, let me ask you though. I guess where I am going with it is that 63 feet of depth I mean like those lots on Fred Waring that we are seeing implementing the Palma Village Plan, those are I believe 100 foot depth and that's difficult to put in an office building and parking on one lot. Can 63 feet of depth really accommodate the set back requirements, the building and a parking lot, landscaping? Drell Remember the lots on some of the offices on Monterey south of Fred Waring are built. The depth was the width of the lot which was only 62 feet. So I agree that the lots that are closer to 63 feet and which are at the comer there between Fred Waring and Rancho, you are going to have a parking lot and a building and a parking lot and a building. Or again, the ones, it is very likely that the ones directly adjacent to the comer are going to have to become an extension of Fred Waring Park so you might only get...in that first block, it's tough. And that might be some place where we can't find an acceptable design for an office and we might have to, you know that is a case that •. probably we will have to evaluate. But north Rancho Road where it expands to the 91 feet is where it is a little more flexible. Finerty Can we have any public testimony on this? Campbell Are we finished with that? Okay? Anyone here wants to speak in regard to Portola? Okay, none, no comments. Finerty Last month we received a letter from Sue Fairfield and I must say that she stated it probably better than I could, but she is opposed rezoning for OP because she feels that they already have a well established residential and school area and she points out the importance of having consistency in your neighborhood and she is wishing that her neighborhood remain consistent. She speaks of currently there being a mix of low and medium density residential with two schools and parks interspersed and she feels that it is a nice mix. I agree we should maintain the integrity of the neighborhood and she has said that she lives in a great little neighborhood in the Vineyards area and points out that having an office building built in your backyard is not ideal and vow ultimately their quality of life would be affected, and near and dear to my 51 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 heart she states, please don't let the developers fill in every corner of our desert with commercial buildings, a sea of homes and other commercial centers. Leave us some beautiful open desert space. So, I see this as an opportunity to (a) widen it to six lanes and because the model shows we're between four and six lanes and I understand modeling is not an exact science, but I do know that six lanes is certainly enjoyable on Fred Waring and Washington. Therefore, we would be reducing the width as Mr. Greenwood stated, 15 feet and I think this would be, I am concerned that in our general plan we are not setting aside enough open space and I see this as an opportunity to set this area aside for open space. How exactly it would be built out with regard to it being wider than Fred Waring, I don't know. I understand staff talking about it's costly to be maintained. Well, yeah it is costly to be maintained, but it is also costly as far as our quality of life and filling up every space of land with a building and so I think that we need to have our priority in areas that are admittedly tight to go ahead and leave that for the open space. Campbell Well I agree with Commissioner Finerty too and here we are trying to go ahead and squeeze more lanes into Portola right now to go ahead and make it four lanes and I travel that every day and I still have a problem with just only one right turn on Portola and Fred Waring and I would like to go ahead and see it also. Once you are going to do it, do it right and it is going to go ahead and take a few years to do it, but do it correctly, otherwise we have been redoing the comer of Portola and Fred Waring on the west corner. We have spent quite a bit of money on redoing it and redoing it. Do it correctly and again leave the open space without cramming so many buildings in the smaller areas. Tschopp I kind of see it a little bit different. You could build six lanes but perhaps you will need eight someday especially when Portola goes out to the interstate. I think at some point in time you gotta say well there is a limit to the width of roads and major arteries to the city. There is a very unsafe condition there. It is going to get worse as Portola gets more traffic down the road so I think that this is an area that needs to be considered for the different designation on the west side of the road. If you look at Monterey, I think that that has been handled very well, providing a good buffer to the homes behind the commercial buildings and has worked very well in decreasing the number of driveways that empty out into a very busy street and I see Portola perhaps benefitting from the same thought. 52 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 vow The concept of additional open space, we are not talking open space here. In my mind of the wide open western ranges of old we are talking just really a small strip of park, desert landscape type buffering that really is expensive to maintain over time and I don't think creates as much buffer to noise as commercial buildings or even apartments would. So I guess I see it a little bit different and I suggest that we accept staffs recommendation and move forward on that. Lopez This has probably been one of the more difficult ones for me because we used to live in the Vineyards and am very familiar with this and I am sure all of us have driven up and down that road. At first I was and I think I still am this way, I have been opposed, I have been in opposition to building more office space. I just don't know that we need more office space than we currently have. At least in this particular area. I think there is more need for, especially in the residential area like environment, that is conducive to pedestrian movement without the inclusion of additional traffic or office space so I guess I'm more along the lines would agree with some of my commissioners that there needs to be a compromise. I am not sure that six .. lanes is the right way to go. I think there could be a way with four lanes, a center median and an open space for in those particular areas work in this particular instance. I like what we've done with Fred Waring Drive with open space or at least on the sidewalk and the park areas. I just think that is just a neat feel to it and as we build out the Portola on and off ramp from 1-10 1 think it will lend itself well to that particular increase in traffic so I would look to see, I am more along the lines of in opposition of office professional and more along the lines of utilizing this are area as open (inaudible) as much open as it is or the use of pedestrian and especially as it pertains to the residential (inaudible). Jonathan Well, I guess I mean, obviously I'd love to see open space on Portola. I would love to see it on every major arterial roadway. The City made a decision to invest its resources towards that objective with regard to Fred Waring. I am sure if it had unlimited resources it would do so on every major arterial roadway, but that's just not the reality. The reality is that if we used city resources towards creating open space and parks on Portola, in all likelihood those funds would come out of other projects such as active parks and it is just not an unlimited resource situation that we could say, hey a park would look nice there so let's just do it. I mean that is going to come from %MW 53 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 some other project. And as much as I would like to see an open space area on either side of Portola, I don't think it's in the cards. Now, I think on the other hand, the changing of the land use designation to office professional does not preclude this council or any future council from grading open space there. If at some point the determination was made that that was an appropriate use of resources so be it. But given that Portola has turned into a very busy large major arterial roadway and will only increase in that regard, particularly if the plans proceed with regards to the freeway interchange, I think having residential directly up against a street like that is a problem. An effective solution to that problem is to enhance the residential neighborhoods by creating a buffer between the street and the residences and this is not a theory, this is reality. We've seen that solution work elsewhere. We have seen it work along Fred Waring, we have seen it work along Monterey. So what works well in those areas can and will work well along this part of Portola. In the overall scheme of things I don't think adding a land use designation of office professional creates a glut of office professional. The market will deal with that and if we take a step back and look at the bigger map, we are really dealing again with a very small part of the overall city. There is a problem there and I think the appropriate solution is what staff is recommending. I would add to that recommendation though of recommending to council that where appropriate that the Palma Village concept of creating further transition from street to building to parking lot to residential be implemented. I happen to believe that's a very effective solution. It was appropriate when thought up by our esteemed staff member and I think it has proven itself and is an appropriate solution today. So I would add to staffs recommendation by suggesting that council give consideration to implementing the Palma Village concept to portions of Portola where it is feasible and appropriate. Finerty Well, I will propose a minute motion that suggests widening Portola to the six lanes, utilizing open space in lieu of office professional. Campbell Would you consider what Commissioner Jonathan said regarding to leaving it up to council where feasible between DeAnza Way and Santa Rosa if there is more land available there after the six lanes and whatever if it is feasible 54 ...... ........... MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 ftm to have office professional at sometime in the future. As I can see it, there is no area north of Fred Waring and Rutledge for office professional. I don't see it there. Finerty I will go back to what we had in our previous discussion. There is always a mechanism to change the zone if it becomes the appropriate solution to later on down the road to change it to OP, that's always an option. Campbell Okay, I will second your motion. Jonathan Question? There may be a compromise because I think we agreed on the widening of Portola, the question is what do you do with the sides and maybe that new designation of mixed use commercial comes into play. Maybe what we recommend to council is that that portion, I don't think we want to call it a study area, but that it be utilized in a combination of maybe medium to high density residential and open space and office professional as deemed appropriate. Finerty Yeah, but this commercial mixed use unless I have overlooked it, I am not seeing anything that includes open space. Drell Open space is going to be included in any project. I would like to somewhat point out, maybe Mark can elaborate, that south of Fred Waring there becomes very very very important physical constraints to six lanes as we approach Highway 111 and what you don't want is suddenly to bottleneck six lanes midblock into four lanes as you approach Highway 111. So I... Lopez I am sensitive to that, too. Drell I think that if you look at north of Fred Waring and south of Fred Waring very differently in terms of the ultimate lane width. Criste1 If you look at the model, the traffic model as Mark points out and everyone knows is a coarse model, but even now the model says that after 2020 north of Fred Waring we are going to have less than 25,000 vehicles a day. Now, if you build it and there is a reason for them to come, they are going to come that way. But if you look at it the model is based on attractions and productions. If you look at in the down stream, the Highway 111 even south of 111-Portola area and the area north of 111 along Portola, that's a built out %MW area. It is built out. Excepting these lots we are talking about, there is no new 55 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18. 2003 production, no new attraction that is going to get generated except that maybe your restaurants are going to be waiting for two hours to get a table rather than just an hour to get a table. The other is that upstream north you have schools and you also have some other sensitive receptors, higher density residential, if you will, those sorts of things. It is not clear at least from my perspective that there is any meaningful driver in the long term to go to six lanes in this stretch of Portola probably up to Country Club. Now the other is that if you want, you may have to have your cake and eat it too so if you are going to have infrastructure why not have infrastructure that serves existing users like the residents and the kids. Get your plenty of traffic through your turning movements, etc., and you may still have land left over that isn't an economic burden to the city, but can be somehow gotten additional landscaping on the comer at where we already know we are going to be constrained at Fred Waring and at Portola as an example and you've got areas where through lot consolidation maybe two or 3 nice low profile office buildings ala Monterey, if you will, with limited parking and all the buffering and all the other things, we can't really resolve all those issues now, but you need to have a reasonable X strategy and I think looking at six lanes in this stretch of Portola is both unnecessary, expensive and actually would be counterproductive to a lot of the users in the immediate area. Lopez I really embrace that concept. I think that I would be concerned of going from a 4-lane road north of Country Club to all of a sudden going into four lanes and then all of a sudden a 6-lane area and then back into a four lane up to Highway 111. 1 could see a lot of potential problems in the area. I guess I would like to see a good obviously look at a well circulated four lane highway all the up from 1-10 to Highway 111 and beyond and I guess I am being somewhat swayed from the standpoint of looking at alternatives to utilizing space along the Portola area and making sensible use of that space whether it be, again, there are some alternatives in this thing and I guess I am open to the compromise. You know mixed use is not a bad out I guess you might call it, but instead of just thinking about having office, office, office along that whole road right there, (inaudible). Where it makes sense to put an office in there, a low profile office, and where instead of trying to squeeze it into a under 60 foot or 59-foot area, then I would be concerned about that. Finerty But whether we have the designation or not, developers still have the opportunity to come to us in the wider area and suggest that particular area 56 ..... .......... MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 tow be rezoned to OP and they can show us their low profile building and perhaps enhanced landscape. We can still do that. Lopez Right. Drell The problem is getting general plan amendments, changes of zones is a risky endeavor. As Mr. Jonathan knows, getting projects designed and approved when you have the zoning and general plan is a risky endeavor. It is a discouragement and if it is the last big place left, that is where they will ask. But surely, and again we are going back to whether you want to, I think those folks north of Fred Waring need some definitive prognosis of what the future is going to be like. They're stuck. They can't sell their house as a residence. Their only chances to sell their house is either to sell it to someone who is interested in building an office or selling it to us for right-of- way. So one or the other, we probably need to be definitive because otherwise those will be the last spaces left after all the designated spaces are developed because the developers are going to go to the designated places first. �.. Jonathan Well, if you look at Cook Street going south from Hovley to Fred Waring on the west side of the street you have the Berkey building which is office, there is retail, there is apartments, high density residential, and there is even open space with that golf course, so there we have an example where the development is driven by the market and all the uses are acceptable. They work and I think that widening Portola and then in my mind any of those uses would be appropriate. You know, if somebody wanted to do high density residential and we felt that the access and all those things that were designed were okay, fine. If somebody wanted to do a small single dentist type office professional building with adequate parking and everything else, fine. And if the City wanted to come along and create a small community park or some open space or whatever, fine. So I think maybe the solution is to pass this to council and say that part of Portola should be widened and the resulting development on either side should accommodate what the market drives and I guess designate it as mixed commercial. That might be a way to do it. Finerty If we could just get the motion dealt with one way or the other. (Inaudible) %NNW 57 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Finerty That's okay. Campbell We had a motion and a second. Tschopp Could you re-read the motion, please? Finerty Tonya? Monroe (inaudible) Finerty Thank you. Lopez (inaudible) second? Campbell I had a second. In favor? Finerty and Campbell: Aye. Campbell All opposed? Lopez and Tschopp: Nay. Jonathan Opposed. Campbell Motion carried 3-2. Finerty No, motion defeated. (2-3) Campbell So that is our recommendation to council? (Inaudible) Finerty It is 11:30. (Inaudible) Jonathan Well, let's see if we finish this up now and then it will make a convenient break. 58 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18 2003 low I am looking for a compromise that would work. I suggested one. Maybe we can make that in the form of a motion to see how people feel about it. I would make that motion. Drell Make a little suggestion? I don't...the problem with mixed use is it allows restaurants, allows all sorts of...if the choices are uses other than open space it would be multi family or residential and office. We've done that in the Palma Village Plan, we dual designated residential and office. Jonathan But what I am envisioning accommodating is office professional, multi family and open space. I guess the motion would specify those 3 uses as being appropriate after the widening of Portola. Campbell Isn't multi family two stories? Jonathan No, I wouldn't even go there. Campbell Okay. Finerty But it can be. Campbell It can be, right. Jonathan Under the zone it can be, and then of course we are free to approve or deny. Drell In that location, it couldn't be because it is adjacent to single story family behind it. Jonathan I am seeing more of a concept of duplexes, fourplexes, that kind of medium density use that Lopez Right Jonathan is kind of a bridge between apartments and 10,000 square foot lots. Drell If we can create a, I want to say lane, not alley, a lane, if it's rear loaded, if the garages are rear loaded, that they don't have driveways, then it could work. 59 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 Jonathan And I said it earlier, if everything else falls into place, I want to be able to accommodate those 3 uses. So, the motion is to approve staffs recommendation which is the widening of Portola. I am not even going to specify four lanes, six lanes because I think that is kind of micro managing the issue. Just the widening of Portola in that stretch with eventual uses on either side of office professional, multi family and open space. Tschopp I would second. Campbell Okay. All in favor. Jonathan, Lopez and Tschopp: Aye. Campbell All opposed? Finerty Opposed. Campbell Opposed. Tschopp You didn't specify four lanes, that just leaves it open then for discretion by the city in the future or does this aid in the planning or does this muddy the water for the residents? Drell This is (indistinguishable) planning in the future. Lopez That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Drell Again... Campbell Forget it, huh? Drell Again, I think if you specify lanes whether you want to make a recommendation, that has no relevance to the circulation element that a recommendation on the width of Portola has Greenwood I think any meaningful widening on Portola would effect those houses, so. Lopez Right. It doesn't matter if it is 4 or 6. Campbell Shall we go ahead and .... 60 MINUTES PALM DESERT PLANNING COMMISSION 8:30 A.M. NOVEMBER 18, 2003 %Mr Finerty Move to adjourn til 6:00 tonight. Campbell Okay, second. Now also when we adjourn now until 6:00 or did you want to go ahead and start with the general plan where we left off on Portola or do our public hearings first and then... Finerty Why don't we get the public hearings out of the way so those people don't have to wait. Campbell Right. Jonathan Do we leave our stuff here? Drell Yes I think so. V. ADJOURNMENT It was moved by Commissioner Finerty, seconded by Chairperson Campbell, adjourning the meeting by minute motion. Motion carried 5-0. The meeting adjourned at 11:33 a.m. PHILIP DRELL, ecretary ATTEST: ONIA M. CA PBELL, Chairperson Palm Desert Planning Commission /DL 61